International Portal of Teacher Education
The online resource of academic content on teacher training and teacher education
Search results for: Maxwell Bronwen
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This paper presents the outcomes of an empirical investigation into the validity of Bryan Cunningham's thesis that the effectiveness of teacher mentoring is enhanced by a supportive institutional framework comprising eight ‘architectural design features’.
It draws upon analyses of data from a mixed methods study of mentoring in the English Further Education sector.
Data were generated via 40 semi-structured interviews with teachers, mentors and other stakeholders, and a national online survey of teachers of all subjects/vocational areas, completed by 392 respondents across all nine regions of England.
The paper presents a reconceptualisation of the architecture for mentoring, which encompasses both a mentoring substructure and superstructure.
Cunningham’s institutional architecture (reconceptualised as a mentoring substructure) is extended through the identification of additional design features, while limitations of the concept of an institutional mentoring architecture are exposed and evidence presented to show that a complementary superstructure is a necessary additional means of seeking to achieve optimally effective mentoring.
A new research agenda is proposed to explore the extent to which the proposed mentoring substructure and superstructure are applicable in different professional and international contexts, and to identify common features of optimally supportive mentoring superstructures.
Published: 2020
Updated: Jan. 09, 2021
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The purpose of this article is to explore how mentors can act as change agents for social justice. It examines mentors’ roles in initial teacher education in the lifelong learning sector (LLS) and how critical spaces can be opened up to promote a flow of mentor, trainee teacher, learner and community empowerment. The findings reveal that LLS mentors and trainee teachers are uncertain about their roles. In the UK and several countries, mentoring is dominated by an instrumental assessment-focused approach, whereby social justice is marginalised. In contrast, what the authors call social justice mentors establish collaborative democratic mentoring relationships, create spaces for critical reflection, support trainees to experience different cultures, develop inclusive critical pedagogies, and generally act as advocates and foster passion for social justice.
Published: 2015
Updated: Nov. 11, 2015
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The current reforms of initial teacher education in the learning and skills sector in England are standards based and emphasize subject specialism. A qualitative study found that trainees generated knowledge resources through participation in their workplace, initial teacher education course and other social contexts, and from embedded and encoded workplace knowledge. It is argued that using a knowledge resources perspective, which recognizes how trainees generate knowledge and seeks to bridge gaps in their access to knowledge resources, would be more effective in supporting trainees' development than the recent reforms.
Published: 2010
Updated: Jun. 13, 2011