Recording and Sharing Mentoring Best Practice

by Jonty Leese and Anna Donnelly

What we did:

In Initial Teacher Education (ITE), the role of coaching a student teacher is crucial. For new and established mentors and trainees, the ability to see good examples of coaching is a powerful tool to see and experience this process. Inspired by Knight’s coaching model (Knight, 2021) and combined with the unique lens of Warwick Teacher Values (Centre for Teacher Education, 2022) we were able to build a framework to support understanding of the equality of role within effective coaching. This process supports university tutors as well as school-based mentors.

To facilitate this, we recorded and edited post lesson mentor meetings from a variety of phases (KS1-KS4) in different contexts to build a clearer understanding of effective mentoring with current all stakeholders.

These were real staff and students, so it was an authentic learning conversation and formed part of their regular weekly meeting.

We processed these to add transcripts for accessibility (W3C, 2018) and used software which created a clickable audio and text of the conversations (otter.ai)

These were then shared on a site builder site here: breaking down into different categories for mentors, whether they were new to it or more experienced. See image below:

How it will be integrated into future practice:

These have been embedded into current practice for our online PGCE and will be shared through mentor training, with these as a support resource going forward for all routes.

These can be utilised as an “on demand” resource for mentors and trainees.

This forms a basis of a growing body of real-world examples which will grow incorporating future recordings ensuring that a range of contexts and examples reflecting the unique role of mentorship is captured.

Lessons Learnt:

It’s very time consuming to record, edit and upload video – even with an organised workflow, it took longer than anticipated.

The use of AI in technology is fallible – proof reading of automated transcripts is necessary to ensure accuracy and appropriateness of what has been transcribed.

It’s our responsibility to build time into training plans, rather than expect that these are additional and extra to core mentor requirements. This could form part of the compulsory 20 hours mentor training that all mentors are mandated to complete for the start of the 2024/25 academic year.

The recording and disseminating of a mentoring video which is intrinsically a private conversation is a powerful window into another person’s world. This can support lifting practitioners out of a silo mindset and can open them up into seeing practical examples of different approaches within the Warwick framework – giving them agency to transform their practice and to reflect upon their own methodologies.

Recording the videos does not require high production values to have value.

Watching a video as a standalone resource without guided reflection and dialogue- may be a missed opportunity; watching, pausing and reflecting as part of a dialogue can stimulate rich conversations (Alexander, 2021). Using the videos alongside pertinent questions to evoke reflection and transformation of practice is the next step.

References:

Alexander, R. (2021) ‘DIALOGIC TEACHING AND THE STUDY OF CLASSROOM TALK’.

Centre for Teacher Education (2022) Developing an ambitious ITE Curriculum. Available at: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/cte/about/ite-curriculum/ (Accessed: 3 March 2023).

Knight, J. (2021) The Definitive Guide to Instructional Coaching: Seven Factors for Success. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Definitive-Guide-Instructional-Coaching-Factors/dp/141663066X/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=The+Definitive+Guide+to+Instructional+Coaching%3A+Seven+Factors+for+Success&qid=1646652872&sr=8-3 (Accessed: 7 March 2022).

W3C (2018) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C, Web Accessibility Initiative. Available at: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/ (Accessed: 2 January 2019).

Abigail Ball : 13 Mar 2023 10:32 |  Tags: Anna Donnelly Jonty Leese Mentoring Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem