Mentoring as a means for supporting student and beginning teachers’ practice-based learning

Edgar Krull

University of Tartu

Abstract. This study focuses on the issue of providing mentor support in teacher education. To this end, the main concepts of supervision and mentoring in terms of the apprenticeship and laboratory models of teacher education and that of instructional and psychological approaches to mentoring are analysed. Then an overview is given of mentoring work in three stages of student and beginning teachers’ field practices – student teachers’ teaching practice at school and the ‘on-the-job’ final qualifying phase and induction period – based on a survey of approaches used in different countries. Finally, the paper analyses the practice and issues of selection and preparation of mentors and draws some conclusions for defining the essence of mentor training programmes.

Keywords: teacher education, teacher development, mentoring, supervision, mentor training, student teacher, beginning teacher, teaching practice