This glideshow is a curation of ideas and resources that I hope will connect with your work as an associate teacher. It is based on my experiences working with and learning from your colleagues across Canada.
Contents
Associate Teaching as Learning
Your work as an associate teacher is integral to the learning and growth of teacher-candidates. You serve as a "first mentor" to our newest teachers by providing ongoing consulting, collaborating and coaching support during and often well beyond the practicum placement.
This diagram is my attempt to summarize the strong connection between the foundational elements of mentorship and the role of associate teachers. We know in Ontario many associate teachers also serve as mentors as part of the New Teacher Induction Program (NTIP). As the diagram illustrates, the one key difference in these roles is the responsibility of associate teachers for evaluating the teacher-candidate during their practicum.
Reciprocal learning is a foundational component of successful mentoring relationships between associate teachers and teacher-candidates. One of the most powerful outcomes of this mentorship is that it serves as a means for job embedded de-privatization of practice and fosters reflection, learning and growth of mentors themselves. In summary, associate teaching is an act of learning.
Enhancing Collaboration in Support of Associate Teachers
What if faculties of education, teacher federations and school boards intentionally collaborated to provide a menu of supports for associate teachers?
In 2022 and 2023, I was privileged to work with and learn from the Ontario Teachers’ Federation (OTF), Western and Lakehead Universities and local federation and school board leaders to do exactly this.
Read the report from the OTF featuring practical examples and key learnings from these projects.
Building Relational Trust
You can do a lot of things without trust, but mentoring isn’t one of them. So how do we build the trust essential for any mentoring relationship? Below you’ll see the professional wisdom your colleagues have been kind enough to share with me (and with each other) at hundreds of professional learning sessions across Ontario.
How are you building (and rebuilding) trust in your mentoring relationships?
Ideas from Across Ontario
Building Inclusion
- Structuring goal setting conversations to avoid misalignment of expectations
- Modelling a genuine interest in learning together
- Demonstrating appreciation of and belief in your colleagues
- Providing an oasis of calm
- Celebrating successes together
Modelling Mutual Respect
- Respecting confidential nature of relationship
- Remaining non-judgemental
- Walking in the person's shoes
- Demonstrating congruence between words and actions
- Being receptive to feedback yourself
Sharing "Real World" Challenges
- Sharing own challenges to level the playing field
- Acknowledging the messiness of learning
- Being vulnerable as this opens the door to deeper sharing
- Sharing challenges but also the quiet victories that occur each day
Listening, Listening, Listening
- Being available to listen (both mentally and in real time)
- Being authentically present
- Recognizing the power of silence and the importance of simply listening
- Listening to learn as opposed to listening to speak
- Listening with uncertainty
Goal Setting Conversations
Mentoring is a powerful, personalized learning design. Yet the dynamics of mentoring relationships are complex. When there is a misalignment of expectations significant challenges can arise.
Engaging in collaborative goal setting conversations at the outset of any mentoring relationship helps to set the stage for success. Two potentially powerful outcomes of these learning focused conversations are:
- Building relational trust
- Clarifying roles and expectations
Building Relational Trust
Being “present” by applying the elements of effective listening is at the core of building trust and rapport in any relationship.
Clarifying Roles and Expectations
Positioning yourself as a co-learner by sharing your own learning goals for the mentoring relationship is a powerful approach. Mentoring relationships that flourish are reciprocal – all parties learn and grow.
Possible Goal Setting Conversation Questions
- What strengths and attributes do you bring to your role?
- What are your hopes, wishes and dreams for your students?
- What goals do you have for your professional learning this year?
- How do you see our collaboration best working?
- What are the best ways for us to communicate? (preferred tools, times, methods)
- Who else can provide support and mentorship?
- What are the next steps in our collaboration?
Goal Setting Conversations with your Teacher-Candidate Video (1 min 11 sec)
Scaling Questions as a Tool for Debriefing
Opportunities for individuals to reflect on practice and debrief with mentors can be powerful learning for both parties. One approach to debriefing conversations is scaling questions adapted from the solution-focussed conversation work of Nancy McConkey.
Scaling Questions Conversation Map at a Glance
- On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst lesson you’ve experienced and 10 being the best, how was this lesson for you?
- Oh a <e.g., 6> – What were the positive things that made it a 6?
- How might you bump it up a notch to a 7? (specific ideas)
- Continue with Coaching stance or shift to Consultant or Collaborator based on needs
What is powerful about this tool is not only the variety of mentoring contexts within which it can be applied to your work as an associate teacher but also the underlying assumptions described below.
Attributes Based Approach
A purposeful seeking out of strengths is at the heart of this approach. Often, the person you are mentoring has given their challenges considerable thought prior to speaking with you.
Islands of Competence
By asking about the positive things you ensure the conversation begins with a success. Even a “1” is better than a “0!”
Ownership resides with the Mentee
Your impression is set aside as ultimately the person you are mentoring will be the one implementing the ideas in their own context (classroom, school, work site).
Flexibility of Stance & Role
As a skilled mentor you may choose to continue in the coaching stance or shift to consultant or collaborator, based on the needs of the person you are debriefing with. At first, scaling questions may feel a bit like following a script but over time this tool can simply be embedded into a mentor’s repertoire of learning focused conversation strategies.
Don’t like Numbers?
For some, applying a quantitative number to an experience may not feel comfortable. If that’s the case, the initial scaling question can be simply adapted as in the example below:
- Thinking about both the worst morning you’ve ever had and the best one; how was this morning for you?
- Oh…the morning was “fine” – Fine sounds better than so so…what made it fine?
- How might you bump it up to “very fine” (specific ideas)
- Continue with Coaching stance or shift to Consultant or Collaborator based on needs
Supporting Resources
These videos are part of the Associate Teacher Partnership Project I participated in when I was at the Ontario Ministry of Education. It was led by Lakehead University in collaboration with 7 local school districts to support the mentoring of Associate Teachers.
- Complexity of Teaching and Learning (1 min 56 sec)
- Scaling Questions as a Tool for Debriefing (2 min 43 sec)
When I was the program coordinator for beginning teachers in TDSB I collaborated with OISE in support of associate teachers as part of a project entitled Authentic Voices from the Field.
Appreciative Inquiry for Reflection & Growth
Appreciative Inquiry is an “attributes-based” approach that can be used to facilitate reflective conversations either during formal learning sessions or as part of the ongoing dialogue between mentors and colleagues.
At the core of Appreciative Inquiry is the belief that all participants come to mentoring relationships possessing many strengths and that by building on these assets, the answers to the issues and challenges they face can be collaboratively constructed.
This thinking is why we always begin with an examination of what is working well in current practice (themes of success). Many of these themes can then be applied as actual strategies to collaboratively address specific challenges and issues.
Appreciative Inquiry Conversation Map
Below you’ll find some practical ideas for structuring mentoring conversations. The Appreciative Inquiry Commons is a great place to explore these concepts in greater depth: https://aicommons.champlain.edu
Before the Conversation: Power of Listening
At its core, listening shows we care. It is a powerful tool for establishing and building the relational trust essential for any mentoring relationship.
Reviewing the elements of listening sets the context for Appreciative Inquiry conversations and promotes an open, non-evaluative atmosphere conducive to meaningful sharing of thoughts and ideas.
Themes of Success: What’s already working well?
As you think about your commitment to making a difference for students, tell a story about the best experience you have had so far in your work this year?
- Without being humble, what skills, values, and attitudes do you bring to your work that contributes to your ability to support and mentor others?
Often in our practice we can focus on what is not working – creating time for paired conversations about what is working well can help bring to the fore the strengths and attributes of both new colleagues and mentors, as well as highlighting the successes they’ve experienced in the year.
Following this segment of the conversation, participants may note common threads or themes that ran through their stories of success. Some of these themes of success may provide useful strategies for the issues and challenges participants encounter.
Issues and Challenges: What’s not working so well?
What issues you are encountering? (i.e. What are the stones in your shoe?)
- Looking ahead, what are the “wishes” you have for your role?
Acknowledging the real-world challenges both new and experienced colleagues encounter in their work brings authenticity to this process.
As the listener in the conversation, it is important for mentors to remember their role is non-evaluative and supportive.
Practical Ideas and Next Steps: Collaborative Strategy Harvest
What specific ideas, strategies, and resources are you considering to address the issue or concerns expressed?
- So What / Now What – share an individual action plan of possible next steps (next day | next week | next month)
When next steps have been established, the mentor assists the speaker in developing some measures that will let them know if the approach they’ve chosen is working.
The mentor encourages the speaker to respond with specific indicators that they would like to see. At this point the mentor may choose to affirm what they have heard and bring the conversation to a close.
Mentoring for Mentors Resources
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Mentoring Essentials eBooks & Glideshows
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All Mentoring for Mentors Resources
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Wishing you a mentoring journey filled with quiet moments of beauty and thanking you for the difference you are making to the lives and learning of your colleagues and ultimately our students.
In appreciation,