A particularly important part of your role as a mentor is to facilitate
your mentee’s growth by providing an appropriate blend of challenge and
support. This means that you should encourage them to apply theories and
models of good practice that they are learning on their teacher education
programme, or suggestions that you offer them from your experience. At
the same time you will enable them to analyse and reflect on their own learning
and teaching, as well as that of others, in a spirit of constructive criticism
and in a non-threatening atmosphere. It is vital that you use your own
experience to provide the right balance of challenge and support at each stage
of the mentee’s development, just as you would with your own learners.
Daloz (1986), shows the effect that different combinations of challenge
and support can have on the trainee teacher’s growth. His model is based
on two intersecting axes, representing challenge and support that move from
high to low, thus creating four quadrants, as shown here.
What do you think if the right balance between challenge and support is
not achieved. Describe what happens using the four combinations below.
High Challenge / Low Support
Low Challenge / Low support
Low Challenge / Low support
High Challenge / High Support
Low Challenge / High Support
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please remember to sign your name - but any personal information should be sent directly to me.