Purpose – The goals of a mentoring relationship are important to the development of mentees. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the specific needs of students and junior faculty in counseling programs. Design/methodology/approach – The authors used a psychological phenomenological research approach to understand the role and significance of a mentor and the mentoring relationship. In this qualitative research study, pre-tenured faculty, doctoral- and master’s-level students in counselor education programs in the USA were interviewed (n=30), to explore the mentorship needs. Findings – In the study, the authors identified 28 codes that emerged from the participants’ lived experiences, which then were organized into seven meta-codes. The seven meta-codes were: relationship between mentor and mentee; communication style or patterns; preferred gender of mentor; introduction to the relationship; mentee needs; mentee benefits; and experiences as a mentee. Originality/value – In the paper, the authors sought to explore the mentoring needs of students and junior faculty in counselor education programs and how these needs can begin to be addressed effectively.

Scant information exists regarding informal assessment tools in the supervision of counselor trainees. In this article, we combine the approach of sandtray and the integrated developmental model (IDM) of supervision (Stoltenberg & McNeill, 2009) to assess 3 structures of supervisee development. Based on tenets of artistic inquiry, the use of sandtray promotes reflexivity for increased understanding of a supervisee's approach in counseling and allows for an artifact in documenting particular learning outcomes. Through a heuristic example of sandtray supervision, we illustrate how 1 supervisor collaboratively assessed the awareness, motivation, and autonomy of her supervisee and facilitated development in the learning objective of cultural competence. Ethical considerations are also discussed.

To positively affect teacher quality, instructional leaders must engage teachers in ways that support improved practice and seek to empower teachers as creative and knowledgeable risk takers. A collaborative, strengths-based approach that promotes teacher growth, rather than one that conditions teachers to await administrator directive or approval, is warranted. In this conceptual article, we draw from developmental supervision and solution-focused supervision to posit a blended model of instructional supervision that equips aspiring and emerging instructional leaders with strategies to identify and amplify teacher strengths.

No abstract

Counselors-in-training are in a unique position to begin bridging theory with practice. Supervision and strong supervisory relationships allow supervisees to verbalize and explore goals, case conceptualizations, and client relationships. Solution-focused supervision, like solution-focused counseling, maintains that supervisees build upon times of success for insight and goal setting. Likewise, the modality of sandtray in supervision allows for supervisees to freely express and explore personal and professional growth as counselors. In this article, we advocate the interface of solution-focused techniques and the use of sandtray to facilitate and enhance counselor supervision.

In this article, we outline a course wherein the instructors teach students how to conduct rigorous qualitative research. We discuss the four major distinct, but overlapping, phases of the course: conceptual/theoretical, technical, applied, and emergent scholar. Students write several qualitative reports, called qualitative notebooks, which involve data that they collect (via three different types of interviews), analyze (using nine qualitative analysis techniques via qualitative software), and interpret. Each notebook is edited by the instructors to help them improve the quality of subsequent notebook reports. Finally, we advocate asking students who have previously taken this course to team-teach future courses. We hope that our exemplar for teaching and learning qualitative research will be useful for teachers and students alike.

No abstract

No abstract