Abstract
Motivated by the need for a training that would promote cooperating teachers' reflective skills in their mentoring roles to support the professional development of teacher candidates during practice teaching, this chapter focuses on the implementation of an online training program for the cooperating teachers who supervise the teacher candidates in an English language teaching program of an English-medium state university in Istanbul, Türkiye. The study aimed at revealing the reflections of cooperating teachers on their own mentoring perceptions, skills, and practices in the twelve-week training. The analysis of the data obtained from the cooperating teachers' written tasks showed that the new experience of the training program increased their awareness of their own teaching and mentoring practices. It is indicated in the findings that the tasks deepened cooperating teachers' understanding of mentoring skills such as how to establish rapport and engage in a fruitful observation and feedback process with the teacher candidates.
TopCritical Constructivist Approach To Teacher Education
Teacher candidates’ emergent teaching philosophies keep being nourished from not only their theoretical knowledge but also classroom experience in practice teaching. The study explores this “learning to teach” process using the theoretical framework of critical constructivist teacher education in an effort to provide an answer to the question of how cooperating teachers (and teacher candidates) successfully complete the practice teaching experience as an opportunity to learn and improve reflection skills.
According to the critical constructivist perspective, the learning teacher is the one who would implement change. Critical constructivist teaching has an emancipatory potential, the primary goal of critical constructivist teaching is to effect change by giving students the capacity to stand back from the current environment and to see the ways our perspective is created (Kincheloe, 2005). One important quality that teachers should possess and work to instill in their students is critical awareness.
Dissatisfaction with the current state of teacher knowledge and teaching practice has an impact on teacher education programs that reframe mentorship in critical constructive terms (Wang & Odell, 2002). Two learning presumptions— that the ultimate goal of learning is the transformation of already-existing knowledge and that knowledge is created by learners through active thinking—have a significant influence on this type of mentorship. Addressing the first presumption, critical constructivist perspective suggests that mentoring practices focus on the critique of educational knowledge and culture, making cooperating teachers and teacher candidates in this collaborative study the creators of new practices. Regarding the second supposition, both sides are viewed as change agents due to their dedication to researching and developing fresh teaching concepts.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Online Mentor Training Program: Mentor training programs delivered through online platforms such as the one designed in this study.
Cooperating Teacher/Mentor Teachers: Higher Education Council defines cooperating teachers as teachers teaching English to students at various grades in MoNE schools. They are responsible for supervising and guiding teacher candidates at practicum schools during teaching practice components of teacher education programs. The terms cooperating teachers and mentor teachers are used interchangeably in the study.
Practicum Schools/Cooperating Schools: They are the primary and secondary schools under MNE, where student teachers have the opportunity to observe classrooms and practice teaching.
Practice Teaching/Practicum: It is the process in which student teachers practice teaching in real classrooms under the guidance of mentors and defined with a variety of terms in the literature such as practicum, field experience and internship (Gebhard, 2009). In Turkey, practicum is the compulsory component of the final year of teacher education programs.
Pre-Service Teacher/Student Teacher/Teacher Candidate: Pre-service teachers are the group of senior students at English Language Teacher Education programs, who are in process of completing their practicum studies to receive BA degree. Pre-service teacher, student teacher and teacher candidate are the terms used interchangeably to define this group.
Ministry of National Education (MoNE): Ministry of National Education is the government department responsible for primary and secondary education in Turkey.
University Supervisor: University supervisors are the group of faculty members who pay regular visits to MoNE schools and guide teacher candidates during practicum courses at teacher education programs. They work in cooperation with mentor teachers for the professional development of teacher candidates.
Mentoring: Ambrosetti and Dekkers (2010) define mentoring as a non-hierarchical, reciprocal relationship between mentors and student teachers working together for specific professional and personal outcomes within a specified timeframe. Mentoring includes the activities, roles and responsibilities undertaken by a mentor in connection with the teaching practice of student teachers.