This article analyzes literature on mentored learning to teach in ways consistent with the standards reform movement. It suggests that although reformers encourage mentoring for standards-based teaching, the assumptions underlying mentoring programs are often focused not on standards but on emotional and technical support. Mentoring practices are consistent with program assumptions rather than with the assumptions underlying standards-based teaching. Mentoring practices promote novices’ retention but may not support their learning to teach. Although mentoring practices alone cannot be expected to reform teaching, case studies can illustrate practices for novices learning to teach in reform-minded ways. We argue that policymakers need to find effective ways to educate mentoring program developers and that mentors and researchers need to explore the content and process of reform-minded mentoring.

Four years after their initial, mentored teaching year, two cohorts of beginning teachers (N= 160) were surveyed to determine whether they had remained in teaching and their retrospective attitudes about mentoring. Approximately 96% of those located were still teaching. Of the different types of support they received from their mentors, they most valued emotional support. It is suggested that teacher mentoring may reduce the early attrition of beginning teachers.

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Odell completed a functional analysis of the needs of teachers by recording the forms of actual assistance given to first year and "new to system" teachers in a teacher induction program. Eighty-six first year and 79 new to system teachers were involved in the study. The two pri mary needs of both groups of teachers included (a) obtaining information about the school district and (b) obtain ing resources and materials pertinant to the curriculum to be taught. Of particu lar interest is Odell's fnding that experi enced teachers who are new to a school system do not have remarkably different needs from those of first year teachers.

Mentor-novice collaborative reflection about teaching is crucial to the development of novices’ professional knowledge. However, few studies examine content and forms of mentor-novice conversations and opportunities that such interactions create for developing professional knowledge. Drawing on observation data from two U.S. and two Chinese mentor-novice pairs in induction contexts, this study analyzed the content and forms of mentor-novice conversations about novices’ lessons. We found that the U.S. and Chinese mentor-novice interactions were different in focus and form, and these differences were likely related to the curriculum structures and organization of teaching and mentoring in each country. The interactions either offered or restricted novices’ opportunities for developing professional knowledge necessary for reform-minded teaching.