Mentoring is a significant resource for many professionals, including those in education and academia, because it helps to foster new learnings while also improving on existing ones. Mentoring is a highly regarded activity, and many instructors use it as a means of imparting information and knowledge. It’s also a mechanism for more senior academics to mentor newcomers, allowing protégés to be professionally and organizationally sponsored.
What is the goal of teacher mentoring?
Teacher mentorship entails the matching of a new instructor with a more experienced teacher. Depending on the perceived need of the beginning teacher/s and the organization’s aims, the pairing may include one or more new instructors or a group of more experienced teachers.
Teacher mentoring serves to not only establish a mentor-protégé relationship between two or more people, but also to give support for new teachers. This will assist instil confidence in the teachers, allowing them to quickly integrate into the business and optimise their efficacy as instructors.
Mentoring can also assist in the establishment of a quality standard for an educational system, allowing a school to ensure conformity with current benchmarks. It also aids in the hiring and retention of new employees.
Teacher mentoring is a technique that can be employed formally, such as when a school wants to adopt specific programmes, or informally, such as when no programmes are in place. If the programme is implemented appropriately, it can benefit a system in any case.
In the field of education, the advantages of teacher mentorship are numerous.
Mentoring is one of the most participatory methods in which mentors, mentees, and the educational system can all take part. It aids in the development of a quantitative programme to assist in the training of new teachers, the development of more experienced educators, and the improvement of instructional strategies and methodologies. It also contributes to the school’s sense of community and compliance with existing requirements.
Teacher mentoring’s drawbacks
Teacher mentorship has significant advantages and has been recognised as particularly beneficial for newcomers. It does, however, have a number of drawbacks. Teacher mentorship was attacked in 1996 as a technique of promoting overly traditional behaviours and norms. Most teacher mentoring programmes, according to critics, push participants to learn and implement obsolete techniques. Participants in teacher mentorship programmes may be at danger of picking up negative practises from their mentors.
In teacher mentorship programmes, a lack of trust and follow-up can make a big difference. It is simple for a programme to fail if the system cannot be effectively analysed or appraised. An inefficient evaluation system can also irritate the mentor, particularly if it is overburdened with details and other pointless activities.
Putting in place a successful teacher mentoring programme
When it comes to developing a teacher mentorship programme in a school, the most crucial factor to examine is if it aligns with the school’s goals and objectives. It’s also crucial to select mentorship programmes that are appropriate for the teacher mentee’s grade level. If there is a good fit, the programme will be easy to design and implement. It’s also critical that the processes and methods are clear and detailed, as well as quantifiable and measureable, so that administrators can assess if the programme is effective.
It’s also crucial that the teacher mentoring programme has enough support from the school administration and that the participants have enough resources. If a mentorship programme is managed independently of the institution, it will be difficult to sustain without the backing of the administration. Appropriate tools for programme evaluation are also necessary for the organisation to identify whether the programme is effective or whether specific components need to be improved.
