Mentoring New Mentors: Learning to Mentor Preservice Science Teachers

Excerpt

Becoming a science teacher is a challenging and long-term process. Beginning with preservice education and continuing into the first few years of teaching, novices need to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to impact student learning. In addition, they need to learn how to become a productive and capable member of their profession. One approach used to support new members is to assign experienced members of the profession as mentors. The idea is that experienced members will be able to give novices the support they need to be successful in their new roles. Mentoring programs for teachers, however, frequently focus on the needs of new science teachers in their first few years of full-time teaching. These programs are facilitated by schools to support their newly hired science teachers and encourage retention. But mentors can also play an invaluable role in guiding preservice candidates in learning to teach science. In addition, mentors are often selected based on their experience and skill in teaching science; however, teaching expertise alone does not ensure that a science teacher will know how to effectively mentor a novice science teacher. New mentors, like other novices, can benefit from support as they learn how to guide new science teachers. New mentors need structured educational experiences with candidates that are based on ideas about how teachers learn, what mentors need to know, and what role mentors can play in science teacher education. …