Mentoring practices and projected images of the processes: two case studies
Revista Eletrônica de Educação
versão impressa ISSN 1982-7199
Rev. Elet. Educ. vol.14 São Carlos jan./dez 2020 Epub 09-Out-2020
https://doi.org/10.14244/198271994142
Dossier “Education and professional insertion of novice teachers: concepts and practices”
Mentoring practices and projected images of the processes: two case studies
III
, Active participation in all stages of the article production: writing of theoretical and methodological contributions, data analysis, discussion of results, and final review of the manuscript.
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2015-0829
IV
, Active participation in all stages of the article production: writing of theoretical and methodological contributions, data analysis, discussion of results, and final review of the manuscript.http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4915-8127
IIIUniversidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar), São Carlos-SP, Brasil - Docente do Departamento de Teorias e Práticas Pedagógicas da Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Doutora em Educação. Membro do grupo de pesquisa “Estudos sobre a Docência: Teorias e Práticas”. E-mail: anapaula@ufscar.br
IVUniversidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar), São Carlos-SP, Brasil - Docente do Departamento de Teorias e Práticas Pedagógicas, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Doutora em Psicologia. Membro do grupo de pesquisa Formação Básica e Continuada de Professores e outros agentes educacionais, Email: alinereali@ufscar.br
This exploratory research focuses on the work of two novice mentors - experienced teachers - and highlights their mentoring practices, the projected images of the performed processes and, their relationships. We understand those practices as intentional actions directed to their demands - derived from continuous interpretation and decision-making processes - that aim to promote the mentees’ teacher professional learning. We analyzed the mentors' practices over 19 months as the interactions they established with the novice teachers they mentored. It was observed that each mentor is constructing a personal mentoring style. In this process, they interpret themselves inserted in a specific context, and they develop their responses to the situations faced. Their mentoring behaviors and practices reveal how much they rely on their teaching practices, while also demonstrating that they make decisions, act, and recognize themselves as mentors. It is evidenced that they are building a framework for mentoring. The construction of one’s way of seeing oneself as a mentor and acting as such reveals patterns of mentoring, the characteristics of social, teaching and cognitive presences and the specificities of each interaction, and, in a way, the learning of experienced teachers in this process.
Keywords: Teacher training; Induction program; Experienced teachers; Mentoring practices.
Trata-se de uma pesquisa exploratória que se volta para a atuação de duas mentoras iniciantes - professoras experientes - enfocando as práticas de mentoria, as imagens projetadas dos processos realizados e as relações que podem ser estabelecidas entre esses dois aspectos. Compreende-se que essas práticas são processos de ações intencionais - derivadas de processos contínuos de interpretação e de tomada de decisão - voltadas para a aprendizagem profissional da docência e dirigidas às demandas dos professores iniciantes acompanhados. Foram analisadas as produções das mentoras ao longo de 19 meses e as interações estabelecidas com as professoras iniciantes que acompanharam. Observa-se que cada mentora está construindo um estilo próprio de ser mentora e nesse processo elas vão interpretando a si mesmas inseridas em determinado contexto e desenvolvendo uma resposta própria às situações enfrentadas. Seus comportamentos e práticas de mentoria revelam o quanto se apoiam na própria prática docente e ao mesmo tempo demonstram que tomam decisões, agem e se reconhecem como mentoras. Evidencia-se que elas estão construindo quadros de referência para a mentoria. A construção de um modo próprio de se ver como mentora e de atuar como tal revela padrões de mentoria, as características das presenças social, docente e cognitiva e as especificidades de cada interação e, de certo modo, as aprendizagens das professoras experientes nesse processo.
Palavras-chave: Formação de professores; Programa de indução; Professores experientes; Práticas de Mentoria.
Introduction
This article focuses on two cases of experienced teachers who act as mentors in the Hybrid Mentoring Program (HMP). It focuses on the mentoring practices and projected images of these processes and the relationships that can be established between these two aspects. Mentoring practices are understood as intentional actions - derived from continuous interpretation and decision making - aimed at teacher professional learning and directed to the demands of the mentored novices. The article’s context is that of a research-intervention on the contributions and limits of HMP for the professional development of experienced teachers (with more than ten years of teaching practice) and novices (with up to five years of experience) who work in Early Childhood Education (ECE), in the Early Years of Elementary Education (EE) and Youth and Adult Education (YAE). The program aims to develop a process of monitoring and support from a mentoring perspective, that is, a proposal for insertion into teaching in which experienced teachers - mentors - assist teachers in the beginning of their careers to expand their knowledge base for teaching and help them to ground new professional practices (MIZUKAMI; REALI, 2019).
In this research-intervention, through a constructive-collaborative approach (REALI; TANCREDI; MIZUKAMI, 2008), are considered the establishment of non-hierarchical relationships between researchers and teachers and the university-school, as well as dialogues, focused on defining solutions to concrete, practical problems related to the day-to-day activities of the school and of the teaching activities, to build new knowledge about teaching.
HMP's assumptions include that the beginning of the teaching career has different characteristics from those of other stages (HUBERMAN, 1995; MARCELO; VAILLANT, 2009; NÓVOA, 2019, among others) and is decisive to achieve a coherent and evolutionary professional development (MARCELO; VAILLANT, 2009). During this period, the support and monitoring of novices by more experienced colleagues are essential (NÓVOA, 2019). Mentoring is configured as one of these forms of support and monitoring. Besides, mentoring is a rich context of professional development for experienced teachers/mentors.
Because of the complexity of building a knowledge base for the mentoring exercise, the HMP proposing team understands that it is essential for an experienced teacher to have specific training in order to act as a mentor. Therefore, before starting acting at HMP, 15 experienced teachers participated in a specific training, over five months, articulating weekly online and face-to-face activities, so that they learned to be mentors to work in virtual learning environments (AVA) on the Moodle platform. After this period, these teachers started to accompany a novice teacher. In order to accompany and assist the actions of the experienced teachers as novice mentors, weekly meetings continued to be held between them and the university team, and training activities continued to be offered to the mentors, organized given their demands and those of the mentoring program.
To better understand the images about the role of mentors and mentoring practices, two cases of mentoring developed over 19 months of participation in the HMP were analyzed. The following research questions guided this conduction: What characteristics do experienced teachers consider that every mentor needs to have? What are the characteristics of their mentoring practices? What images of being a mentor are they building throughout mentoring? Do these images articulate with the mentoring practices they develop? The objectives of the investigation were delimited, namely: i) to identify the characteristics of the mentoring images that are being constructed; ii) to identify the types of mentoring practices they develop; iii) to check if the images of the mentor are linked to the mentoring practices.
2. Theoretical assumptions
The first years of teaching are a differentiated and determinant period for professional development and the construction of professional identity (NÓVOA, 2019); after all, these years “mark, in many ways, our relationship with students, colleagues and the profession” (NÓVOA, 2019, p. 199). Given the particularities of the period, it is essential to “insist on the responsibility of the schools' directors and the most experienced teachers regarding the reception and monitoring of their young colleagues” (NÓVOA, 2019, p. 200). In this scenario, Nóvoa (2019) points out that the beginning of teaching is a responsibility: i. of university institutions; their work does not end after the undergraduate course; ii. of the educational policies that need to define the processes of choosing candidates for teaching, of access to the teaching profession and accompaniment of novice teachers; iii. of the teaching profession itself, as more experienced teachers must commit themselves to the training of fellow beginners.
One of the key elements in teaching insertion programs is the figure of the mentor, usually an experienced teacher of Basic Education. A mentor needs to feel like and be considered a teacher educator and, thus, enable the creation of bonds between teacher, future-teacher, and novice, as well as the rooting of undergraduate students in the profession after specific training to provide didactic and professional advice to the beginning teacher. In mentoring, it is also relevant that university-school relations and those of researchers and professors are fruitful, without any kind of hierarchy.
In the HMP, the scenario of this research, the mentor is an experienced teacher, a colleague of the novice. However, understanding the concept of an experienced teacher implies considering the level of depth and extent of his knowledge base and his skills in the exercise of the profession. Experience alone does not make anybody a successful teacher. Therefore, it is essential to discuss the idea of experience.
An experienced teacher has a more complex and extensive frame of reference for teaching than a novice. The knowledge structure of the former tends to be more in-depth and multifaceted. In this way, they manage to exercise a voluntary and strategic control over parts of the teaching and learning processes, being able to analyze the abstract structure of the problem and resort to a varied repertoire of problems already faced (MARCELO; VAILLANT, 2009). However, it is noteworthy that experienced teachers, when acting as trainers, usually have an “informal and heterogeneous” status (SNOECKX, 2003, p.21) since they generally do not participate in training processes for the performance of this function, which does not consist of a recognized professional activity and almost always their performance is temporary or punctual. The same occurs in the case of mentors, as this is also an unusual activity in the Brazilian context.
Acting as a mentor involves two different but related processes - that of knowing how to teach, and that of knowing how to teach another teacher to teach. For such, it is relevant that the mentor builds a knowledge base on teaching and on teaching how to teach that makes it possible to teach novice professionals to teach. In order to do this, the mentor must know the characteristics of adult learning, teaching content, pedagogical practices, among other knowledge regarding the school and its contexts, as well as a professional identity related to the activity of training other teachers (MIZUKAMI; REALI, 2019).
Based on these assumptions, HMP has a dynamic of hybrid educational processes that proposes the articulation of virtual and face-to-face activities, the relationship between school and university and between theory and practice (NÓVOA, 2019) in order to build mentoring practices that provide the development of a collaborative culture (MIZUKAMI; REALI, 2019). It is necessary for the experienced teacher/mentor to build a productive online interaction, which requires social, cognitive, and teaching presence (GARRISON et al., 2001). These three dimensions are essential for the constitution of a research community that, in the case of HMP, is composed by the majorly online interaction between mentor and each accompanied novice (dyad) - the focus of this study - and by university professors, graduate students, and experienced and novice teachers of Basic Education.
The social presence encompasses pedagogical practices that aim at building an environment that provides confidence, open communication, and cohesion of the participants and their ability to identify with the other members of the group and their purposes, based on interpersonal relationships that develop throughout time. This presence can be identified and analyzed by the following categories and respective indicators: i) affective expression: self-projection, expressing emotions, personal exposure, expressing values; ii) open communication: security, welcoming atmosphere, greet/praise/thank, express agreement, be friendly, advise; iii) group cohesion: collaboration, interactivity, inclusion (GARRISON et al., 2001).
The cognitive presence is the participants' ability to produce and confirm meanings through dialogue, problematization, and reflective processes. It can be characterized by the following categories and respective indicators: i) Trigger event: recognition of the problem, sense of perplexity; ii) exploration: exploring the problem, exchanging information, proposing suggestions for consideration; iii) integration: connecting information from different sources - manuals, articles, personal experiences, other messages; iv) resolution: application (GARRISON et al., 2001).
This implies that the teacher must plan activities in which students will work collaboratively and focused on the concepts to be learned. This planning is the starting point for the teaching presence that will progress towards the facilitation that implies in modeling the activities in order to guarantee the successful resolution of the problem or activity. The teaching presence unifies the other two dimensions and can be analyzed considering the categories and indicators: i) planning and organization: defining a curriculum (objectives and topics) and methodologies (activities), setting deadlines, organizing and distributing the work; ii) facilitating discourse: establishing opportunities for constructive exchanges, encouraging/recognizing/reinforcing student contributions, involving participants/encouraging discussions, presenting continuation topics for discussions, focusing discussions on specific issues, synthesizing discussions; iii) direct instruction: providing analogies, examples, useful information from different sources (GARRISON et al., 2001).
Concerning mentoring actions and their characteristics, it is proposed to make a parallel to the supervisory styles proposed by Glickman (1980) who, when investigating teaching supervision practices, identified three supervisory styles and individual behaviors triggered by the supervising teacher, consciously or not, which are: i) the “non-directive” style, that includes the following behaviors: paying attention, clarifying, encouraging and serving as a mirror; ii) the “collaborative” style, that implies the construction of a relationship of equals, with the following actions: serving as a mirror, giving an opinion, helping to find solutions to problems and negotiating; iii) and the “directive” style, in which the supervisor tends to: guide/direct, establish criteria and condition, so they determine and execute the behavior patterns of the teacher, modeling, directing and mediating their level of proficiency.
According to Glickman (1980), the supervisee's predisposition and ability to make decisions are elements that affect the style of supervision; the smaller these elements, the tendency is for a directive style to prevail. A novice teacher, who is in a “survival” phase, can benefit from a directive style. On the other hand, the ones who feel more secure and, therefore, can shift their concern from themselves to the pursuit of improving the learning environment of their students, seek resources, share ideas and get involved in activities that contribute to the advancement of student learning, can then benefit from a collaborative style. A novice who has career stability, clear skills, knows where to look for resources and feedback, wants to help students and teachers improve, will want a minimum of supervisory influence.
Another study that supports this article is an exploratory analysis of the mentoring practices developed in the HMP carried out by Braga et al. (2019) in which the following mentoring patterns was identified: directive, empathic, inquiring, propositional and propositional-inquiring, with the caveat, that this is not a taxonomy of standards and that they can be articulated. The directive pattern is characterized by the offer of a series of norms without worrying about providing, at that moment, the counter-argument of the novice teacher and reflective processes. In this case, the mentor “guides, instructs, orders, directs and indicates procedures and materials” (BRAGA et al., 2019). On the other hand, an empathic style implies respect and sensitive listening by the mentors, which sometimes takes the form of them putting themselves in the position of the novice when understanding his feelings and attitudes. This indicates interest, actions of agreement, and demonstration of sensitivity to the situation reported by the novice. It shows an attitude of being available and such action can be permeated by the resumption of a personal experience of the mentor to demonstrate similarity, understanding, acceptance, and support (BRAGA et al., 2019).
In an inquiring action (BRAGA et al., 2019), the objective is to seek information about the novice teacher regarding their philosophies, experiences, purposes, decision-making, actions, among other elements that are important for the mentor to consider training demands and plan their mentoring actions. The propositional pattern (BRAGA et al., 2019) aims at building something together. Besides, it tends to consider the knowledge that the mentee already has and to allow him to deepen and expand his knowledge base and his repertoire of practices. Thus, the mentor "recommends, opines, suggests, sparks, encourages, proposes in a constructive and collaborative, stimulating, inspiring" way.
The inquiring-propositional pattern indicates the possibility of linking the patterns outlined by Braga et al. (2019) and assumes that, in the same pedagogical action, questions about concepts and practices and propositions can coexist, enabling the novice's engagement in reflective processes about their practices. It is at the heart of the mentoring process.
Thus, mentoring practices are not intuitive or straightforward tasks; they require a specific profile of the subjects who want to play such a role, time, dedication, training, and constant improvement of skills. Also, HMP mentors are new to the role. Like the novice teacher, they live an induction process and build an image of being a mentor, a knowledge base, and a mentoring practice based on the requirements for the exercise of this new function.
3. Methodology
This exploratory study focuses on investigating two mentors who have been working at HMP since its inception, according to the objectives outlined in the introductory section of this article. For this purpose, the following data sources were used: oral narratives of the mentors, collected through interviews; diaries produced by the mentors throughout the HMP; narratives written by them about their learning in the program; messages exchanged between mentors and novice teachers (NTs) in the virtual learning environment (AVA) and WhatsApp throughout the accompaniment.
Due to the narrative nature of these data, it is possible to make a parallel with Bolívar, Domingo and Fernández (2001) and consider that the data analyzed in this study are facts of language, that is, the narrators put the social world into words, and it is from that point of view that these narratives are seen and analyzed. Besides, the analysis of the data led to a balance, not limited to the narrators' speeches, nor seeking to build a priori and fixed categorization of the narratives. It is necessary to have a binocular vision, that is, an intimate portrait of the narrator's reality and inscribe it in an external context that will give significance and meaning to the subjective reality; after all, this corresponds to a socially constructed reality (BOLÍVAR; DOMINGO; FERNÁNDEZ, 2001).
The construction of the analysis axes occurred during the different moments of reading of the narratives and did not ignore the perspectives and voices of each narrator; we sought to relate the facts narrated with the process covered by the narrators. In this way, the data were ordered temporally, and the reported experiences were reconstructed. Therefore, in practical terms, it involved, at first, the identification of the objectives established in the monitoring of each NT, its revisions and approaches; the contents treated; the strategies, procedures, intervention/guidance/supervision methods adopted; the monitoring, evaluation and reflection tactics followed; the responses of the NTs to these processes and, in some cases, the repercussions of the actions taken in the practices, in the learning of their students and other developments reported by these teachers. Secondly, it involved understanding the images that these mentoring teachers have about the teaching characteristics and being a teacher educator/mentor; the image they present about novice teachers - their training needs, the content they must teach and the way they teach - and how they see the learning process of these professionals who accompany beginners and how they can be taught.
In this process, the following analytical axes were built:
i. Necessary characteristics for a mentor: the mentors' perspectives on what it is necessary to have/know to be a mentor were identified.
ii. Characteristics of the instructional practices proposed and performed by these trainers in relation to the accompanied novice teachers and the situations chosen to be worked on: the mentoring actions were analyzed considering the supervisory, directive, non-directive and collaborative styles (GLICKMAN, 1980), the directive standards, empathetic, inquiring and propositional and their different crossing possibilities - typology elaborated in a previous study (BRAGA et al., 2019) and the categories of social, cognitive and teaching presences proposed in the CI model and several indicators (GARRISON et al., 2001). It is noteworthy that these indicators are some examples of how each category can manifest itself.
iii. Types of support offered: there was a predominance of emotional support and intellectual support. These types were delineated from the characteristics identified in the two previous axes.
For the production of this text, the most significant excerpts from the narratives were selected to achieve the objectives outlined and which could be the object of detailed analysis.
4. Building a mentor image and mentoring practices
The two mentors participating in this study, V and W (we used the initials of the names of the mentors and novice teachers), joined HMP in the subgroup Elementary School - Early Years and, after the training period for mentoring, started the accompaniment of a novice teacher (NT). Both are trained in Pedagogy. V has 17 years of teaching experience while W has 11 years of experience in the municipal network, served as a Supervisor at PIBID, and was a teacher-pedagogical coordinator in the municipality.
At the time of writing this article, they had been mentoring for 19 months. During W participation in the program, she followed five NTs, and each accompaniment had different lengths of duration; the longest was 19 months, and the shortest lasted three months. Four NTs requested termination of the program for personal reasons, and one NT was disconnected in view of the excellent results achieved when participating in the HMP. Up to the time of this study, V had followed three NTs, none of which had been disconnected. The following are the cases.
4.1 Case 1 - Mentor V
V demonstrated intense involvement, seriousness, and commitment to mentoring, as well as autonomy to carry out activities and practices aimed at mentoring and research. For V, it is essential that teachers receive some type of support at the beginning of their careers. She revealed that she missed this support when she started her teaching activity and pointed out that, given the adverse situations that teachers may face, some form of support could contribute so that professionals do not give up on their careers. She pointed out that mentoring has a differential, and highlights that NTs, throughout HMP, have their “training needs prioritized” in a way that is connected to the professional reality of each one. Besides, she stressed that unpredictability, a regular feature of teaching work, can also be inherent to mentoring.
For her, it is essential that the mentor listens to the NT - sensitive listening - and is cautious - thoughtful - with the guidelines to be given so as not to get in the way of the novice in their work, nor to harm the relationships that the NT establishes with their peers, school management and students' families. When analyzing the mentor's interactions with her NTs, it is observed that the characteristics listed by V are present. Also, the mentor showed sharp anguish and concern face of the absences of the NTs she accompanied and of some dilemmas they were posed.
The case of NT E can be taken as an example, who started participating in the HMP inconsistently, as in she was absent, and did not return attempts of contact by the mentor through different means (AVA, WhatsApp). At the same time, she informed the HMP team that she would not like to give up mentoring. In addition to feeling anguish and concern in the face of this situation, V felt, at times, discouraged and irritated by the “neglect shown by the novice teacher [...] I think we spend energy and time with people who may not be committed to the training offered by the Program ” (V - diary 05/20/2018).
However, V did not give up on NT E. A face-to-face meeting held with university teachers, mentors, and NTs was essential for the mentor and novice to start building a relationship of trust. From that moment on, NT E began to report her anxieties regarding the teaching career, such as discouragement with the profession, the possible disconnection from the classroom in which she works at the end of the first semester, and relocation to another school. Mentor V began to empathize with NT, as she recorded in her diary: “I put myself in E.'s place and thought that her situation must not be easy. I think that if I were experiencing the same situation, I would be as unmotivated as or even more” (V - diary 29/06). At various points in her diary records, this empathy is revealed, the mentor “feels on her skin” the dilemmas that NT is experiencing. These records show suffering in the face of this. Here is an excerpt from his diary that exemplifies this finding:
NT E used the space of the narrative to express her anxieties for not knowing whether she will remain with her class in the next semester. [...] I am also very concerned with statements like ‘the recess in July was over so fast that I could barely get a taste of what it really is to rest and recharge. I wonder what it will be like when I have another fifteen or twenty years of profession'. I don't feel that E is doing what she really likes, and that makes me very distressed [...] (V - diary 11/07. Emphasis added).
In the analysis of interactions between mentor-novice teacher (M-NT), it is possible to perceive indicators of affective expression and open communication, categories of social presence (GARRISON et al., 2001). It is inferred that there is a prevalence of an empathic action (BRAGA et al., 2019) of the mentor, mainly in the absence of NT and/or due to inconsistent access to AVA and WhatsApp and also given the conflicting situations experienced by NTs in teaching.
Another mentoring practice that prevails in V actions is the directive (GLICKMAN, 1980), since the mentor commonly makes prescriptions for NTs, indicates materials for study and others that can be used in the teaching and learning processes with students by presenting very detailed information regarding its use, but not instigating the counter argumentation of NT. It seems that from these materials and guidelines, NTs plan their actions alone, that is, without systematic work together with the mentor. After executing their plans, the novices report what happened to the mentor, who evaluates the results, and from there, V decides whether to continue the work or to end it to start another one. On the other hand, V also uses a practice in which she seeks to obtain more information about the situation reported by the NT, about her pedagogical actions, her conceptions, her students, and her work context. In addition, in M-NT interactions, there are indicators of the three presences: social, cognitive, and teaching (GARRISON et al., 2001).
The following is an example of these findings in which the triggering event (an aspect of cognitive presence) was given by V when accompanying NT E and verifying that she faced difficulties in working with text production with students, especially with the genres “opinion articles” and “letter from the reader.” Given this training demand, the mentor presents evidence of the “planning and organization” category of teaching presence, such as: defining objectives, topics, and activities.
In this mentoring action, at first, V demonstrates to be inquiring (BRAGA et al., 2019) since she sought to identify “how the teacher developed the reading work with the class, especially the reading of the news.” Following is a record of the mentor's message to the NT.
[...] as for the sequence of Letters from the Readers, you said that you used the copies of Science Today for Children, and this is a good start, but the letters [...] Can you send me the image of some letters produced by the children in the class? (V. Emphasis added).
V continued the interaction after the return of the NT. For such, she indicated that she would provide a didactic sequence for NT E and justified the potential of the proposal by showing indicators of an informative directive behavior (GLICKMAN, 1980), how to provide useful information and material. At a certain point in this interaction, there is an indication that the mentor will propose a joint construction with the NT. An excerpt of the message follows.
[...] if we offer the edited letters from the start, we will be offering and modeling a restricted repertoire for students [...]. It allows children to analyze the structure of the letters and to notice the differences between them, in addition to making them notice what is missing so that they are well written. [...] to write a good “Letter from the Reader,” children need to know how to give an opinion about what they read, that is, [...]. They need to know how to position themselves coherently, and we know that this is not built overnight. [...] Can you send me some productions to think about it together? [...] (V. Emphasis added).
NT E applied the didactic sequence with her students proposed by the mentor. Then she resumed contact with V to explain the practice and sent images of the letters produced by the children, as can be seen in the message from E:
[...] I presented an article about Mars - red planet. I realized that many read only the first and long paragraph of a whole page with the article and, some, those who have more difficulty in writing, reproduced the first paragraph and did not comply with the structure of a reader letter, while others have done very well. Now, I need to improve the writing, and I will use the other suggested text. Thank you! (Message from NT E to V).
In the message of NT E it is noticed that there are elements of the cognitive presence (GARRISON et al., 2001): she explored the problem delimited by the mentor, connected the information coming from the mentor's comments and the materials made available by her and carried out an action to evaluate students and identify the content that will need to be worked on.
Mentor V continued the interaction by presenting elements of the teaching and social presences (GARRISON et al., 2001): she agreed with E and transmitted security (open communication indicator) and exposed her analysis of the students' textual productions (direct instruction). Thus, she seems to have an empathic and directive action.
The mentor then proposed another sequence of activity for NT while maintaining the directive pattern. From this, NT E presented some doubts about the activity, and the interaction followed with the predominance of the directive control action (GLICKMAN, 1980). The mentor indicated in detail what the NT should do and showed that it was based on didactic material that she uses for her own classes. Here is a snippet of conversation between M-NT through WhatsApp.
[NT E]: [...] Do you advise me to read this news to students and write on the blackboard a letter from 5B, for example?
[V]: That's right... It is necessary that they have a copy each so that they can follow the reading. I suggest that you do a shared reading or along the lines of the newspaper circle. Let them anticipate from the title what they think they will find in the news piece. Let them activate their previous knowledge, mobilize their knowledge of the world. Take strategic breaks, allowing them to make inferences, establish relations.
[NT E] Um ... I never thought about discussing the title... Wow ... I loved it. How is a newspaper circle???
[V] You will love it ... The newspaper circle is a modality suggested, in fact, as a permanent activity [...] (Emphasis added).
Finally, NT E carried out the sequence of activities proposed by the mentor and sent her students' productions. From this material, the mentor evaluated that the work developed by E was successful and considered that the trigger event was resolved.
In general, it is observed that V is a mentor who shows a lot of empathy and understanding with the novice teachers she accompanies; she appears to be willing to do everything in her power to motivate her NTs. Social presence is an element that stands out in interactions, precisely affective expression and open communication (GARRISON et al., 2001) that foster the creation of bonds of friendship, companionship, and trust, characterizing the mentor's affective support. It is inferred that mentors and novices identify with the HMP and its objectives. Therefore, they are able to share their experiences, including tensions; they are sincere and respect each other. It is worth noting that, until the moment of production of this work, none of the NTs accompanied by V requested termination of the program. Two have been at the HMP since November 2017, and one joined in mid-2018. This data sets it apart from the path taken by the other M-NT dyads. Thus, it is questioned whether the social presence factor does not become a differential element for maintaining the interaction.
It appears that some characteristics of the teaching presence, such as planning, organization and direct instruction (GARRISON et al., 2001) are present in V's mentoring actions, since she establishes a path to be followed by the novice, building training activities in which she makes teaching materials and resources available and clearly guides NT actions in an attempt to help them solve problems. However, mentoring practices do not offer many opportunities for building something together - aspect of teaching presence (GARRISON et al., 2001). We infer that V mixes an informational directive action with a control directive (GLICKMAN, 1980), but sometimes she seeks information about the NTs and their students to plan mentoring practices. Could one ask why the mentor is so directive with NTs? Some analysis hypotheses are listed: i. The mentor is actively involved in the dilemmas of the NTs, in a way that she feels like that these dilemmas are her own and, eager to resolve them, provides a ready-made solution; ii. The mentor judges that the NTs are still in the “survival” phase and therefore need more direct guidance; iii; Such posture could offer greater confidence for the NTs.
On the other hand, it is worth noting that Hong and Matsko (2019) emphasize that the use of practical strategies (“hands-on”) by the mentor can enable the novice to engage in the process of learning to teach, enabling productive learning. Such practical strategies are characterized by opposition to a unidirectional approach in which the beginner is seen as a passive recipient of information. Some examples of practical strategies indicated by Hong and Matsko (2019) imply joint actions between mentor and novice of observing classes, with a subsequent analysis from both regarding the students' actions and productions, and the planning. Thus, it is not a matter of merely offering study materials to the novice, but having training tools that, at first, are more directive and can be a scaffold for beginners to think about their teaching and student actions, ask questions, propose and test teaching strategies, get feedback on their actions. In short, to reflect on their practice.
At first, these two points, being directive x being constructive/inquiring (which, in discussions with the HMP team, are respectively referred to as "giving the fish" x "teaching how to fish") are highlighted. However, it is essential to have a non-dichotomous view of the two points, since they can reveal the two sides of a coin: both seem to be relevant for sustaining teaching, although it is still not possible to state the value of each safely.
In the case under analysis, it seems that the interaction with V allows NT E to be involved in some phases of cognitive presence when she explores the problem, connects the information provided by V, builds a solution, and executes it. Considering that the mentor's action is predominantly directive and empathic, one can question whether the learning of NT E is not limited to the application of the instructions provided by the mentor. There is currently insufficient data to assess this possibility. However, HMP values the collaborative analysis of the problems, the joint construction of action plans, and the occurrence of constructive exchanges, aiming at the professional development of novices, enabling them to create frames of reference and deepen their repertoires of knowledge and professional practices.
4.2 Case 2 - Mentor W
Throughout the HMP, mentor W demonstrated proactivity and autonomy in the development of her mentoring actions and in carrying out training activities. At the beginning of the constitution of the M-NT dyads, W perceived being a mentor as a “trainer-partner of less experienced teachers” and indicated that she had the perspective of developing a partnership with the novice teacher with the objective of “sharing experiences and reflections on the school context in which both are inserted.” (W - face-to-face meeting). After 19 months acting as a mentor, W pointed out that her role as a pedagogical coordinator and as a supervisor at PIBID contributed to her development as a mentor, and it supports the image that the mentor is a trainer; she states that, as a mentor, she improved her role as a trainer.
Regarding the characteristics of being a mentor, she indicated that such trainer needs “to have communication and relationship skills, good training and a successful practice [...] it is no use having been in practice for ten years and not doing a good job” (W - oral narrative). She considers it essential for the mentor to be able to establish a trusting relationship with the novice. For such, one needs “empathy; one needs to be open, to know how to express oneself.” Regarding the importance of knowing how to express oneself, W pointed out that at HMP, since the accompaniment takes place mainly in the virtual environment, it is necessary to “improve writing.”
After 19 months of effective exercise at HMP, W states that she perceives herself as a mentor/trainer, a perception that did not exist at the beginning of mentoring. It is interesting to note that W parallels this function with that of pedagogical coordination and recalls the support she had at the beginning of teaching by a coordinator who accompanied her at school:
[...] it was 50 minutes of conversation with the coordinator and, on a weekday, she would go to the classroom to do some activity in the class, or she would help me with something I had proposed, or she would give some idea of an activity, and she did the activity for me to experience it (W - oral narrative).
W indicated that the absence of this type of support makes the novice lonely; she considers that "mentoring brings comfort to the NT, as they can count on a person who has already experienced that and who will help with what they need." (W - oral narrative. Emphasis added).
Also, W pointed out that one of the objectives of the HMP is for the NT to be able to develop an individual autonomy. She also stressed that one of the HMP's differentials is being able to develop a follow-up directly related to the formative demand of the NT, a situation that, as a rule, does not occur in the context of continuing education of proposition of generic courses. About this, W emphasizes the importance of the mentor identifying the formative demands of the NTs, which, many times, are not perceived by them.
It is observed that the practice of W reflects the image of being a mentor as a “trainer-partner,” who seeks to provide autonomy to the NT. When drawing a parallel with Glickman (1980), the following behaviors are observed in W's interventions as a mentor: paying attention and encouraging (“non-directive” style); serving as a mirror, giving opinions and helping to find solutions to problems ( “collaborative” style); and guide/direct (“directive” style).
It is inferred, then, that the mentor develops a more balanced practice, that is, in some moments, her orientations and actions towards NTs are more directive (BRAGA et al., 2019), in others, she seeks to involve NTs in a reflective process when proving to be propositive (BRAGA et al., 2019). Sometimes, it is identified that in the same mentoring intervention, W mixes a directive and purposeful practice. In addition, in order to plan mentoring actions, she sought information about the NT and their students. Thus, the three categories of teaching presence are identified in W: planning and organization, speech facilitation, and direct instruction (GARRISON et al., 2001).
When analyzing W's mentoring practices, it appears that she usually adheres to the following pattern in her intervention proposals: i) provides study materials for the NT, ii) uses examples from her teaching practice, iii) requests that the NT do/plan a sequence of activities, iv) evaluate NT planning, v) request that the NT report the classes developed, vi) analyze whether the mentoring action achieved the expected result. In this dynamic, W, as a rule, spells out the purpose of the intervention and is often inquiring (BRAGA et al., 2019), especially in feedbacks and requests for information and details about the NT actions.
Following are excerpts from W's diary that exemplify her intervention in the face of a work proposal for teaching mathematics. In this intervention, some mentoring practices can be identified, such as serving as a mirror, giving an opinion, helping to find solutions and guidance. It was also observed the three categories related to the teaching presence, since the mentor defines objectives and activities and organizes work, focuses on specific questions, provides examples, clarifying and useful information from different sources and provides opportunities to work together.
[...] NT will have to make a schedule of activities to work with the abacus. I made available some material for reading and other material (activities) as support. [...] now, I'm sharing my weekly routine [...]. I gave a brief explanation of how I work with the abacus with my students. [...] Based on the support material and guidelines, the NT developed a schedule of activities with the abacus [...]. In the feedback, I gave more guidance on my experience with the activity and asked some questions about how it was to carry out the planning of the abacus [...] (W - diary).
At other times, it was observed that a more purposeful mentoring action intertwines with a more directive one. As an example of this finding, there was an M-NT interaction considering the trigger event: NT L's difficulty in teaching students not yet literate in a 3rd-grade class. In this scenario, W considered that L needed to understand that “in literacy, it is necessary to develop activities appropriate to each hypothesis of writing” and organized the following sequence of activities: i) asked L to record in her diary the difficulties she faced with the children who were in the process of literacy, ii) then proposed a discussion forum in which the mentor presented an experience report on different activities, and that met the needs of the students, iii) finally, requested that the NT develop an adapted activity aimed at illiterate students. It appears that the mentor tries to build something with the NT and helps her to find solutions to the problem she faces. However, when analyzing the activity developed by NT L, W considered it prudent that some aspects were reviewed and had a more directive behavior.
[...] I advised NT L to add more words to the bank (not to put the exact amount), as this allows for a more significant challenge. The other words need to be similar to the words the students need to look for (same number of letters), making the activity more challenging. Example: MENINA - MENINO - MACACO / BONITO - BOCADO - BELEZA. In this sense, the children do not focus only on the initial sound because when searching for the word, they will find two with the same initial sound, and it will be necessary to read the whole word to identify the correct one (W - diary. Emphasis added).
It was also found that W has as a goal to promote the development of the NT’s autonomy, and in this way, she assesses that L is learning to deal with the situation faced:
There has been a change in thinking and also in pedagogical practice. [...] the NT understood that we propose an activity for the class, and from that activity, we make adjustments or interventions necessary at the level of writing hypothesis (W - record of her mentoring actions).
As noted earlier, when developing the mentoring process W used examples from her teaching practice. Possibly, this action is related to the support experience that she lived during her teaching career with a pedagogical coordinator who provided models of practice considering of W's formative demands. However, the analysis of the mentor's narratives shows that she does not offer her practices to the NTs as a template to be copied.
Another point observed in W's work is that in the first six months as a mentor, social presence was only found in a few moments concerning open communication, how to greet and praise and express agreement (GARRISON et al., 2001). However, when the mentor started the accompaniment of NT P, that presence started to gain strength. Possibly such a change in the mentoring action is due to the demand of the NT that, many times, presented several outbursts in his diary. In the excerpt below, W reports her action considering these outbursts:
In record #5, NT P was a little discouraged with teaching due to the discount that came in the salary, but which had nothing to do with HMP. [...] I told NT that the diary is also a space for venting. Unfortunately, our salary is not proportional to our dedication and willingness to teach. (W - diary. Emphasis added)
At another time, the presence of the empathic pattern is again verified (BRAGA et al., 2019), but this time with NT L in view of an outburst that she made in her diary.
[...] NT made an outburst, and just like her, I was also frustrated with the attitude of her school management. The NT said that she used the council to expose the difficulties and ideas she is thinking about for the next two months for the better performance of students. However, she did not feel welcomed either by the management or by the other teachers. [...] In my feedback, I wrote a little about what I think of the situation she went through and again explained that we teachers have the autonomy to decide how we will work inside the classroom [...] (W - diary. Emphasis added).
In these records from W, elements of “affective expression” are identified, such as self-projection, personal exposure and when expressing emotion and values and presenting indicators of “open communication,” since she welcomes the outburst of the NTs, expresses agreement and advises (GARRISON et al., 2001). Thus, at times, W offers emotional support to the NTs. However, she does not do that in a “self-help” style. She puts herself in the place of each novice and analyzes the situation taking into account the factors that influence the teaching work, seeks to strengthen the teachers, and, when appropriate, offers suggestions on how to act in the situation reported.
In general, analyzing W's mentoring practices, it appears that she balances her mentoring style considering the degree of the NT’s autonomy to perform a given action; it demonstrates intertwining the behaviors proposed by Glickman (1980) in different styles of supervision. Regarding the analyses considering the ideas of Garrison et al. (2001), in summary, it appears inasmuch 'of a triggering event, there is an exploration of it and a proposal to deal with the problem. From there, there is planning and organization of the activities to be carried out by the NT, and mentor's instruction - formulating questions, presenting new ideas that are characteristic of the teaching presence. These are actions permeated by the facilitation of discourse, since it allows the novice to elaborate on her actions, but with the support of the mentor, and it presents a moment of evaluation of the process. It is observed that W uses practical strategies similar to the one proposed by Hong and Matsko (2019) without leaving aside the promotion of reflective processes triggered, usually from a set of questions about the practices reported by NT. It is noteworthy that the NT often returns to the focused situation, presents new analyses about this situation through conversations with the mentor, and redirects her future actions. When they occur, there are indications that these practices are carried out based on the evidenced reflective process.
Another point that can be observed in W's mentoring diary is the justification of her actions as a mentor, as well as the upcoming work routines, clearly demonstrating the teaching presence.
It seems that for W, the “comfort” offered by mentoring to the novice is in an intellectual support bias since it tends to allow the NT to expand and deepen the learning, which would allow them to achieve diversification and stabilization in his career (HUBERMAN, 1995). Finally, an empathic action by the mentor that connects with the social presence, especially affective expression and open communication, little by little, became present in the practice of W; she put herself in the place of the NT and expressed emotions, values and a welcoming atmosphere (GARRISON et al., 2001) in the moments when the beginners “vented” in their diaries.
4.3 Built mentor images and mentoring practices
Table 1 below presents keywords that define the mentoring practices and the projected images of the processes carried out by the mentors V and W.
Table 1: Mentor images and mentoring practices built by mentors and novice teachers
| Mentor | Predominant type of support | To be a mentor it is necessary | Predominant behaviors | Mentoring practices | Predominant interaction presence and respective categories |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V | Mentor as support emotional. | To have patience and sensitive listening. To be helpful and thoughtful. | Listen Be empathetic Request information Orient/direct | Empathetic Directive Inquiry-directive Provides detailed and justified guidance on how to act | Social - Affective expression; open communication Teacher - Planning and organization; direct instruction Cognitive - triggering event, exploration, resolution. |
| W | Mentor as a partner trainer: intellectual support. | To have communication and relationship skills - to have empathy. To establish a relationship of trust with the NT. To have a proper training (content mastery) and a successful practice. | Request information Give informations Orient / direct Propose Encourage reflection | Propositive Inquiry-propositional Directive Uses her teaching practice as an example. Tries to promote reflection by the NT. Empathic - directive (in the moments of outburst of NTs). | Social - Affective expression; open communication Teacher - Planning and organization; speech facilitation; direct instruction. Cognitive - trigger event, exploration, integration, resolution. (Seeking NT’s autonomy). |
Source: elaborated by the authors.
When analyzing the mentoring practices and the projected images of the processes carried out by the mentors V and W, it is observed that they feel they are novice mentors who are in a learning process. However, the insecurities that were recurrent at the beginning of mentoring were gradually losing strength.
In this process of learning to be a mentor, each one tends to a predominant type of support both in the construction of the image and in the executed practice, and the predominant bias in the constructed image proves to be coherent with the developed mentoring practice. That is, in the case of mentor V, a mentor image related to emotional support and having affective expression and open communication as indicators of social presence is identified. In her practice, an empathic action coexists with a directive and exploratory action that shows the teaching presence in the categories planning, organization, and direct instruction - which can be characterized as a scaffold for more reflective actions, revealing the absence of a more purposeful action. On the other hand, mentoring as an intellectual support is evident in the image of a mentor built by W. Her practice intertwines several actions since she seeks to analyze and solve problem situations together with NTs, she encourages novices to get involved in reflective and, at times, she is directive. The practice of W still shows the predominance of the teaching presence regarding planning and organization, facilitating discourse, and direct instruction. Affective expression and open communication - social presence - began to gain strength in the W’s practice when NTs reported dilemmas and used the diary to vent.
Each mentor is building their images and styles of mentoring. In this process, these experienced teachers interpret themselves inserted in a specific context, which also involves how they perceive the NTs they accompany and the situations they face, developing their responses to the situations faced, differentiating them from each other. At HMP, experienced teachers have assumed a new professional role in speech and practice; they strengthen the constitution of being a mentor, precisely the elements “what and who they are and self-image.” They feel they are mentors, but they do not disconnect from being a teacher. Their mentoring behaviors and practices reveal how much the teaching practice itself supports them and, in some cases, by the processes experienced in their participation in the HMP itself, in particular in the interaction with the group of researchers and other mentors. At the same time, they demonstrate that they make decisions, act, and recognize themselves as mentors, and it is clear that they are building frames of reference for mentoring.
5. Final considerations
The construction of one’s way of seeing oneself as a mentor and of acting as such reveals their mentoring patterns, the characteristics of social, teaching and cognitive presences, the specificities of each interaction, and in a way, the learning of experienced teachers in this process. These teachers: i) learned to use Moodle and to edit it; ii) learned to select and build mentoring tools and strategies that imply knowing how to express themselves in a virtual environment, how to propose questions, present study and didactic material and report on their practice; iii) learned to have sensitive listening and to be patient; iv) created strategies to identify the training needs of NTs and make decisions in order to select priorities; v) were involved in reflective processes with the NTs being mentored and about themselves, about their professional trajectories, their teaching practices and their mentoring practices.
A general analysis of the HMP's assumptions, of the mentoring training processes and their mentoring processes (accompaniment and development) of them has been characterized by the joint elaboration between researchers and experienced teachers/mentors of their objectives, characteristics, selection and “closing” criteria of the processes maintained between mentors and novices. Because it does not adopt a “closed” curriculum or prescriptive activities common to all participating mentors and novices, the program offers a high degree of freedom in the interaction established between mentors and NTs. However, the group of researchers and mentors, when verbally/narratively consider reflection on pedagogical practices as a relevant professional learning process, hopes in a way to promote a type of strategic thinking that does not only concern the definition of the best way to teach or solve a problem. It aims to favor the “view” of what interferes or benefits their occurrences, paying attention to the signs of tension or confusion, looking for ways to overcome them, and thus to enhance the subsequent professional development (KENNEDY, 2016). The adoption of this perspective suggests a commitment to overcome the limitations of mentoring practices that offer few opportunities for teaching protagonism to occur. In this sense, in order to better understand the absence of practices aimed at building something together and engaging in reflective processes of mentors and novices, it is relevant to examine in the research community what can be done to promote them, despite observing between mentors and NTs the establishment of non-hierarchical relationships between pairs of different professional generations and an indication of the occurrence of teacher learning for each of them. It is also necessary to seek to analyze elements that influence the construction of this particular way of seeing and acting as a mentor.
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HISTORY
Received: April 10, 2020; Accepted: June 03, 2020
Este é um artigo publicado em acesso aberto sob uma licença Creative Commons