Encounters with mentor teachers: first-year students’ experiences on teaching practice.
Date
2020
Authors
Moosa, M.
Rembach, L.
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Abstract
Teaching practice is a compulsory, legislated component of initial teacher education programmes in South Africa. During this experience, preservice teachers engage with their mentor teachers. By exploring first-year students’ experiences with their mentor teachers during their first teaching practice, we argue that mentorship is a vital component of teaching practice in order for first-year students to grow and develop their teaching skills and their professional development. The theoretical framework chosen underpins the mentorship processes based on Hagger and Macintyre’s work, this enabled a multi-dimensional analysis and account of mentorship. Four hundred and twelve first-year students participated in this study and the data were analysed by means of an open coding method. The results were that 376 (91%) of participants reported that they felt unsupported and powerless during teaching practice, because of negative engagements and experiences with mentor teachers. These findings have implications for the preparation of preservice teachers in other contexts too.
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Citation
Moeniera Moosa & Lauren Rembach (2020) Encounters with mentor teachers: first-year students’ experiences on teaching practice. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 28:5, 536-555