Reimagining the role of mentor teachers in professional experience: moving to I as fellow teacher educator

ABSTRACT

New accreditation requirements for Australian initial teacher education programs require that universities and schools establish quality partnerships to ensure strong links between pre-service teachers’ university-based learning and school-based professional learning experiences. This paper focuses on the shifts of identity, thinking and practice that occurred for five school-based mentor teachers as they co-created new professional experience practices alongside university-based teacher educators in a Teaching Academies of Professional Practice (TAPP) project. Interview data was analysed through the theoretical framework of Dialogical Self Theory to examine how the repositioning of mentor teachers as fellow teacher educators allowed for expansion in the understanding and enactment of their role. The findings of this study suggest that partnerships between schools and universities can enhance learning opportunities for all participants when commitments are made to creating collaborative and dialogical spaces to support new approaches to teacher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Initial teacher education
• professional experience
• mentoring
• partnerships
• Dialogical Self Theory
• professional identity

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded under the Teaching Academies of Professional Practice by the  Department of Education and Training Victoria  (2014-2016).

Notes on contributors

Helen Grimmett

Helen Grimmett is a Lecturer in Teacher Education at the Peninsula Campus of Monash University. Her research and teaching interests include primary education, professional experience, music education and creative pedagogies.

Rachel Forgasz

Rachel Forgasz is a Senior Lecturer in Teacher Education at Monash University. All of her research is focused on developing powerful pedagogies for teacher education. She publishes in the fields of embodied pedagogies, self-study of teacher education practices, professional experience, and mentor professional learning.

Judy Williams

Judy Williams is a Senior Lecturer in Teacher Education at the Peninsula campus of Monash University. Her research and teaching interests include self-study of teacher education practices, pedagogy in primary classrooms, professional experience and teacher professional learning.

Simone White

Simone White is Professor and Assistant Dean (International and Engagement) at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research interests are all focused on the best ways to prepare teachers for diverse contexts (both local and global).