Mentoring teacher trainees in times of COVID-19: reflection on practice

Abstract

He has been involved in primary education in Herefordshire for over 24 years, of which 16 years has been as a successful head teacher in both small village and large primary school settings. He has a strong research interest in teachers' professional identity, school leadership teacher's working lives. Words 2708 Abtract The pandemic of Coronavirus in 2020-21 (COVID-19) has impacted upon the lives of many university-based school mentors and teacher trainees. The strong commitment and partnership between mentors, trainees and training settings has, despite such challenges, allowed teacher training to continue and flourish. This has been achieved through relentless innovation and change so that schools, mentors, course leaders and training institutions can continue to support their trainees. Using virtual support for trainees in schools, coupled with a strong school training partnership which is staffed by committed mentors this has meant that trainees continue to progress towards their goal of achieving qualified teacher status. Personal relationships between mentors and trainees have underpinned trainees' emotional, personal and professional wellbeing. This reflective paper, written by a university-based teacher training mentor, outlines how change has been managed, and the factors that have secured success in these most turbulent of times.

The Role and Motivation of Pre-Service Teacher (PST) Mentors from Pro-Social to Cognitive-Effective Perspectives

“…The teaching staff also play an essential role in addressing the PSTs' social and emotional needs as teachers of the future [71]. On the other hand, inadequate collaboration between colleagues, teacher autonomy, and ongoing instruction throughout the mentoring process were all found to be factors that hinder these teachers' desires and ability to provide optimal mentoring services [72].…”

Developing the Teacher Mentoring Self-Efficacy Scale (TMSES) Using the Delphi Method and Exploratory Factor Analysis

“…The survey programme Qualtrics was used to capture respondents' data securely and anonymously throughout; all survey responses were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. As many teacher mentors completing this survey will have faced additional challenges during this time, e.g., a move to online teaching and mentoring (Howard, 2021), it is possible that participant responses may have been affected.…”