On Wednesday 23rd January the first of three webinars of the Wipro took place attended by the Wipro Mentors and members of the project team, Richard Pountney, lead for the Mentor strand of the project, and Emily Perry, project lead. It followed the launch of the project on 17th January, when mentors met for the first time and were able to meet and talk to the Wipro Teacher Fellows that they will mentoring.
Wipro Teacher Mentors and Fellows launch meeting
Building on the very rich discussions that took place at the launch, the webinar was an opportunity to follow up and explore the next steps and what mentors need to offer individualised support through mentoring to their Teacher Fellows. To that extent we have devised a set of three workbooks that run alongside the webinars, each consisting of: a reader covering the main issues and associated literature; a case study of practice; learning activities and a self-evaluation. In workbook 1 we ensure that our experienced mentors are fully up to date with current ideas on mentoring practice; in workbook 2 we look at understanding teachers’ practice and how it develops; and in webinar 3 we look at improving teachers’ practice through challenge.
Workbook 1 screenshot showing the Welcome page
One of the issues we discussed in the webinar was whether, and in what ways, mentoring a more experienced teacher is different to mentoring a trainee or newly qualified teacher. Rachel suggested that the experienced mentor would ‘have some ideas about their practice and will have established some skills’, while Andrew pointed out that more experienced teachers have ‘greater teaching load, so can be harder to find time to meet up and/or observe them’. The differences in outlook on practice was noted with some thinking that experienced teachers are more reflective but may possibly be less open to new practice. This led to a further question about whether mentors are mentoring or coaching. Bonnie suggested that ‘coaching is about performance whereas mentoring is about building capability’, while Maroof argued for coaching ‘when the mentee is wanting to focus on specific skills’. We also wondered what might be different in mentoring in a STEM context and the importance of pedagogic content knowledge.
Webinar 1 screenshot (slides and chat window)
The idea of mentoring as a form of dialogue, as a two-way process between mentor and fellow, that is influenced by the nature of the relationship and the conditions for critical reflection, was seen agreed to be important. We discussed the starters for conversations, including inviting the mentee to speak about what’s on their mind and tactics, including listening well and encouraging the mentee to open up. Margaret shared her strategy to ask the mentee to ‘imagine the classroom and imagine how you would like it to be’ as way of facilitating discussion.
The need to develop rapport with the mentee was agreed and discussed, including how this might lead to a form of modelling by the mentor, and it was noted that this could take various forms including feedback on observation, live and videoed, including the mentor’s practice. Those who had used the case studies in the workbooks also felt that watching others is a good basis for discussion about practice. There was a consensus that whatever form of exchange and observation was involved it would need an agreement by both parties, and this might form the basis or the first professional principle to be considered for the Wipro Teacher Fellow, that we will build on and develop in the coming months.
In these ways our first get together following the launch underlined and reinforced the key ideas of the project: collaboration, enquiry, innovation and trust.