3.1 Content emphasis

Considering the different programs, emphasis was placed on content and demonstrated by the alignment between the program purposes, the demands presented by the BT, and the difficulties noticed by the mentors when privileging teaching activities. We observed that the PMEF, which addressed physical education teaching, and the PMO, PFOM, and PHM, which supported teachers in the initial years of elementary school (IY) and the youth and adult education (YAE) focused the mentorship process on the knowledge of specific content and general pedagogical knowledge (^{PIERI, 2010}; ^{BUENO, 2008}; MIGLIORANÇA, 2010; and ^{MASSETTO, 2014} in PMO); ^{MALHEIRO, 2017}; ^{BORGES, 2017}; ^{MASSETTO, 2018}; and ^{GOBATO, 2020} in PFOM; CESÁRIO, 2021, ^{BARROS, 2020}, and ^{PINHEIRO, 2020} in PHM). And, in several cases, the pedagogical reasoning processes and the content pedagogical knowledge (^{SHULMAN, 1986}) were also identified, as well as their changes over the mentorship processes developed.

In the programs working with the CE teachers (PFOM and PHM), greater emphasis was observed on general pedagogical knowledge (^{GOBATO, 2020}; ^{MASSETTO, 2018}; ^{MALHEIRO, 2017}, and ^{PINHEIRO, 2020}). The professional talks focused on class management - children’s behavior -, planning, and literacy.

All programs produced changes in the beginning teachers’ knowledge base and practices. For example, in the PMEF, two participants^[3] showed at first that they did not master some specific contents of the area and general pedagogical knowledge, suggesting gaps in their initial education (^{FERREIRA, 2005}). However, changes were observed at the end of the mentorship process:

I don’t know the technical and tactic elements of this type of teaching, I cannot even plan what has to be done with the students. I need more specific methodological elements to teach physical education and more activities. (BT1, CE, 25/04/03)

It’s a bit difficult for me to teach a physical education class articulating the doing and the thinking about it, I have no theoretical base and I need more class time. I need to study the contents, study more about nutrition, pedagogical and physiological aspects, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. What I got from my undergraduate course only is not enough. (BT2, CE, 27/06/03)

A year later, the same teachers reported having built knowledge with their mentors, but also based on their practical experience.

Today I feel more confident about the content, how to deal with students, how to call their attention, and teach them. (BT1, CE, 22/03/04)

What I’ve learnt and that I am going to use this year are the coexistence rules and respect, the class organizational structure (first stretching, then activity, and the conversation with students at the end). (BT2, CE, 22/03/04)

3.2 Active learning

The theoretical-methodological base of the four programs seems to have enabled the M-BT professional conversations to promote active learning processes. This occurred because the topics approached were raised from the situations lived by the beginning teachers in their work context, which were shared with their mentors. This process involved a movement of reflection, planning, improvement, and experimentation with teaching strategies in the classroom real context by the BT in response to the mentorship actions.

In PMEF, for example, the diaries were relevant resources since they provided a “portrait of the classes” under the perspective of the beginning teachers, their difficulties, experiences, and learning. In such case, the register of classes required that the BT observed their students, who started to notice the learning promoted when carrying out those actions and “relating them with their practice, which made them either keep the activities or modify them” (^{FERREIRA, 2005}, p. 128). Other strategies adopted were: indication of reading material with discussions, teaching strategies and bibliographic material, promotion of reflection processes by asking specific narratives and affective support. Some of these strategies were seen to be more effective than others in the mentor’s opinion to promote the BT’s learning such as the diaries and collective dialogues.

Regarding their participation in the PMO, BT “A”, advised by mentor “M”, evaluated the period she attended the program, presenting some reflections and how they influenced her work with students. She also highlighted the relevance of the initiative: “PMO clarified the process my students were going through and helped me to organize the thinking and the practice for other activities that I applied in my professional routine, making my classes more productive and significant” (^{MIGLIORANÇA, 2010}, p. 296).

In the PFOM, the mentor asked the BT to share the characterization of her class, which favored her identification of the children’s literacy phases, enabling the development of mentorship actions focusing on that context: “Based on the information obtained with that activity [collective analysis of text production] we managed to classify the students’ learning into four phases. From that point onwards, we could direct the activities according to each one’s abilities” (M-8 about BT-8, mentorship diary) (^{GOBATO, 2020}, p. 117).

The PHM also adopted mentorship strategies similar to those applied in the PMEF and in other initiatives such as the diary, for example. Next, BT Ananda reported that the help supplied by her mentor impacted her work with the Portuguese content since she could put the mentor’s suggestions into practice, which resulted in a more suitable choice of books to work in the classroom.

[…] I tried to do it the way she explained, reading only the title and discussing the possible content of the poem […] I did it, and the children said a lot of interesting things […] I noticed great interest when we provoke their curiosity, or start from their own ideas (BT Ananda, 28/08/18, reflection diary, Tool: Diary).

[…] I can already see great difference in many students, even to prepare their answers during the lesson, I have no doubt that their vocabulary has increased. […] And today, I even noticed a change in the way some students chose the book to read, they did not only look at the cover, they leafed the book through, did a quick reading, and checked the blurb on the back cover. (BT Ananda, 03/09/18, reflection diary, Tool: Diary). (^{CESÁRIO, 2021}, p. 238).

3.3 Collaboration

In the programs, collaboration was understood in two ways: one involving the M-BT interactive and collaborative process, which predominated in the PMO; and the other, when the mentors worked with more than one BT at a time and kept collective interactions, as occurred in the PMEF, PFOM, and PHM. The conversations, guidance, exchanges, and collective analyses in the four programs clearly created some space for presentation of ideas, reporting of practices, and evaluation.

^{Ferreira (2005, p. 180)} reported that in the PMEF, individual meetings with BT enabled conversations about the situations they faced on a daily basis and provided access to “their personal stories”. Another aspect emphasized was the case of a BT being able to show her emotions such as “crying, which according to her, was blocked in her throat because of the hard situations she had been facing at school”. It was a day when the conversation focused on “[…] minimizing feelings of sadness, anxiety, and desire to give up the profession”.

The collective conversations became a space for exchange of experience, information, and a source of knowledge of other school contexts. When accessing other realities, the BT accompanied by the mentor could analyze together the situations, share the problems, and minimize the feeling of loneliness and incompetence. Those meetings gave the BT the chance to put themselves into the colleague’s shoes and reinforce the value of talking to a peer that lived similar or different situations (^{FERREIRA, 2005}).

In both formats, the conversations were also a space for the mentor and BT collectively devise the steps of the intervention conducted and the actions that should be carried out by the BT.

In the PFOM, part of the mentors were coordinators and principals in the schools the BT worked. This fact generated greater proximity between them and enabled joint work, on site and collaborative, as pointed out by mentor “L.” when talking about the work with two BT:

I met the two BT to work on the characterization of students according to each one’s difficulties. We prepared a list of literacy and mathematics, wrote a note to the parents explaining the importance of the project, and prepared a diagnostic evaluation for the BT V.’s class on literacy to verify the level of each student (M3- Mentorship diary)

(^{MALHEIRO, 2017}, p. 130).

The same mentor and one of the BT put forward the following comments:

Mentor L: I have supervised the activity plan and we meet weekly to analyze students’ activities and the diaries elaborated by the BT. […]. I have suggested diversified activities regarding text production and she has accepted the suggestions. […] our work flows, it’s hard work, but the results are good (M3- Mentorship diary)

(^{MALHEIRO, 2017}, p. 134).

BT1: The relationship with the mentor developed in way that she could feel our problems and anxiety that we faced constantly in the classroom and could help us every week during the program (Self-evaluation - BT1)

(^{MALHEIRO, 2017}, p. 134).

Since collaborative work was one of the axes of the mentorship action development, the mentors’ incentive for the establishment of partnerships with their BT was observed. Below is one example of activity elaboration:

[…] This chronogram model is interesting, it enables you to work always with the same routine of activities and helps you not to forget the content. What do you think of this suggestion? We can build it up together and if you see its helpful, you can put it into practice. Let’s test it? (Mentor W., 23/04/19, Activity 1.1)

(^{CESÁRIO, 2021}, p. 255).

The BT also asked the mentors’ collaboration via construction of a reliability relationship in the experienced teachers’ advice work. Below is an illustrative example of the process involved. BT Ananda asks support from mentor V. to help her to diagnose the level of literacy of one of her students:

I’k like to know your evaluation of this kid. I evaluated as syllabic-alphabetical due to the sentence and other evaluations I made (…) at the school, two other teachers agreed with me, but today, with the coordinator, I was in doubt, she said it is alphabetical and that I should to analyze it at the word level. (PI Ananda, 27/2/2019, WhatsApp)

(^{CESÁRIO, 2021}, p. 250-251).

3.4 Emphasis on effective practice, directed guidance, and specialist support

From the PMO offer, we evidenced that the mentors provided their educational work in two types of guidance, which outstood as a function of the mentorship model adopted, for emphasizing the pedagogical practices and reflection processes of the supported BT.

One of them is the mentor of the “give the fish” type, that is, guiding in a very directive mode, indicating the description of phases and characteristics of the processes involved in the action to be carried out by the BT. This occurred through instructions about “how to do it”, or even via demonstration of practices that had been tested by the mentor in their teaching activity. It could also be developed from a work of search for theoretical information with other mentors and specialists about what could be done to face the problem-situation that the BT presented. In such cases, when receiving models/examples of practices, the BT were instructed to adapt them to the students, contents, and classroom context, always supervised by the mentor.

The excerpt below about the PHM illustrates how the mentor shared her practice in a detailed way to her BT, this is very close to what is called “give the fish” since it offers a model or recipe:

I’ll report what I’m doing with my class this year. […] A strategy that I used was to create a behavior poster that is painted by them every week (green, for good behavior, yellow for behavior that needs improvement, and red for unsuitable behavior). Before starting to work with this poster I read the collection "O Que Cabe no Meu Mundo" (What Fits my World) by Kátia Trindade. […] After the reading, […] I made the arrangements with the class. We arranged to include positive actions, that is, how students should behave. […] Such arrangements are reviewed every Monday with the students. I also prepared a table where I put an X every time the student misbehaves (the table includes standing in line, break time, homework, classroom assignment, etc.). Then, when the student gets yellow or red, I can observe individually what needs to be improved. (Mentor W., 01/04/18, Feedback)

(^{CESÁRIO, 2021}, p. 188).

Another type of guidance is the “teaching how to fish” model, which follows a more inductive logic, in the sense that the mentor supervises critically the actions carried out by the BT, questioning rather than “giving a recipe”, thus incentivizing their autonomy. This was evidenced in the PFOM, according to the report by ^{Gobato (2020)}:

“[…] I decided to verify what was being worked in the classroom by observing the BT’s weekly plan and the students’ notebooks. In fact, there were lots of crosswords that were not related to the content, and a lot of childish activities. We talked and I asked some questions that made her think of the activities she had been proposing, for example: when proposing a crossword, do older students take any advantage of this activity? Do these crosswords relate in any way to these students’ daily life? How meaningful is this type of activity? After the questioning, the BT reflected and suggested working with recipes, regional newspaper articles, and other subjects that might be of interest to the class. To find out what would interest the class, I suggested that she registered in the diary, so that those topics could be resumed in the future”. (M6 about BT6, Mentorship diary).

Observing the BT3’s planning and the notes she added, one of the activities planned and already applied was a game to put the alphabet in the correct order. In the notes she had formed two teams. She observed that in the boys’ group […] they didn’t understand each other, they worked individually, whereas the girls’ group outstood for their organization [..]. Considering this remark, we noticed the need to work on organizing productive groups. I think that the groups should not be separated according to the students’ sex. […]. The groups should be heterogeneous, always considering the knowledge of their members. To reach good results, the ideal was to group students based on close hypotheses. The distance between the group members’ knowledge cannot be too far (pre-syllabic can be grouped with syllabic students, while syllabic ones can be grouped with syllabic-alphabetical, etc.). Thinking about enabling the formation of productive groups, we suggested that the BT should read texts about group work: How to group my students? Planning – New School (M3 about BT3, Mentorship diary).

Regardless of the type of mentorship offered – “giving the fish” or “teaching how to fish” –, their professional conversations were usually marked by interactive processes that included the diagnostic analysis of the situations, considering action alternatives, planning practices, predicting results, developing selected practices, analyzing results, and devising a new plan in a new cycle of action.

3.5 Feedback and reflection

It seems relevant to highlight that the feedback given by the mentors to the BT had educational purposes. This type of feedback aimed not only to evaluate the BT’s learning, but rather to provide them with reflective elements to scaffold their professional learning with explanations, suggestions, appraisal, and evaluations, permeated with questioning. Additionally, in many cases, it demonstrated the mentors’ professional knowledge.

In the PMO, we selected some examples of feedback offered by mentor M to her BT found in Pieri (2010, p. 97):

I think you can understand that a single methodology does not cater for all students. It is necessary to seek efficient alternatives so that learning can occur – this is what you do when miming with your “mouth” for the students to identify the letter that must be used in certain word. The two types of activities developed are suitable and should be carried out frequently. (Feedback - mentor M. – 01/06/2006)

[…] the activities you have been developing with the kids are suitable for them to familiarize with reading and writing and getting acquainted with the language they are learning. In relation to the spontaneous text production, I did not find any mention. Don’t you think it is important for the kids to produce their own texts? This is usually a great source for us to know how they elaborate their writing. Spontaneous texts (kids produce the texts alone in the way they think is correct) are almost like an “investigation”, because if you analyze the texts thoroughly, they will guide you in those children’s literacy process, helping you to redirect the actions, procedures, and tasks. (Feedback - mentor M. – 16/06/2006)

(^{PIERI, 2010}, p. 97).

Feedbacks were seen to be a relevant source of knowledge in the mentorship since many stimulated the beginning teachers’ reflection process, among other tools. In the excerpt below, extracted from the BT Ananda’s diary, she demonstrated how this instrument worked in the process:

[…] everything that you wrote in yesterday’s feedback makes total sense and made me rethink how much we have worked with texts this year. […] Teachers should not compare different classes, each class is unique, but we end up doing that all the time, and I had compared them to the previous class. (…) It is very good to be able to reflect upon and analyze our daily actions, only doing that we will be able to improve our action. Thanks professor mentor [mentor] V. (BT Ananda, 11/03/19, Reflective diary)

(^{CESÁRIO, 2021}, p.189).

In ^{Massetto (2014, p. 131)}, BT S analyzed her participation in the PMO as follows:

The importance of reflecting upon our practice, this made me see that in some things I were right, but in others I was wrong, and that there were other ways … Suddenly, [the mentor] called my attention to situations, proposals, developments for my practice, and reflections upon what I had been doing, which made me think and restart…broaden my knowledge! […] Not only did that contribute to the kids learning, but also to my own benefit.

3.6 Sustained duration

Regarding sustained duration, BT Lara reflected upon the learnings she developed throughout her participation in the PHM:

[…] I am more autonomous now and I can notice better what the class needs. It is interesting that this autonomy and the perception occurred now that the school year is finishing. I needed a lot of time to get on track. At the same time, it is cool to observe this advance because when I teach a third year again, on another occasion, I know it won’t be that hard. Of course, each class is unique, but I will be better prepared to face the specificities of this level of learning (BT Lara, 18/11/18, Reflective diary – 15-month M-BT interaction)

(^{CESÁRIO, 2021}, p. 284).

In ^{Barros (2020)}, one of the BT also reported that she reflected and noticed her own evolution over those months: “Today, after some months [eight months] working with my mentor […] I found out knowledge that I didn’t know I had, and some were flaws in my education, and I had to overcome these flaws, my mentor guided me and sent suggestions” (BT Elaine - 20/12/2019) (^{BARROS, 2020}, p. 132).

One example from the PMO refers to an excerpt of a conversation between the mentor and BT “C”, in which the former gives feedback to the BT about the work she had carried out in the previous year. Some considerations about the positive aspects evidenced in the past work were presented along with some questioning about the situations experienced at the beginning of a new school year, establishing a continuous process, whose starting point was the “accomplishments” of the previous year.

As for the work we are developing in the PMO, I analyzed our meetings and observed some changes that occurred naturally:

I noticed more self-confidence and autonomy in your reports of “problems” and in seeking solution to them.

The interval between our meetings (at the beginning we would meet at least twice a week) over time, this frequency changed.

The initial anxiety was controlled.

All these factors indicate maturity and autonomy, don’t you think so? I’d like to know your opinion about this subject and your current expectations in relation to our work in the PMO.

(20/02/2006 - ^{MIGLIORANÇA, 2010}, p. 133).

In the PMO, at the end of the participation in the program, beginning teachers should elaborate a teaching case that could illustrate their participation in the initiative. Below is an excerpt of the BT “C’s.” case, she was advised by mentor “M.”. The excerpt presents some reflections and developments regarding the establishment of some arrangements with her students, emphasizing the PMO relevance in this process over the three years:

This questioning and the reflections that my mentor proposed made me realize that teaching and learning processes are almost always quite long since the whole process requires a beginning, middle, and conclusion planning. As she said “if one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable ”. A very relevant condition for this process is to know how to reflect about one’s own practice: observation, analysis, and reflection are great allies. […] At each attempt that failed [arrangements with the class, for instance], I reflected upon my attitudes and students’ reactions. However, each time I felt more tranquil, aware of what I was doing, and mainly, I noticed that my “new world” [teaching] was not a “seven-headed hydra” and that I only had to trust myself and never stop reflecting at each success or failure, easy or difficult situation. […] In this profession, I’ll face new hurdles and challenges, and our meetings made me notice that to overcome these hurdles, I have to stop and reflect upon my work, evaluate it […] I expected to find the “solution to all my problems” in the PMO, but throughout the process I noticed that there is no ready-made recipe for that. (Teaching case I, BT C.)

(^{MIGLIORANÇA, 2010}, p. 144-145).