Within teacher education, many experienced in-service teachers routinely mentor pre-service teachers during teaching practicums. Notwithstanding the benefits pre-service teachers are meant to experience from these mentor–protégé relationships and experiences, recent research has demonstrated that mentors, too, may experience some (oftentimes unintended) potential benefits.
The purpose of this paper is to further investigate such potential benefits within a Canadian secondary school physical education (PE) context. The researchers employed a qualitative case study methodology.
The three primary data sources included field observations/notes, journals and interviews.
The mentor teachers viewed the mentor–protégé relationship/experience as meaningful professional development, recognizing that it approximated a professional learning community.
Relatedly, the mentor teachers experienced professional growth with respect to their own teaching identity and teaching practice.