Learning to Mentor-as-Praxis

Lily Orland-Barak offers us a breathtaking work of science ?ction. Or perhaps I should say 'science and ?ction. ' The science side of the equation employs sophisticated technique for observing and describing interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics among professionals in education. Both dramatic and seemingly ordinary episodes in the lives of teachers in relational tension with one another are analyzed with scienti?c care, precision, and insight. The scienti?c study of mentoring is like the scienti?c study of soap bubbles their formation, growth, and sudden exit from the visible world with a nearly soundless 'pop!' Scienti?c and intellectual tools can be used to describe and predict the behavior of soap bubbles, to study their colors, shapes, surface tension, and tiny mass. The same is true of the study of mentoring. But in both cases, the greatest care must be taken to avoid popping the almost m- ically elegant form to avoid destroying the delicate relationship by rushing in, by heavy attempts at control, or by premature dissection, or even by paying attention too intensely to a private, personal relationship. Mentoring is best studied by being still, by listening with authentic interest, and by using our peripheral vision. The science and the scientist have done their best work here. The ?ction side of this ?ne book gives life to telling examples of mentoring in action.

Provides a conceptual framework for understanding that learning to mentor is rooted in ideological, political and cultural dimensions Offers a unified conceptual framework combining insights from empirical findings and practical experience Presents concrete guidelines for a curriculum of learning to mentor in teacher education Organized around domains of knowledge competence and performance in mentoring Focuses on both learning to mentor in pre-service and in-service education Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

My research focuses on the three complementary agendas within the field of Teacher Education: Mentoring and mentored learning, second language teacher learning and curriculum development. These agendas address the call for producing systematic research in the area of teacher education to inform theory, design, and implementation of educational reform and curricular innovation. In the area of mentoring, I have endeavored to conceptualize the passage from teaching to mentoring as a manifestation of the acquisition of professional expertise, as it relates to knowledge development, beliefs, morality, pedagogy, exemplary practice, and contextual and discursive aspects of professional practice . In the area of second language teacher learning, I have focused on aspects of the process of learning to teach a foreign language as related to the development of content knowledge, pedagogical beliefs and knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge . In the area of curriculum development, I have investigated the impact of educational interventions and new English curricula on English teachers and mentors' pedagogical content knowledge development. I have also studied the impact of innovative curricular methodologies on graduate students' learning in the context of Higher Education .

My work as educational researcher in the above fields has contributed to the design of curriculum innovations in the area of mentoring and teacher education in Israel and abroad.

Klappentext

The concept of mentoring has undergone a major shift from guide/guided or instructor/protégé arrangements toward more reciprocal, collaborative models. Informed by a robust theoretical framework and real-life examples of successful and ineffective interactions, Learning to Mentor-as-Praxis analyzes in compelling detail how belief systems, ideologies, and values affect the mentoring relationship, why they are critical factors in today's multicultural landscape, and how they can be used in the training of the next generation of mentors. In this proactive framework, learning to mentor is less a process of acquiring discrete skills and more the gaining of an interrelated set of competencies. At the same time, the book emphasizes the evolution of professional developmentpre-service, in-service, and higher educationby focusing on these areas:

• Sociocultural and contextual aspects of mentoring

• Literature review: acts and agency in mentoring

• Appreciation, participation, and improvisation: the key domains of praxis

• Building reciprocal interactions in dyads and groups

• Using challenges, paradoxes, and impasses

• Guidelines for designing and implementing a curriculum in mentor education

  A bold reappraisal of current theory and practice and a new conceptualization of mentoring as domains of appreciation, participation and improvisation in praxis, Learning to Mentor-as-Praxis belongs in every academic library and on the shelves of researchers and professionals in mentoring, teacher education, and curriculum development.

  Inhalt
  Introduction: Learning to Mentor-as-Praxis Foundations for a Curriculum in Teacher Education.- Learning to Mentor as Praxis: Situating the Conversation.- Learning to Mentor-as-Praxis: Toward a Conceptual Framework.- Domain of Appreciation.- Domain of Participation.- Domain of Improvisation.- Reciprocal Connections in Dyadic Interactions.- Reciprocal Connections in Group Interactions.- Toward the Design of a Curriculum on Learning to Mentor.- Records of Mentoring Practices.- Constructivist-Dialogic Pedagogies: Lessons From the Field.- Epilogue: Putting It All Together.