Building a Sustainable Structure to Support the Adaptive Mentorship Model in Teacher Education

Source: International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, Vol. 4, No. 1, p.53 – 68, 2015

This article aims to develop a deeper understanding of how to implement a professional development training strategy for the Adaptive Mentorship (AM) model (Ralph and Walker, 2010a).
It also interested to explore how cooperating teachers used the model, not only to assist pre-service teachers in their development, but also to reflect on their role as a mentor.

This research design uses a collective case study approach.
The researchers are positioned in the study as active agents, not only in the traditional way as administrating a questionnaire but as participant leaders.
The questionnaire was designed to collect data on the frequency of use and effectiveness of the AM model.
It was sent to cooperating teachers, for two years from two different cohorts (n=141, n=123).

The findings reveal that by the end of the second year 84 percent of the cooperating teachers said they “did or mostly did” understand the AM model after the seminar.
Less than half of the cooperating teachers recommended that the AM model should be used at seminar.
Of the rest, while 21 percent were not in favor of the AM model being used, 37 percent would consider using it at seminar.
The findings in this study suggest that for many cooperating teachers the notion of reciprocal development had not yet permeated their consciousness.
This study will guide future cooperating teacher professional development sessions to support cooperating teachers as they make the paradigmatic shift from supervisor to mentor.

Reference
Ralph, Edwin G. and Walker, Keith D. (2010). " Is Adaptive Mentorship© a Viable Mentoring Model?", International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education (IJCDSE), Special Issue Volume 4 Issue 3, 2014, p. 2005-2008.