Is Experience the Best Teacher? Extensive Clinical Practice and Mentor Teachers’ Perspectives on Effective Teaching

Abstract

This article presents a study of mentor teachers who work with residents in an urban teacher residency program in New York City. Forty-six mentor teachers (i.e., cooperating teachers) were asked to describe moments of effective mentoring, as well as their own strengths, weaknesses, and goals as mentors. Implicit in mentor teachers’ descriptions of effective mentoring were their perspectives on effective teaching. These perspectives offer much insight into the challenges of clinically rich teacher preparation for a particular urban context, raising several dilemmas that should be considered amid the calls for teacher preparation that is deeply rooted in field practice.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Urban Teacher Residencies

“…Williamson, Apedoe, and Thomas (2016) look across interviews with key district and program stakeholders as principals, superintendents, and master teachers, as well as interviews with teacher candidates (residents) and program documents to consider how context knowledge about San Francisco was conceptualized across the settings of the program and how candidates seemed to take up this knowledge during their residency year. Goodwin, Roegman, and Reagan (2016) examine interviews with residency mentor teachers to examine how field-based mentors conceptualized knowledge for teaching in their urban setting of New York City. Each article sheds light upon key features of the specific urban setting that is addressed by the UTR program in that city.…”

Cascading, Colliding, and Mediating: How Teacher Preparation and K-12 Education Contexts Influence Mentor Teachers’ Work

“…Each teacher preparation program has its own set of expectations for mentor teachers and literature on mentor teacher practice has highlighted the program’s role in shaping what mentors ultimately do with candidates (e.g., Anderson & Stillman, 2011; Hagger, Burn, Mutton, & Brindley, 2008; McDonald, 2005; Zeichner & Gore, 1990). For example, although it is a common expectation that mentor teachers open their classrooms to candidates, and engage in a gradual release of responsibility (slowly having the candidate take on more classroom tasks until they are fully responsible for the class), it is our experience that this may not always be the case, particularly in high-accountability classroom settings (Goodwin, Roegman, & Reagan, 2016). Moreover, there is inconsistency across programs related to expectations for mentor teachers to formally evaluate candidates (Benedict, Thomas, Kimerling, & Leko, 2013).…”

“…These two state mandates—teacher evaluation and Common Core—increased the pressure on teachers to engage in practices that would theoretically lead to successful evaluations and assessments, shifting their time away from other tasks of teaching. For mentor teachers, these federal and state policies demand they put their attention on the external demands of accountability in terms of their K-12 students’ learning needs, while also balancing the needs of the candidate (Anderson & Stillman, 2011; Goodwin et al, 2016; Kolman, 2017).…”

Mentoring and Inquiring in Educator Preparation

“…The City College of New York, New York, New York, USA Consensus on the need for clinically rich teacher-preparation is consistent and strong (Burn & Mutton, 2015;Darling-Hammond & Baratz-Snowden, 2007;Goodwin, Roegman, & Reagan, 2015;Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009;Howey & Zimpher, 2010;Shulman, 2005). Would we want doctors and nurses to whom we entrust our lives who did not experience lots of practice and reflection about their work guided by experienced physicians prior to beginning their independent work?…”