Lily Orland-Barak

Lily Orland‐Barak  University of Haifa, Israel  

From Teaching to Mentoring  in Professional  Learning  

Lily Orland-Barak

• What we know about mentoring     

• New orientations and challenges  

• Implications for the practice of mentoring    

• Implications for a curriculum in mentoring       

Organization   

Lily Orland-Barak

What we know  

• The passage from teacher to mentor   

• Mediating professional learning in practice 

Lily Orland-Barak

Knowledge base in mentoring Is a good

teacher a good mentor?

 The passage from teaching to mentoring 

          What we know  

Lily Orland-Barak

The passage from teacher to mentor 

• Learning a ‘second language of teaching’      L1: Competencies as teachers          L2: Generic attributes      

Lily Orland-Barak

L1‐        Competencies             as teachers  

• Focus on pupils  • School context    • Organization of content (PCK)   • Classroom dynamics   • Using personal, authentic examples of teaching methods and strategies  (Daloz, 1983; Feiman‐Nemser & Parker, 1993 ; Wilkin, 1992; McIntyre & Hagger, 1993).                 

Lily Orland-Barak

• Reading a mentoring situation  • Appraising pedagogical practices  • Observing pedagogical practices  • Recording appropriate modes of support • Mediating persons, context and content  • Assuming diverse supportive roles • Managing accountabilities    

(Anasthases & Achinstein, 2003; Cochran‐Smith & Lyttle,1993; Edwards & Collinson, 1996; Grossman, 1991; Mullen, 1997; Norman & Feiman‐Nemser,2005)  

L2                  Generic            Attributes   

Lily Orland-Barak

• Establishing and sustaining professional relationships • Tuning In  • Articulating teaching, learning and subject matter  • Responding ‘on the spot’ by connecting experience, beliefs 

and knowledge.  

    

 

     (Bullough, 2005; Cochran‐Smith & Demers,2008; Feiman‐Nemser,2001; Kelchtermans et al, in press; Miller‐Marsh, 2002; Orland‐Barak,2005; Semeniuk & Worral,2000;Sleeter, 1998)      

     

L2   Generic Attributes  

Lily Orland-Barak

Approaches      to   mentoring            and generic   attributes 

Collaborative Personal Growth Apprenticeship Approaches to Mentoring Generic Attributes

Looking at communities of practice, how the various players in a system connect and collaborate to arrive at joint re-evaluated activity.

Based on the mentee’s understanding/interpretation of the experience. Based on the mentee’s articulation of beliefs as they relate to actions.

Assessing performance based on modeling, repeated behaviors and external criteria.

Appraising pedagogical practices

Assuming the role of co-thinker, critical friend and enhancing group support.

Assuming the role of nurturer and carer to empower the mentee in his/her individual search.

Enhancing apprenticeship of observation processes. Mentor /of mentors as a caring role model figure.

Assuming diverse supportive roles

Engaging in joint elaboration of teaching and professional learning

Exposing the mentee’s professional text.

Communicating and conveying principles, rules and regulations as defined by the system.

Articulating teaching, learning and subject matter

Lily Orland-Barak

• Simultaneous and contextual thinking.   • Connecting settings, persons and actions.   • Thinking through unique cases.   • Identifying and establishing a personal and professional space.  

• Establishing norms of professional and collegial conduct.   

• Managing multiple skills simultaneously.  • The  social and cultural context of the workplace.   

What we know      Professional               in practice             learning        

Lily Orland-Barak

Mentoring             and  professional          learning  

Knowledge base 

in mentoring 

Nature of professional practice 

A discursive perspective to learning to mentor 

Lily Orland-Barak

A discursive perspective to mentoring

How mentors’ ideological, political and moral stances intersect with pedagogical reasoning and action 

A view of learning to mentor as praxis 

Lily Orland-Barak

Encounters at intersections between

theory and practice ethical, moral, cultural and political

Learning to Mentor as Praxis

Lily Orland-Barak

Construing and positioning

Discourses in Dialogue

Learning to Mentor as Praxis

Lily Orland-Barak

Implications      Orientations           Challenges  

From atomistic/ objective agendas to professional learning   

Personal subjective‐> ecological/ situated/ perspectives to the study of professional learning 

Towards 

A focus on studying the interconnectedness between  behaviors/thinking/ beliefs/ pedagogical 

From a focus on studying behavior /thinking/ beliefs  Towards 

From an applied view of the theory/practice divide 

A view of theory/ practice as investigated dialectically Towards 

From research agendas on learning to mentor.as the acquisition of skills 

Inquiry into learning as participating in competing discourses of practice 

Towards 

Lily Orland-Barak

Nuevas             tendencias            y desafios 

From investigating learning to teach inside the classroom 

Extending investigation outside the classroom Towards 

From a stress on pedagogically responsive teaching/mentoring   

A focus on culturally responsive teaching/mentoring   

Towards 

From a linear view of professional development 

‘Messy’/ non‐linear progression of developing expertise 

Towards 

From a view of mentoring as training 

A  view of the interconnectedness between training,  learning and policy 

Towards 

Lily Orland-Barak

What texts are being responded to. How participation and communication is reciprocated ,

legitimated and sustained. What roles are assumed and valued. What is listened for and for what purposes. How cultural codes and rituals of practice are

represented and appreciated.

Learning to Mentor as Praxis

Lily Orland-Barak

Participation 

Appreciation 

Learning to mentor as praxis

Improvisation 

Lily Orland-Barak

Three Domains of Praxis

Appreciation  of underlying codes, rituals 

   contradictions  

     Modes and      modalities             of    Participation    

Strategies for  informed  

Improvisation     

Lily Orland-Barak

Appreciation Participation Improvisation

Reading a mentoring situation  Observing  pedagogical  practices  Recording modes  

of support    

 Mediating persons, context & content  Assuming  supportive roles  Managing  accountabilities Establishing and  sustaining  

professional relationships       

Tuning In   

Articulating teaching, learning and 

 subject matter  

Responding  on  the ‘spot’ by  connecting 

 experience, beliefs  and knowledge