The Practice of - and a Lexicon for - Mentor Roles and Training
 

The efforts of the AACTE Clinical Practice Commission included crafting a shared lexicon for clinical educator preparation—a set of terms that formalized the notion of “school-based teacher educators” (AACTE, 2018). The Commission developed this in large part so that all involved with or concerned with teacher education, schools, and mentors would be better able to discuss these structures, roles, and practices; have a common conversation; and be able to ask and answer questions about these activities and individuals.

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What Does It Mean to Mentor? 

As school-based teacher educators, mentors guide teacher candidates’ professional development in real world contexts. Mentoring happens through a combination of “showing and telling, asking and listening” (van Ginkel, Verloop, & Denessen, 2016, p. 1010). Much like perceptions about learning to teach, beliefs about mentoring are enduring and shaped by both prior experiences in being mentored into the profession and through daily work with others. 

    

MentorVA As a Replicable and Sustainable Mentor Preparation Model 

Given the uneven and sparse evidence base for effective mentoring programs and the likelihood that these may reflect a “top-down” approach to training, for this now ongoing project, we sought to co-create a replicable and sustainable mentor training curriculum that could be used across multiple licensure programs and school and university contexts. As Hobson and colleagues (2009) suggest, engaging mentors in program design and evaluation with university-based teacher educators reduces the disconnect between school and university settings and helps all involved to bridge the school/university divide that is a long-standing criticism of traditional teacher preparation programs.