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Examining Interns’ Perceptions of Their Mentor Teachers:. A Critical Component of Establishing Professional Development Schools. Sashelle Thomas-Alexander, Cleveland State University OCTEO Conference Fall, 2010. Introduction. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Sashelle Thomas-Alexander, Cleveland State University
OCTEO Conference Fall, 2010
Examining Interns’ Perceptions of Their Mentor Teachers:
A Critical Component of Establishing Professional
Development Schools
Introduction Student teaching is the capstone experience for
teacher candidates
Successful field experiences are established through careful planning between faculty, supervisors, mentors, and interns
Turner (2008) suggested several strategies for providing successful experiences including:– Selecting quality mentors– Opportunities for faculty and mentors to work together
Professional Development Schools (PDS)
In response, teacher preparation programs began to explore district/school partnerships
Concept of Professional Development Schools (PDS) is the brainchild of the Holmes Group (1990)-consortium of more than 100 U.S. research institutions
PDS partnerships include a K-12 school paired with a university to develop and implement communities of learning for diverse students
Problem Student teaching interns are expected to:process information connect the theory to the practice interpret school realities internalize the field experience
Reported frustrations:learning to teach Incongruence between university theory and what is expected at the field siteHuang, S., & Waxman, H. (2009). The association of school environment to student teachers’ satisfaction and teaching commitment. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 235-243.
Problem Continued
Multiple Truths Faculty accuse teachers of not being current on best practices Teachers accuse faculty of being too far removed from the classroom (Cochran-Smith &
Lytle, 1999) Some teacher preparation programs attempt to bridge this gap by adopting the PDS
model
Quality Mentors The quality of the site is examined often ignoring the quality of the teachers’ abilities to
be good mentors
Sands, D., & Goodwin, L. (2005). Shared responsibility for teacher preparation: An exploratory study of the match between skills of clinical teachers and those required of their teacher candidates. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 817-828.
Literature ReviewSmith (2001) David Kolb’s experiential learning theory Adopted theory of many PDS
Knight, Wiseman, & Cooner (2000) Noted gains in students’ (K-12) achievement when the
school participated in the PDS model
Hudson (2007) Found that primary teachers are not being poised to
sufficiently mentor in all subject areas
Literature Review Cont.Sands & Goodwin (2005) Mentors have high perceptions of themselves as mentors
overall, but realize there is room for their professional growth
Grisham et al. (2004) Mentors benefit from working with interns: Students receive
more individualized attention; mentors improve their own practice
Ferguson and Brink (2004) Mentors not wanting to host interns due to time
commitments
Literature Review Cont.
Davis & Waite (2007) Preservice participants indicated that the PDS
experience positively impacted their experience as a novice teacher
Respondents noted receiving support in: Developing relationships, content knowledge, attitudes, dispositions, and leadership skills
Five participants responded negatively unanimously attributing the negative response to the poor relationships with mentor teachers
Research Questions
1. To what extent do interns’ ratings of their mentor teachers classroom management strategies, opportunities for reflection and rapport with mentor teachers significantly predict their overall satisfaction with their mentor teacher?
2. What is the best predictor of preservice teachers’ overall satisfaction with their mentor teacher?
Methodology
Participants 273 preservice interns from one university
Research Design Correlational (Survey Research)
Instrument Overall Satisfaction Measure (Yusko & Moss, 2008)
Procedures Students completing any field experience were invited to
complete the 10-15 minute on-line evaluation
Findings Table 5Model Summary
Model SummaryModel R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
1 0.934a 0.872 0.870 0.228
a.Predictors: (Constant), Classroom management, reflection and rapport
Strong positive correlation between all variables and overall satisfaction, indicating a statistically significant linear relationship
Standard linear multiple regression indicated that approximately 87% of the interns’ overall satisfaction with mentor teachers is predicted by their perceptions of their mentors’:
- Classroom management - Reflection -Rapport
FindingsRapport between mentor and intern was the best predictor
in determining interns’ overall satisfaction.
CoefficientsModel Unstandardized
CoefficientsStandardized Coefficients
t Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) .146 .124 1.175 .241
Rapport .101 .010 .535 10.219 .001
Reflection .041 .010 .189 4.094 .001Classroom Management
.054 .012 .220 4.398 .001
Table 6 Coefficients
Discussion One of the goals of teacher education programs is to prepare
effective educators (Selwyn, 2007)
PDS model is becoming more popular
Mentoring component is one of the key components to a successful field experience
Faculty should support mentors in areas strong areas, but also in areas in need of improvement
Mentors must allow reflection opportunities (Mesler, 2004; Smith, 2001)
Limitations and Recommendations
Limitations IVs were correlated; provides only suggestive evidence Positively skewed results Non-normal distribution of scores Response rate low (19%)
Recommendations for Future Research Triangulate data with supervisor’s/faculty evaluations (Clark &
Creswell, 2010) Add a qualitative component to find out why interns assign specific
ratings to mentors