Conceptualizing mentor knowledge: Learning from the insiders

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Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1259–1269

Conceptualizing mentor knowledge: Learning from the insiders

Michelle Parker-Katz!, Mary Bay

University of Illinois at Chicago, 1040 W. Harrison Avenue (m/c 147), Chicago, IL 60607, USA

Received 2 February 2007; received in revised form 28 March 2007; accepted 21 May 2007

Abstract

This study addresses the question: What constitutes mentors’ knowledge? What guides their actions with novices, andhow does that shape their use of mentoring knowledge? We addressed these questions by forming conversation groups of17 urban mentors who met over 6 months. Recursive review of transcripts and observations reveal three findings: mentorsfocus on which candidates should become teachers, on how pupils’ learning is central, and on how mentors and novicescan perceive of teaching as a collective responsibility. We connect mentors’ knowledge to current teacher education reformefforts, and discuss the significance.r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Mentoring knowledge; Mentoring and teacher education reform; Mentoring and pupils’ learning

1. Introduction

A central and climactic part of a teacher prepara-tion program remains field experiences, and experi-enced teachers who mentor teacher candidates intheir classrooms play a key role. We see an increasednumber of programs for mentors, increased amountsof funding spent on mentoring even during thesefiscally difficult times, and high hopes that bettermentoring can help educators achieve better results(Sundli, 2007) Mentoring is being explored as apotential mode of professional development, as anavenue for improving practice, as a strategy forretaining teachers, and as a catalyst for social changein schools (Feiman-Nemser & Parker, 1993; Griffin,Winn, Otis-Wilborn, & Kilgore, 2002; Odell &

Huling, 2000; Smith & Ingersoll, 2004; Wang &Odell, 2001; Whitaker, 2000, 2003). In short,mentoring is typically viewed and presented as aprocess that has the potential to impact the teachingprofession in significant and positive ways.

The notion of mentoring is compelling for yetanother reason that has been less explored. Mentor-ing conveys certain assumptions about the teacher’srole in the production and use of knowledge aboutteaching. As a mentor, the teacher is expected totransform her knowledge of practice and guide aless-skilled teacher. This can be a particularlycomplex work as we shift from views that knowl-edge is situated in the individual and can be directlytransmitted to views of knowledge as transformative(Jackson, 1986) and constructed socially and inrelation to the context (Lave & Wenger, 1991;Wenger, 1998). These so-called situated learningperspectives (Putnam & Borko, 2000) call intoquestion typical views of the knowledge base forteaching emanating from and disseminated by the

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higher education research community. To whatextent do effective teachers use university-conductedresearch and then apply strategies derived from thatresearch in the classroom, that is, what Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999) refer to as ‘‘knowledge forpractice?’’ Underlying that viewpoint is the beliefthat a knowledge base, generated by universityresearch and applied in order to make teachingpractice better, does indeed exist. Furthermore, thebelief follows that such knowledge can be fragmen-ted into distinct arenas such as disciplinary knowl-edge of subject matter, general knowledge aboutteaching, knowledge of cultural and linguisticcommunity characteristics, knowledge about stu-dents, knowledge about the logistics of teaching(e.g., paperwork), and transmitted to novices to aidthem in their teaching.

Those conundrums about teacher knowledge andhow it is generated and used can be explored in theprocesses of mentoring, too, for in mentoring werecognize a teacher’s role, wisdom, and ability tolink kinds of knowledge into a fabric to guide,support, and direct novices as they advance theirunderstandings of teaching and pupils’ learning. Inpromoting mentoring, we recognize teachers’ placesin constructing meaning and knowledge and thenacting upon those meanings. In mentoring work, wesee a shift in the location of the knowledge basefrom the ‘‘outsider’’ or expert perspective to the‘‘emic’’ or ‘‘insider’’ perspective. The mentor isviewed as the participant whose experiences, ob-servations, and interpretations are deemed highlyvaluable in understanding the relationship betweenteaching and learning and helping others see it aswell.

While a significant literature exists about tea-chers’ knowledge, we found much less researchabout mentors’ knowledge. What constitutes men-tors’ knowledge? How do they draw on it andconstruct new knowledge as they mentor? Whatguides their actions with novices, and how does thatshape their use of mentoring knowledge? Thesequestions become essential as academic and policycommunities continue to place great value onmentoring, and teacher educators revise teacherpreparation programs and prepare mentors.

1.1. Situated learning perspectives as a lens tomentoring knowledge

The concept of situated learning to examinementor knowledge is relevant since mentoring work

is quintessentially a socially collaborative learningexperience. In situated learning, as described byLave and Wenger (1991), learning is contextuallyand culturally specific. Done within community,with others, participants make sense and meaning asthey take action within a context. Lave and Wengerdescribe a kind of participation that involves‘‘talking about and talking within a practice,’’ andargue that new learners learn not just by listening(‘‘from talk’’) but by learning ‘‘to talk’’ as a part oflegitimate participation in the community (p. 109,italics in original).

This perspective is not dissimilar to that ofCochran-Smith and Lytle (1999) when they proposea conception of teacher knowledge as ‘‘knowledgeof practice.’’ Integral to teacher construction of newknowledge, they argue, is that teachers collabora-tively learn in groups ‘‘where participants strugglealong with others to construct meaningful localknowledge’’ (p. 278). Basic characteristics of thistype of teacher knowledge are inquiry aboutteaching and students’ learning, examination of selfand others’ assumptions, and ultimately questioningprevailing practices. Often the groups are composedof teachers and scholars at different phases of theircareers and with varied focuses.

Relevant to both conceptions of teacher knowl-edge is a focus on learning through action specific tocontextual features, through inquiry, and in com-munity. Others have shown that these character-istics are key qualities of a good mentoringrelationship (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Odell &Huling, 2000) and still others have argued from acritical stance that it is these qualities that oftenraise power differentials (Colley, 2002; Sundli, 2007)that need to be discussed in communities forlearning and change to happen. The nature of theactions mentors take to transform their knowledge,and the consequences of those actions, remains acritically missing aspect of our overall knowledge ofmentoring (see for example Hobson, 2002).

Still we draw upon situated learning perspectivessince we view mentoring knowledge as a kind ofsocially situated and learned teacher knowledge.Therefore, in order to explore what constitutesmentoring knowledge, we organized groups ofmentors linked to the same university’s teacherpreparation programs to discuss particular aspectsof the work. Through those discussions, wereasoned, we could understand the meaning thatmentors give to their work and the knowledge thatguides them. Like teaching knowledge itself, we

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learned that mentoring knowledge is also dynamicand fluid.

2. Research methods and design

In this paper, we describe research with US urbanclassroom mentors who worked with prospectiveteachers in four different teacher education pro-grams located in two colleges at a universitycommitted to urban teacher preparation. Over a1-year period, we gathered and codified mentorteachers’ knowledge constructed as they workedwith teacher candidates and concurrently partici-pated in conversations with each other. We calledour work the Mentor Project, and we configured thefollowing two outcomes: understand the knowledgementors construct to do the work, and considerways in which teacher education programs could beimproved. By setting up opportunities for experi-enced mentors to talk collaboratively, we believedwe could promote a view that in their role asmentor, classroom teachers are teacher educators.

2.1. Participants and settings

All mentors were classroom teachers in one of thelargest US school districts that serves approximately

415,000 of the city’s youth. Conditions of teachingare similar to those in many US urban districts, withinsufficient resources, personnel, and leadership.Ninety percent of students are on free or reducedlunch, and many students bring with them theproblems of poverty.

We chose mentors to participate with an eyetoward diversity. All mentors served in one of fourkinds of university teacher preparation programs:early childhood, elementary, secondary, or specialeducation. Seventeen mentors took part in thestudy, of whom three were male. Five were ofnon-European ancestry. Teachers’ experience ran-ged from 3 to 34 years. All mentors had workedwith a student teacher for a minimum of 1 semester;most also had extensive experience with teachercandidates in the pre-student teaching phase of theprogram. See Tables 1 and 2 for demographicdetails.

University faculty who participated in the mentorselection, in conversations, and in data analysis hadall done clinical field instruction for a minimum of 5years and a maximum of 18 years. All hadsupervised teacher candidates both in pre-studentteaching and student teaching by doing directobservations in numerous district classrooms, ran-ging from pre-school through high school. Faculty

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Table 1Demographics of mentors

Race/ethnicity Gender Teaching specialty Years of teaching

AA H C A Female Male Earlychildhood/elementary

Juniorhigh/highschool

Specialeducation

45 years 5–10 10–15 15+

No. of school-basedmentors (N ! 17)

1 4 12 0 14 3 10 5 2 2 7 5 3

Table 2Demographics of field instructors

Race/ethnicity

Gender Teaching specialty Years of university field instruction

AA H C A Female Male Earlychildhood/elementary

Juniorhigh/high school

Specialeducation(elementary–high school)

45 years 45–10 410–15 15+

No. of university-basedfield instructors (N ! 5)

0 1 4 0 5 0 4 0 1 2 3 2 1

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participation was voluntary, and included thosefaculty interested in the research we could do basedon grant funds from two sources.

2.2. Procedures

The Mentor Project began with the nomination ofstrong mentors by university field instructors andschool principals. For over 1 year prior to thisstudy, a joint committee of mentors and universityteacher education faculty met regularly and usedtheir experiences and reviews of the literature tocreate ‘‘Mentor Qualities.’’ (See Table 3 for a list ofthe qualities.) Mentors were nominated based onthose qualities. All identified mentors receivedapplications which asked them to provide demo-graphic information (e.g., years of teaching, certifi-cations and licensures, degrees earned) and respondto questions about their views of teaching, of whatstudent teachers needed to learn, and of how theycould learn in the company of a mentor. From over60 nominations, university faculty on the projectchose 17 mentors in order to form two smallconversation groups.

Over a 6-month period, the 17 mentors met ingroups of eight or nine mentors apiece approxi-mately once a month at the university (total of fivemeetings). All conversations were either audio orvideotaped. Every conversation was fully tran-scribed. One university faculty field instructorfacilitated each of the conversations, and remainedwith that group throughout the study. The samementors stayed in the same group for all fivediscussions. While the facilitator and mentorsremained the same, a different university facultyfield instructor observed each discussion and tookfieldnotes. That enabled different perspectives to bereflected in fieldnotes and summaries. Facilitatorsand the observers prepared each month summarystatements of the previous conversations, and theywere checked and revised by other members of theresearch team. The summaries were shared withmentors before each subsequent conversation, andeach conversation began with their collective con-sideration of the statements and commentary.

We loosely structured each small group conversa-tion. Before the study began, we identified from theliterature and university field instructors’ experi-ences major arenas to explore. We carefully shapedthe focus for the first conversation, aiming to elicitwhat mentors perceive teacher candidates need toknow and how they can assist teacher candidates.

As the study progressed, each actual discussion’sfocus arose based on the previous conversations andtheir analyses by the university field instructors.Each facilitator began with the same set of ideas,

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Table 3Mentor qualities

The university teacher preparation programs provideopportunities for student teachers to construct understandingsabout teaching and learning. As such, we aim to prepare ourstudents to become excellent pre-school, elementary, and highschool teachers who will teach their students in caring,thoughtful, and intelligent ways. Additionally, we place specialemphasis on teaching student teachers to understand and succeedin urban schools.A significant part of student teaching is the selection of schools

and classrooms for our student teachers, which will provide themwith rich experiences in integrating their theoretical knowledgewith teaching practice. We deeply respect the work of mentorteachers for our student teachers’ continuing growth anddevelopment and, therefore, recognize the importance ofoutstanding mentor qualities.In our efforts to identify mentors who prize working with

student teachers from the university teacher preparationprograms, we ask that you help us select teachers in your schoolwho distinguish themselves in the following ways:I. Interactions with students and their community

A. A teacher who is cognizant of the students’ communityand home language and culture.

B. A teacher who is deeply respectful of students’ opinionsas manifested in classroom discourse.

C. A teacher who is willing to understand students’ priorknowledge and world views and who providesopportunities for their development.

D. A teacher who has extensive subject matter knowledgeand can represent this to students in multiple ways.

E. A teacher who supports a democratic classroomenvironment and whose ‘‘classroom management’’ iscreative and based on respect.

II. Character and personality with regard to mentoringA. A teacher who is willing to allow a student teacher to

experiment with new methods and techniques ofteaching.

B. A teacher who thoughtfully monitors a student teacher’sgrowth by providing feedback and support.

C. A teacher who conveys a spirit of open-mindedness andresponsibility as these relate to her or his own practice.

III. Professional stanceA. A teacher who can articulate the differences of a student-

centered vs. a teacher-centered classroom environment aswell as provide evidence in her or his practice of suchcontextual balance.

B. A teacher who engages in inquiry about teaching andchallenges the norms of schooling.

C. A teacher who is a learner and welcomes professionalgrowth and development.

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and participants then tailored it to be relevant totheir previous and ongoing discussions. In Table 4,we display the major discussion points that accom-panied each session. We facilitated discussions withprobes such as ‘‘If we had a video camera, whatwould we see in each of your classrooms withrespect to how you would work with a teachercandidate in this situation?’’

2.3. Data sources and analyses

This paper draws upon the following sources ofdata: (1) transcripts and observation notes fromsmall-group conversations with mentors over a6-month period, (2) ongoing analyses of data asthe study unfolded in the form of summarystatements and analytic memos written and re-viewed by members of the research team, and (3)analyses of data when the study was complete.

To analyze the corpus of data, we used theconstant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss,1967) in which we took one piece of data (such as anexcerpt from a discussion, observation notes,summary statements) and compared it with others

that were similar and different. All meetings weretaped and transcribed, and university facultyconvened throughout the project to study tran-scripts and analyze the discourse along with thenotes from the observers and session leaders.Patterns and questions identified in the initialanalysis were presented to participants, discussed,and altered. Finally, a graduate student notaffiliated with the project created summary state-ments as a way to compare and contrast theinsiders’ analyses. In all, the patterns in the dataemerged from multiple groups looking at the dataand commenting on analyses.

Through these recursive analyses, we couldformulate conceptual categories. We establishedregularities or patterns in the data set, and didcontinuous cross-checking for reliability and valid-ity by doing member checks by the mentors and thefaculty observers and participants, and then frompeople not at all involved in the project who listenedand questioned our reasoning (Delamont, 1992;Erickson, 1986; Patton, 1987).

3. Results: conversation themes

Discussion of the analyses led us to identify threemajor themes, which align with four elements ofthe situated-learning perspective as delineated byWenger (1998): identity, meaning, practice, andcommunity. We describe each theme below.

3.1. Not what, but who

In the first conversation session, discussion beganwith the following question typical to ask withrespect to shaping curriculum and instruction fornovice teachers: What do you think prospectiveteachers need to know and be able to do? Mentorslisted traits and qualities important for novices toknow. But as the sessions progressed, mentorsrevealed that they do not focus on knowledge forteaching by identifying discreet traits or perfor-mance capabilities. Bernie, a special educationmentor, summarized the revelation in the fourthconversation session after looking at notes from theearlier sessions.

You were asking what they should know and theresponse is kind of what they should be. I thinkthis is really interesting because it’s kind of niceto think about how the question needs to changea little bit. When we think about teacher

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Table 4Discussion points for each session

Session Discussion points

1 What should beginning teachers know and be able to doto teach effectively in an urban setting? Choose one ortwo qualities you suggested, and explain how you wouldassist and support teacher candidates in theirdevelopment of these qualities.

2 What is the mentor’s role(s) in bringing about the kindsof understandings and practices we discussed in the lastsession (and captured in notes)? How do you set up anenvironment where this kind of learning takes place?

3 Three-page case study about a mentor’s and studentteacher’s missed communication about a classroomincident involving a student’s missed understandings.

4 What can be done to improve the quality of newteachers? The traditional role in teacher preparation forthe university is content, methods, and fieldworksupervision. What might we add or subtract? What arethe university’s expectations for teacher candidates’learning in classrooms? What are the university’sexpectations about mentors’ practices? What is the roleof the university field instructor?

5 Mentor recruitment and retention: how do we recruitteachers to be mentors? How can we find and selectpeople who can be potentially strong mentors? How canwe retain good mentors? How can university teacherpreparation support you? Are the current practices thebest preparation for new teachers?

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candidates it is so much deeper. It’s theexperiences they need to have beyond just theseare the things you are going to need to know.

A few minutes later, during a discussion abouthelping mentors know about university expecta-tions, he added

Put together a panel of excellent mentors with theuniversity and say, ‘‘What do we want ourteachers to look like during these field place-ments? What do we want and then figure out howwe are going to communicate thaty’’

Bernie’s comments highlighted two ideas: thatmentors ask who novices should become, and thatthey focus on actions (what teachers should looklike as they practice). The comments also shed lighton something that Sue, an intermediate elementaryteacher, said in the first session when she explainedthat when people enter teaching ‘‘it takes thestrength of knowing who you are.’’ In the samesession, she later added

It’s also important for new teachers to thinkabout teaching and planning with the end inmindyTo me, my end result is that by the timethe student teaching experience is over, I wouldhave a teaching partner.

Sue’s comment about a novice knowing oneselfmirrored what Connie, a mentor in the other small-group conversation, said about novices. ‘‘You haveto know yourself,’’ she said of teacher candidates.‘‘What do you expect out of this? What are yourabilities (and) limitations?’’ In fact, when weexplored again the comments made in the firstmeeting in light of mentors’ comments in the lastsessions, we realized that mentors listed mostlydispositional qualities in response to our questionabout the knowledge novices needed. For example,we heard ‘‘it takes a commitment’’ (Sue); ‘‘maintaina positive optimistic attitude and a certain amountof determination and persistence (Paul, highschool); ‘‘have respect for all children’’ (Mandy,primary elementary).

We heard about particular kinds of knowledge(e.g., sociolinguistics, said Delta, a high schoolteacher) and general comments about knowingsubject matter (e.g., ‘‘you have to know your stuff,’’said Connie, a high school teacher). But the vastmajority of comments focused on dispositionstoward learning, toward students, and toward theprofession of teaching. The mentors’ responses

seemed shaped by who they wanted the novice tobecome as a teacher of students and as a learner ofteaching.

3.2. Focusing on pupils’ learning as the means tolearning about teaching

Mentors seemed to have a common stance thatbecoming a teacher who focuses on student learningis critical. The central figures in learning teachingwere classroom students. Across the conversations,the mentors repeatedly returned to the needs of theirpupils and how to guide the student teacher tounderstand and address the needs of the pupils. Forexample, Bill states the advice that he often gives tostudent teachers

What you want to do is create successfulexperiences for children that will lead to con-fidence and that will hopefully lead to futurelearning. Ask yourself, ‘Okay, my class is a bitnoisy, but are my students learning?

Bernie offers a similar pupil orientation in adifferent session: ‘‘I give them (teacher candidates)the advice to not overwhelm themselvesyset goalsbut know what you want the end result to be for thestudentsy,’’ but not to set so many goals that youfeel you’re juggling too many things at once.

In several instances, the mentors placed ‘‘knowingpupils’’ within the realm of knowing the pupils’ lifeexperiences. Paul states, ‘‘I think it’s also importantto adjust to the social and economic background ofthe students, which is quite different from mostteachers, and certainly not to have a condescendingattitude.’’ Teresa offered another way to betterunderstand the pupils.

You have to become involved in the communityin which you work. You cannot drive your littlecar to work, work with the kids and run backhome. Whatever it may be, a PTA meeting, comeand get involved, be visible to the children sothey can see that this person really cares.

Sue agrees, and said

It really takes a commitmentyWhen teachercandidates come into the classroom they have atendency to be optimistic but they also need toknow that urban kids come to school with amyriad of problems that have nothing to do witheducation. And these kinds of things need to bedealt with before they’re even going to be



available for learningyA lot of what teachersneed to doyis pay attention to the signs andsignals from the kids that are telling you that ‘I’mnot ready for your lesson, I’ve got other thingson my agenda that need to be dealt with, anduntil we get that dealt with, not much is going tohappen.In the other session, Meg offered a different setof words to express the similar idea.Teacher candidates must know the communityfrom which their pupils come. It is really crucialto get to know who it is you are going to workwith, what their needs are, what their strengthsareyIf gangs are a major source of problems inthe community, you know that the children aregoing to bring those problems into the class-room.

Acutely aware of their pupils’ varied and full lifeexperiences, the mentors seem to view their stu-dents’ learning through multiple lenses. They do notfocus solely on students’ socio-cultural lives, nor ontheir knowledge of content, nor on their less-developed areas. Like the ways they see teachercandidates’ learning, that is, holistically, they see the‘‘whole child’’ (as Tammy said) when they considertheir pupils’ learning. Tammy expressed yet anotherexample of mentors’ holistic thinking about theirpupils.

You have to be ready to educate the whole child,not just the part you see from 9 to 3:15. And thatincludes the child’s family, be it whatever type offamily they’re fromyyou have to be flexible-yyou may come in with beautiful lesson plansbut maybe someone got shot where they live orsomething has the kids upset and that’s an issueright now.

Mary sums up the overall sentiment of the groupwhen she states, ‘‘I tell them someone is giving youtheir baby for a whole year.’’

3.3. Changing the image: Teacher learning as‘‘Collective Responsibility’’

‘‘They have to be exposed to the idea that they arepart of a faculty,’’ said Sue at the third meeting, ‘‘thathas a collective responsibility.’’ Analyses showed thatmentors saw their part of assisting teacher candidatesthrough the lens of collaborative work, and theyprovided descriptions of how they do that. Deltaexplained how she does this at a meeting in which

mentors considered an instance of conflict between amentor and student teacher in a case study we read.‘‘I say question everything so I can be challenged,too. So it’s a collaborative experience,’’ she said.‘‘Her needs (those of the student teacher) areseamlessly woven into what we do.’’ Because thementor in the case was not doing that, Deltabelieved, the mentor was ‘‘sabotaging’’ the studentteacher’s chances to learn. Bernie spoke next of animage that defined his perception of the mentor role.‘‘I see mine as a weaving,’’ he told the group.

From day one I establish that we are there tolearn from each other. Questions and answers foreach other. Let’s look at the research together.We negotiate and map out together the times forfull responsibility.

The image of weaving and its representation ofcollective responsibility challenges the typical imageof student teachers and their teaching responsibil-ities. Typically, they take on increasing responsi-bilities and do solo teaching, maintain that for somespecified time, and then relinquish their responsi-bilities a bit of a time to the mentor. Delta andBernie suggest a replacement of that image of thestudent teacher teaching alone, and instead advo-cate for an intermixing of ideas and the crafting of acollaborative process of teaching.

Tammy expanded the discussion to include animportant additional collaborator: families. She andher student teacher, she explained,

ydo everything together, like talk to theprincipal, see a parent, etc. It’s important forher to hear the grandmother’s powerful words.She has to be there for herself to create that.

Bernie agreed, and commented that Tammy is‘‘modeling for the student teacher. She has seenyour rapport.’’ Additionally, what the teachercandidate has seen is the integral importance offamilies, and the importance that the mentor givesthat (e.g., ‘‘hear the grandmother’s powerfulwords’’). So the threads to be woven now includecollaboration with families, students, and schoolcolleagues. The importance of understanding fa-milies and communities is mirrored in mentors’comments made in earlier sessions. For example,Jody talked about how crucial it is

to know who it is you are going to work with,what their needs are, what their strengths are—the fundamental background. If poverty is a

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major issue, don’t strike a battle of demandingthe children have paper and pencilyThe re-sources are just not there. So to recognize thereality of the setting you are going into is trulyimportant.

Mentors seemed to see collaborative teachingbetween mentor and student teacher as a viable wayto interweave various aspects of teaching with acontinual focus on pupils’ learning. Meg explainedhow she and the student teacher ‘‘stand and banterback and forth. (We say) ‘‘Oh don’t forget this’’ and‘‘I was reading this last night and this is what Ithought.’’

This goal of a collaborative effort for the sake ofgood teaching and pupils’ learning is fraught withdilemmas, however. Some mentors questioned thepower relationships of ‘‘jumping on someone else’stoes.’’ Connie wished for a ‘‘more graceful way ofgetting in there and showing them that segue kind ofthing.’’ Another type of predicament surfaces forthese mentors when the teacher candidate is notparticularly strong. The predicament focuses onprotecting pupils’ learning opportunities and tryingto ensure a good experience for the teachercandidate. As one mentor stated,

But the most important is the children them-selves. I don’t want to sacrifice the students forsomebody’s education, and since I’m responsiblefor the students, that’s where the—not that Iwant control in my classroom—but I know whatI want the kids to know by the end of the year,and if I am to relinquish to somebody else tofurther their judgment, that’s where I have aproblem with it.

4. Discussion

Collectively, these 17 mentors constructed knowl-edge for mentoring that centers around three majorideas: the importance of asking who teachercandidates can become as teachers, the importanceof focusing on individual pupils’ learning as a meansto learning teaching, and the importance ofcollective responsibility in teaching. Through 6months of conversations that built upon each other,the mentors brought together their own views andimages with those of colleagues doing the samework in other schools and with a range of studentpopulations. Instead of drawing on what Sundli(2007) has referred to as ‘‘individual cognitiveprocessing’’ (p. 5), that is, strategies that promote

individual reflection, reasoning, and actions, men-tors emphasized the importance of individual andsocially mediated creation of ideas, aligning withmajor tenets of the situated learning framework. AsWenger (1998) suggested, learning is a combinationof attention to identity, meaning, community, andpractice. Inherent in the three themes are ways theseelements come together in the work of mentoring,and the knowledge that drives mentors’ reasoningand actions.

Mentors in this research also emphasized issues ofidentity in terms of who the novice would becomeprofessionally, the need to learn about pupils asindividuals, and what people might do together—mentor and novice, teacher and student(s)—tocreate good practice. The very act of talkingtogether about their work, with each person bring-ing to the conversations their individual ideas, mayhave helped. Whether or not it did, we still seeevidence that constructing a collective notion ofmentoring knowledge and beliefs seemed to helpthese mentors question prevailing practices, andpromote a vision of teaching and mentoring that isrecursive and focused on knowing the individualand using that knowledge of self and other tocollaborate.

In addition to encouraging conjoint thinking andknowledge of the individual, the mentors sought outand created opportunities they could use to guideteacher candidates to re-shape their identities asteachers through continual analysis of pupils’learning. What enables and indeed compels teachersto bring ideas and resources together, to adjust andadapt the curriculum and their teaching styles, is adeep understanding of the pupils’ educationalneeds. It is what Dewey (1904/1964, p. 324) refersto as seeing ‘‘teacher and pupils react upon eachother—how mind answers to mind.’’ In fact, a focuson pupil learning as a critical indicator of theteacher’s abilities and the possible benefits ofmentoring is increasingly receiving research atten-tion (Athanases & Achinstein, 2003; Strong, 2006)and is associated with highly qualified teacherswho can bring about higher student achievement(Darling-Hammond & Youngs, 2002).

Moreover, the mentors collectively suggestthrough their comments that a focus on accommo-dating a range of pupils’ needs within the specificcontext of a classroom is imperative. This isespecially important as we provide students withdisabilities greater access to curriculum and instruc-tion in general education classrooms. These mentors’



comments show that examining each student’slearning can provide opportunities to question,analyze, and generate ways to manage teachingpredicaments.

We find it striking that the mentors chose not tofocus on specific domains of knowledge andperformance abilities as delineated in multiple setsof standards currently touted in many educationaland policy communities. Even when universityeducators introduced it, mentors pulled away fromtalk about particular sorts of knowledge. Acrossages and ability populations, mentors describedevents and interpretations that focused on how theteacher candidate is beginning to know herself anddevelop an understanding of the lenses she uses toview teaching and learning. For example, was sheable to view teaching as a series of predicamentsthat were strongly influenced by contextual factors,each predicament requiring careful analysis and athoughtful response? Repeatedly, we heard mentorsquestioning how their teacher candidates movedinto seeing themselves as partners, or educationalcompanions, with the mentor as well as withstudents’ families and other professionals. Mentorspromoted a vision of teaching and learning teachingrather than the idea of accomplishing particulargoals or showing evidence of meeting discreetstandards.

The themes suggested by mentors help bring ustoward a greater conceptualization of mentorknowledge, which can enrich the overall idea ofmentoring which has been vaguely conceptualizedthough widely promoted. Missing from the acclaimfor mentoring are critiques of practice, discussionsof how mentors handle the power differentialinherent in the idea of a relationship in which oneperson is ‘‘mentoring’’ another, how mentoring canhelp maintain the status quo instead of openingboth teachers to new initiatives, and how issues ofpower can hinder the joint learning of mentor andnovice (Colley, 2002; Sundli, 2007; Wang & Odell,2001; Whitaker, 2000, 2003). Studying more deeplythese mentors’ collective knowledge could shed lighton varied ways to handle those dynamics ofmentoring.

4.1. Implications for teacher education

What might mentors’ knowledge conceptualizedas focuses on identity, collective responsibility, andpupil learning mean for reform of teacher educationprograms? Mentors’ viewpoints lend additional

support to the vast literature about how teachercandidates cannot simply absorb a static body ofknowledge and a set of skills they then use flexiblyand appropriately across an array of situations theymight encounter. What might be in a teacherpreparation program that could provide supportfor teacher candidates to develop kernels of teach-ing beliefs and knowledge that these mentors find soimportant? How could we help teacher candidatesmove away from seeking the ‘‘one-size-fits-allrecipe?’’

Kennedy (2006) offers an important insight intohow to consider these questions, arguing thatteacher educators at universities face the dualdilemma of providing knowledge and strategies fornovices to handle unknown situations, and offeringways to imagine how those actions might result insuccesses for students’ and teachers’ learning anddevelopment. Kennedy also argues that the collec-tive vision of teacher education is itself notcomplete, not dynamic, and not problem-focused.How, then, can teacher candidates begin to imagine‘‘specific sequences of events that start with aproblem, move through an examination, andultimately lead to a satisfying conclusion?’’ (p. 211).

The mentors in this study would seem toencourage those of us at the university to considerthe place of pupils’ learning and collective respon-sibility for handling it, and how that might alterprofessional identities. We see growing attention topupil learning as a means of candidate assessment.For example, the Teacher Work Sample Methodol-ogy involves explicit teaching and practice that linksplanning, instructional processes, and post-teachingreflection with analysis of data about pupils’learning (Girod, 2002; Perry, Smith, & McConney,1998). In addition, universities might do well inhelping mentors understand a conception of mentorknowledge as beginning with a focus and use ofpupils’ learning. In so doing, university educatorscould gather authentic pupil work samples frommentors, perhaps with rich descriptions of theproblem, inquiry about it, and a range of resultingoutcomes (Kennedy, 2006). Teacher candidatescould then study in coursework vignettes andscenarios of teaching emanating from pupils’ learn-ing. Mentors could be prepared for their work witha view toward mentoring knowledge that is itselfsituated, collective and collaborative, and recursive.

Additionally, the teacher preparation communitywould do well to examine the sources of informa-tion about pupils’ learning that mentors use to guide



novices. What do mentors draw upon; what kinds ofassessments and assessment skills do they use? Howdo they help teacher candidates learn ways to usethe tools? How might educators in teacher prepara-tion programs collaborate with mentors in schoolsso that those assessments and assessment opportu-nities become woven into programs? Together, howmight we prepare teacher candidates with the meansand ends of seeing pupil learning as central to theirwork and professional identities?

4.2. Limitations

The research is all self-report data, and all fromthe mentors’ perspectives. Two major limitationsthus emerge. How do mentors actually do the workthey discuss? Secondly, how do student teacherslearn from mentoring focused on the three themesthese mentors suggest as key for student teachers’learning? Learning more about what mentorsactually say and do to emphasize those themes ofteacher identity development, pupils’ learning, andcollective responsibility would help in terms of bothredefining teacher preparation programs and theactual work of university field instructors. Withoutdata that show the nature of the conversationaldiscourse as well as the content discussed betweenmentors and student teachers, we miss seeing howmentors transform such views. Furthermore, thedata show a range of idealistic thinking andviewpoints. We wonder how mentors actually focuson the ideas they identify as key while also attendingto traditionally important issues for student tea-chers, such as classroom management and socializa-tion into the school. Hobson (2002) highlights thisconundrum in a study of student teachers innorthern and central England who claim howimportant the mentor is in their learning, yet painta picture of mentoring in which mentors struggledto create good learning opportunities for noviceteachers. Butterfield, Williams, and Marr (1999)show directly that, when conversations betweenmentors and student teachers aimed to focusdirectly on pupil assessment, the teachers actuallytalked more about exams and classroom controlrather than actual pupil learning.

A related need is learning how mentors actuallynurture the independence they hint at in ourresearch. As Sundli (2007) reports, mentors mayinadvertently actually expect student teachers to bejust like them, to copy their actions. But by sodoing, they miss helping novices learn the reasoning

behind, for example, examining pupil learning. Weneed to know more about how mentors truly assessstudent teacher performance, and do so within adevelopmental continuum in which the central tasksof student teachers, beginning teachers, and experi-enced educators are viewed differently (see Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Hiebert, Morris, Berk, & Jansen,2007).

To move through such limitations, the next stepsfor research would include an ongoing record ofdialogs between mentors and student teachers tolearn what is said and how. Interviews with bothmentors and student teachers, over time, couldreveal participants’ interpretations as well as showthe types of learning contexts mentors and studentteachers create. We could examine in what waysmentors and student teachers emphasize identity,pupil learning, and collective responsibility (forthat, also, we could also see how it is modeledinside participants’ dialogs).

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Conceptualizing mentor knowledge: Learning from the insiders

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