Institution-wide peer mentoring: Benefits for mentors

Extensive research has shown the benefits of mentoring, including peer mentoring, for higher education students, especially in their first year. However, few studies have focussed exclusively on the outcomes for the mentors themselves. This paper reports the findings of data gathered over three years about a university-wide peer mentoring program. Benefits identified by 858 mentors were coded inductively and four major categories emerged: altruistic, cognitive, social and personal growth. The findings have implications for the promotion of mentor programs to administrators and to prospective mentors. The study provides evidence that university-wide peer mentoring programs offer multiple positive outcomes for the mentors involved, and potentially for higher education institutions administering and supporting such programs

Promoting resilience for teachers: Pre-service and in-service professional learning

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‘I really enjoy it’ : emotional engagement of university peer mentors

Peer mentoring programs are commonly used to facilitate the transition of new students into higher education settings. Peer mentors’ experiences and emotions during mentoring are important but under-researched. We report exploratory work to address this gap in a two-phase study using a grounded theory approach. In Phase 1 mentors in an Australian university responded to online (n=35) or face-to-face (n=10) questions about their emotions during a peer mentor program. Emotions were found to be primarily positive, mentors varied in the extent to which they express emotions, and emotions relating to different time points were evident. In Phase 2, we examined temporal dimensions of emotions in more depth with peer mentors in a German university and added anticipated future emotions to existing categories. Connections between mentors’ emotions and their own early experiences at university were explored, with another category of recalled prior emotions being added. Our findings are consistent with previous research regarding the positive and negative emotional aspects of being a peer mentor and further contribute to the understanding of the complexity of emotions in mentoring, specifically peer mentoring in higher education settings.peer-reviewe

\u27I\u27m coming back again!\u27 The resilience process of early career teachers

Early career teachers face a range of challenges in their first years of teaching and how these challenges are managed as career implications. Based on current literature, this paper presents a model of early career teacher resilience where resilience is seen as a process located at the interface of personal and contextual challenges and resources. Through a semi-structured interview the challenges faced by 13 Australian early career teachers and the resources available to manage these challenges are examined. Findings show that beginning teachers experience multiple, varied and ongoing challenges and that personal and contextual resources are both important in sustaining them through the beginning year(s) of their teaching careers. The study emphasises the critical roles played by family and friends and the importance of relationships in the resilience process. Implications for future research and teacher education are discussed

I Only Wish I Had Known It Sooner. Education Students\u27 Changing Conceptions of Learning Strategies.

One of the cornerstones of student learning is the ability to use appropriate learning strategies. Awareness and orchestration of learning strategies are central to self-regulation of learning. Effective learners have a range of strategies and use them appropriately for different tasks. Effective learners are flexible and can adapt their strategy use to achieve their learning goals. If we expect prospective teachers to help their students become effective learners, they themselves need to be aware of and manage their own learning. But are our prospective teachers themselves effective learners in terms of strategy use? Using a qualitative approach, we examined the learning strategies of undergraduate and graduate Education students from a private and a public university. At the beginning and end of semester, as an integral part of a unit of study, students were asked to report on their learning strategies related to the learning task and to themselves as learners. Results are discussed in terms of the range and diversity of reported learning strategies, and students’ self-awareness regarding their own learning. Changes over the semester are also discussed. Implications for teacher education programs, for the development of university curricula in general and for staff development are considered, with the view of improving the quality of teaching and learning

Building resilience in teacher education: An evidenced informed framework

This paper proposes a framework for building resilience in teacher education. The framework is informed by a focused review of relevant literature to determine factors that may be addressed in teacher education to support teacher resilience and ways in which this may occur. Findings show that personal and contextual resources along with use of particular strategies all contribute to resilience outcomes and that many of these can be developed in teacher education. Using these findings, a comprehensive resilience framework is proposed with five overarching themes - understanding resilience, relationships, wellbeing, motivation and emotions. Implementation possibilities are discussed

Pathways to resilience: how drawings reveal pre-service teachers’ core narratives underpinning their future teacher-selves

For this study of teacher-identity, which is part of a larger research project on teacher resilience, preservice teachers were invited to draw “the kind of teacher you hope to become”. In this, our study recognises drawing as a semiotic system of meaning-making and communication. The drawings were examined in terms of the “stories” they told. Using an emergent design approach to the data, drawings were synthesised into categories that were distilled into theme clusters. A hermeneutic reading revealed the core identity narrative underpinning each teacher-identity story. This story was told in sociocultural terms, or constructed around functioning at work or couched in terms of personal validation and achievement. These core identity narratives signal what “matters” to preservice teachers’ sense of their teacher-selves. Since there is an observed correlation between teacher-identity and resilience, knowing what matters is a helpful basis for building resilience

Youth mentoring relationships: Understanding how to prevent breakdown

The research report Youth Mentoring Relationships: Understanding how to prevent breakdown (online version) was produced by a research team from four Perth universities: Dr Judith MacCallum, Murdoch University; Dr Susan Beltman, Curtin University; Dr Anne Coffey, The University of Notre Dame Australia; and Dr Trudi Cooper, Edith Cowan University (with Jayne Jarvis). This research contributes to a better understanding of some of the key strategies to reduce breakdown of mentor-mentee relationships and to lesson the adverse effect of unavoidable relationship breakdown

Drawing identity: Beginning pre-service teachers’ professional identities

© 2015, Western Australian Institute for Educational Research Inc. All rights reserved. Developing a professional teacher identity can be complex as pre-service teachers engage with a process informed by their previous experiences of teachers and teaching, by learning in their pre-service course, by field placements, and by societal expectations. Using drawing as the method for gathering data, pre-service teachers in an Australian university were asked, prior to their first professional experience, to draw themselves as the teacher they hoped to become. Drawings (N=125) were coded according to the presence or absence of teacher, students and artefacts of teaching. Representations indicated that pre-service teachers identified themselves as teachers who would conduct enjoyable learning experiences, have positive relationships with their students and who were confident in themselves as a teacher. There was little evidence of the potential complexities or challenges of teaching, raising a dilemma for teacher educators in how to prepare pre-service teachers for the reality of the workplace while maintaining their positive approach

Supporting undergraduate university students through instrumental mentoring

© 2020 Social Science Press. Student engagement and retention is a noted concern for universities and may be impacted by many different student factors such as difficulty transitioning to a university setting, inadequate skills or a sense of isolation. This study evaluated an instrumental mentoring program conducted at an Australian University in a program for pre service teachers. Twenty four undergraduate students were engaged as volunteer research assistants and worked with seven academic staff in meaningful writing and research tasks. Qualitative data was collected through focus groups, student journals, and follow up interviews. The data was analysed thematically. Results indicated that through their participation, students experienced and sustained an improved sense of belonging with more understanding and confidence regarding their academic writing and research skills. Implications for program practice, limitations, and future research directions are discussed