International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
self-reflections conducted by the mentee. Preparing the mentee for a successful remainder of the school year,
while helping establish end-of-year procedures, became a priority focus. This was to ensure the mentee ended to
year on a positive note, thus feeling better prepared to enter their second year of teaching.
Partnership with Indonesia
With the success of the local mentor / mentee experience, the program spanned globally to include an
international school in Indonesia. This partnership began when a graduate was hired to teach at the elementary
level within the school. Even with the miles between, a mentor / mentee partnership was easily established with
this first year teacher due to the prior professor – student relationship cultivated throughout the teacher
preparation program. The mentor conducted a needs assessment to determine the topics in which the mentee
needed assistance. The mentee also provided the mentor with a list of perceived weaknesses where assistance
was needed most. It was determined that the immediate needs were classroom management as well as assistance
with locating resources and materials not readily available in Indonesia.
Classroom management is often an area of weakness for new teachers. The geographic location of the school
does not change this fact. Due to the distance between the mentor and mentee, much of the mentoring was based
on reflections provided by the mentee through various technological resources such as email, Skype and an
online discussion board. The mentee was asked to reflect, at the time of occurrence, any incident where concern
was noted. This resulted in the mentee providing a scenario to the mentor and the mentor providing potential
solutions for the mentee to implement. After the implementation, the mentee would email a reflection sharing
the outcome. This would either result in further conversation and additional ideas to implement, or moving on to
a new area of concern or topic of discussion.
The resources available to this new teacher were very limited. By having a mentor within higher education,
and within the U.S., allowed the mentee to receive resources that otherwise would not be available in Indonesia.
Some of these resources included the mentor providing website links, access to electronic books, assistance in
locating materials, and assistance with academic planning. Utilizing Skype, email, and a personal trip to the
school, the mentor was also able to meet the mentee’s students and therefore further the relationship with the
classroom, thus enhancing the opportunities.
Results
The first result of this research was the growth and development of the mentees. While success was noted by
all participants in some areas, other areas were left for future mentor / mentee relationships to continue. For
example, while one teacher demonstrated positive growth in the area of building an effective learning
community a weakness is still present in the area of curriculum planning. This will encourage the mentor /
mentee relationship to continue into the second year of teaching in order to help build the self-efficacy of the
mentee. A second mentee showed growth in all areas and will not require the mentorship program as rigorously,
however will still have access to the mentor as needed.
Through the use of the mentorship experience mentees have noted several areas of growth within his/her
personal teaching. Also discussed were lowered levels of anxiety due to the fact that the mentor can be reached
to discuss concerns, ideas, or to ask questions when support is needed. Additionally, it was also noted that even
through the mentorship experience, teaching is a stressful job especially when entering in as a first year teacher
without the support of wrap-around services for teachers. It is important to realize the work mentors do helps
these mentees feel more successful within the profession. The relationships formed are ones that can continue
into the following years, thus training mentees to soon become a mentor for new or pre-service teachers.
Forming these strong relationships, while providing needed services, is one way to begin lowering the attrition
rate among first year teachers.
A need for mentor training for veteran teachers within school buildings has been noted as a second result of
this mentor program. Therefore, a mentorship-training course was designed to encourage teachers within school
buildings to serve novice teachers more effectively. This course will challenge veteran teachers to evaluate their
personal pedagogy while looking at their own teaching methods in order to determine both where they have
room to grow as a teacher but also where their strengths lie. These teachers will be asked to evaluate why the
methods and content of what they teach is effective, therefore a reason for novice teachers to in turn implement
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