When it comes to buying clothing, most people avoid the one-size-fits-all poncho and opt for a coat in their size. Although the poncho might perform the basic function of providing a layer of warmth, the human form simply varies too much for any one garment to really fit all.
It's the same with the mentoring programs that new teachers receive in their crucial first years in the classroom. Beginning teachers enter the profession in all shapes and sizes. Consider these two beginning teachers.
After graduating from a university teacher preparation program, John applied for a teaching position at the elementary school where he student taught and was hired to fill an opening at the kindergarten level. During his student teaching, he had worked in only 3rd grade and 5th grade classes, and he feels unprepared to work with students this young. He struggles to figure out how to handle the developmental needs of 5-year-olds and how to deal with anxious parents. However, teaching at the same school where he student taught gives John some advantages: He knows many of the teachers in the school and has a strong support network.
Cynthia is a first-year high school biology teacher in an urban school district. She has an undergraduate degree in chemistry, and she student taught in chemistry classrooms before taking this position. She generally feels well prepared to teach chemistry—but not biology. In addition, she has found that her urban school differs dramatically from the suburban school where she did her student teaching.
Despite the differences in these two teachers' situations, mentoring programs all too often offer them the same kind of support. Imagine, for example, that the same experienced high school English teacher was assigned to mentor both of these new teachers. No matter how well prepared, she might not be able to provide either the knowledge of early childhood that John needs to understand his kindergarten students or the content-area support that Cynthia needs to teach biology. To best support new teachers, keep them in the profession, and improve their instructional effectiveness, schools need to make sure that the mentoring they provide is a good fit for each novice teacher's individual background, needs, and school context.
What Determines Success?
Teaching is complex work that cannot be fully learned in the short period of preservice teacher education (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Ganser, 2002; Gold, 1999). Like other professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, and architects, teachers continue to learn on the job, especially in the crucial early years. Just as new physicians go through residency programs and new law associates often go through training offered by their law firms, new teachers benefit from structured opportunities to continue to develop their professional knowledge and skills.
In the teaching profession, this structured support is usually provided in the form of mentoring from veteran teachers. In the last 20 years, mentoring programs for teachers have become the dominant form of teacher induction (Strong, 2009); in fact, the terms induction and mentoring are often used interchangeably. Both empirical research and anecdotal evidence indicate that beginning teachers who receive some type of induction and mentoring generally have higher levels of job satisfaction, commitment, and retention within the profession (Cohen & Fuller, 2006; Fuller, 2003; Kapadia, Coca, & Easton, 2007) as well as larger student achievement gains (Fletcher & Strong, 2009; Fletcher, Strong, & Villar, 2008; Rockoff, 2008).
But the mere presence of a mentor is not enough. Effective mentoring includes three features: highly trained mentors, a focus on content, and allocated time for mentoring. These three elements interact with the specific background, strengths, and needs that the new teacher brings to the classroom, as well as the school context in which he or she is teaching.
Features of Effective Mentoring
High-quality mentors. Many mentors are chosen initially because they are strong teachers. Being a good teacher of students, however, does not automatically mean that one will be a successful mentor of adults (Feiman-Nemser, 2001). To be effective, mentors require training and ongoing support to develop specific skills in assisting new teachers—for example, developing working relationships with adults, determining the strengths and needs of a new teacher, helping teachers set meaningful goals, and providing constructive feedback on instruction. Research indicates that when new teachers are paired with highly trained mentors, the pace of new teacher learning increases (Moir, Barlin, Gless, & Miles, 2009).
A focus on content. The kind of support mentors provide generally falls into two categories: emotional or psychological support and support that focuses on instruction (Gold, 1999). Most mentoring seems to focus on providing emotional support, helping teachers navigate the challenges of the first year. Such emotional support is valued by beginning teachers and may help reduce teacher attrition. However, to improve their pedagogical knowledge and skill, new teachers also need support focused on the core of education—teaching and learning of content. In fact, a number of studies (for example, Wechsler, Caspary, Humphrey, & Matsko, 2010) have found that mentoring focused on instruction is related to positive outcomes for teachers.
This focus means that, ideally, new teachers should be matched with trained mentors who are knowledgeable about their subject matter (Rockoff, 2008). Although nonmatched mentors can provide emotional support and coaching on classroom management, it's hard for someone who's never taught history to guide a new teacher in using primary source documents or for an English teacher to help a novice science teacher learn to address common student misconceptions around photosynthesis. In a study we conducted of a mentoring program in New York City, teachers rated mentors as more helpful when they were matched on either grade level or subject area, particularly at the secondary level (Grossman et al., in press).
Sufficient time. Time also matters. Having more time with a mentor increases the novice's satisfaction with mentoring (Grossman et al., in press; Rockoff, 2008); and having a mentor for at least two years may also increase the effectiveness of mentoring (Glazerman et al., 2010; Moir et al., 2009). Yet, research suggests that many teachers don't get as much time with a mentor as their induction program mandates or as the new teacher desires (Wechsler et al., 2010).
What the New Teacher Brings to Mentoring
Although induction programs, and mentoring in particular, seem to be valuable for most new teachers, it turns out that what teachers bring into the classroom may affect what they receive.
For example, as we've just mentioned, time with a mentor matters. But who gets more time with a mentor? We might assume that teachers most in need of support receive the lion's share of time. But in our New York City study, we found that teachers who entered the classroom feeling more prepared were likely to spend more time with their mentor (Grossman et al., in press). Teachers in this group were also more likely to focus on instruction rather than emotional support, and they rated their mentors as more helpful.
In contrast, teachers who indicated they felt less prepared to teach at the beginning of the school year tended to spend less time with their mentors. They were more likely to use whatever time they did spend to get emotional support and to learn basic skills, such as classroom management, rather than to work on improving their content knowledge or instructional skills.
Prior preparation in a specific area also matters; new teachers who felt better prepared to teach English learners, for example, were also more likely to spend time focusing on this issue during mentoring. We suspect that novice teachers may seek—and therefore receive—help in areas in which they know what to ask for.
Administrative Support and School Context
Finally, the school context in which teachers spend their first years can also affect the kind of support they receive. In a number of studies, researchers found that even when new teachers had access to well-matched mentors, administrative support and other school factors made a big difference in the effectiveness of induction and the rate of new teacher turnover.
Savvy school leaders make choices about the structure of induction programs that support mentoring and lead to increased teacher retention. For example, they build time into teaching schedules for frequent meetings between new teachers and mentors (Fletcher, Strong, & Villar, 2008; Robinson, 1998); provide opportunities for new teachers to plan and collaborate with other experienced teachers within their subject or to join an external network of teachers (Smith & Ingersoll, 2004); and give new teachers access to ongoing professional development (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2004).
Effective school discipline policies also provide a positive context for mentoring: When new teachers do not need to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about student behavior, they are more likely to use their mentors to discuss instructional issues (Wechsler et al., 2010).
What Schools Can Do
Fit matters. The quality of a new teacher's experience working with a mentor is likely to depend on the interactions among the individual teacher's prior preparation, the mentor to whom he or she is assigned, and the context in which the new teacher and the mentor work. How can we ensure that more new teachers receive mentoring that is tailored to their needs?
Improving communication and cooperation across the divide between initial teacher preparation programs and in-school induction programs could help. Given the variability in preparation and skill level among those entering teaching, mentors face increased demands to provide support that addresses individuals' specific needs. However, mentors should not just focus on areas in which new teachers ask for help. They need to target areas in which the new teachers are likely to need support, whether or not the new teachers realize it themselves. Diagnostic information about new teachers from their preparation programs could provide mentors with data that pinpoint where new teachers are starting from. Mentors could share this information with the new teachers to help them understand their own strengths and areas in which they need to improve.
Encouraging school administrators to provide strong support for mentoring programs could help as well. For example, mentors should be matched with new teachers in the same schools if possible. Administrators should also work with mentors to ensure that mentoring is tailored to particular initiatives and structures within the school. In our own induction program run out of Stanford University, mentors and school administrators meet regularly to discuss upcoming mentoring activities, learn about school initiatives, and align and integrate our work with new teachers. Savvy administrators are probably already doing this elsewhere as well; the question is how to make this a more uniform practice.
Designing high-quality mentoring programs, like high fashion, requires attending to the specific dimensions of the individuals for whom these programs are designed. Given the variability in preparation and skill among beginning teachers and the unpredictability of school contexts, mentors face enormous challenges in tailoring support for new teachers. Bridging the divide between initial preparation and new teacher support could help. Encouraging school administrators to better understand how to use the resources of a mentor to provide high-quality support for new teachers in their school could help as well. Mentoring that fits the needs of new teachers can support high-quality teaching in more classrooms, creating a more stable and better-prepared teaching force.
