The quality of mentoring in teacher education is an essential component of a powerful learning environment for teachers. There is no single approach to mentoring that will work in the same way for every teacher in each context. Nevertheless, most mentor teachers hardly vary their supervisory behaviour in response to varying mentoring situations. Developing versatility in mentor teachers' use of supervisory skills, then, is an important challenge. In this chapter, we discuss the need for mentor teacher preparation and explain the focus, content, and pedagogy underlying a particular training programme for mentor teachers, entitled Supervision Skills for Mentor teachers to Activate Reflection in Teachers (SMART). Also, findings from several studies assessing mentor teachers' supervisory roles and use of supervisory skills in mentoring dialogues, before and after the SMART programme, are presented. In addition, implications and perspectives for mentor teacher development and preparation are discussed.
In this study, the impact of a training program focusing on the deliberate use of interventions during coaching dialogues with prospective teachers was investigated. Video recordings were analyzed of coaching dialogues carried on in the workplace by 28 teachers in primary education with the prospective teachers under their guidance, both before and after they participated in the training program. The main goal of this program was to broaden the repertoire of interventions which coaches use in their dialogues with student teachers. The video recordings made were transcribed verbatim, coded by three independent researchers and analyzed using descriptive statistics and t tests for paired observations. Coaches repertoires of interventions were found to consist of an average of six types of interventions. This average remained stable throughout the training program. After training, a shift from directive towards non-directive interventions was observed. The length of the coaches speaking time decreased, while the number of their interventions increased. After training, coaches structured dialogues to a greater extent. Considerable interindividual variability existed between coaches. The relevance of these findings is that the deliberate use of interventions during coaching dialogue can be influenced through training with results noticeable in the workplace. The findings of this study suggest that the training program studied can serve relatively large numbers of teacher coaches, as its setup requires a feasible amount of effort from schools and participants.
Keywords: citizenship education, democratic education, teacher training,national curricula, social sciences- Citizenship education is in teacher training in the Netherlands linked to boththe pedagogical and didactic tasks of teachers.- The task of teachers to stimulate the development of values in students isaddressed a lot less often.- The idea of democracy and rule of law as a framework for citizenship is notmentioned in most knowledge bases.- As a result, some knowledge bases seem to lack direction, as if all opinionsand all ways of ‘dealing with diversity’ are desirable.Purpose: With this article we aim to provide insight into how citizenshipeducation receives attention in the formulated national curricula for teachereducation in the Netherlands and to what extent the different domains ofcitizenship and the different tasks of teachers with regard to citizenshipeducation are addressed.Method: For this study the knowledge base for all teacher training curricula atBachelor and Master level in the Netherlands were analysed. We looked at theextent to which citizenship (education) is addressed in teacher training and theways in which this takes place.Findings: The results of the study show that several domains of citizenship arementioned, albeit not often together in one knowledge base. Citizenshipeducation is linked to both the pedagogical and didactic tasks of teachers. Thetask of teachers to stimulate the development of values in students is addresseda lot less often. The fact that citizenship also involves moral development is onlymentioned in some knowledge base. Also, the idea of democracy and rule of lawas a framework for citizenship is not mentioned in most knowledge bases. As aresult, some knowledge bases seems to lack direction, as if all opinions and allways of ‘dealing with diversity’ are desirable.
