The mentoring process, whether informal or formal, involves a relationship between two or more individuals. Dominguez and Frances Kochan explored how mentoring "is a developmental relationship grounded in and molded by philosophical, historical, and sociological factors." The authors present an argument for the need to clearly define mentoring and its implications for research, but at the same time provide an explanation for the difficulty of adopting one term that can be applied in different contexts and purposes. Heffron presented an argument that links mentoring and building social capital. The author used the Soka model of mentoring to describe what mentoring looks like using the framework. Brondyk used the theory of loose coupling to examine how mentor practices vary. To illustrate this theory in action, the author drew from the experiences of student teaching mentors or field supervisors in one educator preparation program.

A large gap exists between the percentage of teachers and of students who are Hispanic. To better understand this gap, we compared Hispanic and White preservice teachers' motivations for becoming teachers and perceptions of the teaching profession during their application to a large traditional teacher certification program at a Hispanic-serving institution. Analysis of 1,600 survey responses revealed many statistically significant differences, and many of the differences across ethnicity varied by the type of teacher certification sought. Suggestions for how teacher preparation programs can design and market their programs to recruit more Hispanic preservice teachers are explored.

In this paper, we extend on our exploratory study that examined mentors' conceptualizations and practices of mentoring preservice teachers in a residency program to develop a mentoring framework to guide mentors' approaches to mentoring preservice teachers in a year-long clinical experience. Our mentoring framework has the potential to make mentors consciously aware of their roles and purposes of mentoring throughout the year and within respective contexts. This metacognitive approach may help them to improve their practice and grow alongside their mentee. The Mentoring Framework for Mentoring is a tool that may be instrumental in developing mentors' deeper understanding of the roles and purposes of mentoring to promote quality guidance and support for mentees. Our instrument has the potential to inform teacher preparation programs regarding goals and expectations for mentors to develop more formal mentoring guidelines and expectations, to better support the professional development of both preservice teachers and mentors.

The purpose of our study was to examine mentors’ conceptualizations of mentoring residents (preservice teachers) in a teacher residency program. Understanding the nuances of mentoring in a year-long placement in a mentor’s classroom may further illuminate mentoring in this context. In this qualitative, longitudinal study, we used constant comparative analysis to allow the data to drive recurring patterns and ideas linked to real-life situations and values coding to examine mentors’ conceptualizations of mentoring in a residency program. Residents enrolled in the federally-funded Teaching Residency Program for Critical Shortage Areas program were placed in a high-need urban secondary school for a year-long clinical experience to work alongside mentors, who had a non-evaluative role. By examining mentors’ conceptualizations of mentoring in this particular context, our data reveal aspects of their agency that reflected three main themes: (a) professional altruism, (b) extant knowledge, and (c) resident as stimulus. Our findings add to the research on mentoring by illuminating the voices of mentors to describe how they conceptualized mentoring and to further examine their motivations for mentoring, contributions to the mentee, and professional gains.

Given the benefits associated with authentic field experiences (Edwards, 1996; McMahan, Malone, Fredrickson, & Dunlap, 2015; Siwatu, 2011 ), it is not uncommon to include early field experiences prior to student teaching as a way to engage university students with teaching diverse students in an authentic school setting. This study explored preservice teachers’ perceptions of their pedagogical growth and development as an aspiring teacher in a structured field experience placement prior to student teaching. Data was analyzed using qualitative techniques and revealed three main themes. The following themes reflected preservice teachers’ perceptions of their growth: viewing through a prescriptive lens, valuing the collaborative experience, and fostering self-awareness. While preservice teachers valued the collaborative experience, they expressed a superficial level of pedagogical learning and their thinking reflected a narrow scope from a prescriptive lens. Our findings suggest a need for teacher educators to help preservice teachers’ develop a deeper understanding of the dynamics of teaching during their initial experiences of learning to teach in authentic settings.

The purpose of our study was to examine mathematics and science pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their mentoring experiences during their 1st year in the Teaching Residency Program for Critical Shortage Areas, an initiative designed to recruit, prepare, and retain teachers for high-need urban schools. Results from this mixed-methods study illustrated pedagogical aspects and mentor characteristics that enhanced and impeded pre-service teachers’ growth and development. Therefore, professional development, especially working with adults, must also include frequent monitoring of the mentoring relationships to identify problematic situations. Our findings also suggested that an extended field experience helps deter deficit thinking about a diverse student population. The dynamics of teaching alongside a mentor through a residency program, coupled with the challenges of an urban setting, provide an opportunity for researchers to continue to examine pre-service teachers’ development and to identify effective practices to build mentor capacity.

The purpose of our study was to examine mathematics and science pre-service teachers' perceptions of their mentoring experiences during their 1st year in the Teaching Residency Program for Critical Shortage Areas, an initiative designed to recruit, prepare, and retain teachers for high-need urban schools. Results from this mixed-methods study illustrated pedagogical aspects and mentor characteristics that enhanced and impeded pre-service teachers' growth and development. Therefore, professional development, especially working with adults, must also include frequent monitoring of the mentoring relationships to identify problematic situations. Our findings also suggested that an extended field experience helps deter deficit thinking about a diverse student population. The dynamics of teaching alongside a mentor through a residency program, coupled with the challenges of an urban setting, provide an opportunity for researchers to continue to examine pre-service teachers' development and to identify effective practices to build mentor capacity.

The accountability pressures of the recent decade require that instructional leaders work with teachers to ensure student academic success. The “walkthrough” or “walkthrough observation” is an instructional leadership practice that has been regarded as a promising avenue to collaboratively work with teachers. This exploratory study examines aspiring instructional leaders’ perceptions regarding the walkthrough observation. Findings indicate that this type of practice is perceived as a Bureaucratic Approach, incorporating a one-way transmission of feedback from the principal to the observed teacher, or as a Collaborative Approach, including teachers in conducting observations and actively participating in the collection of walkthrough data. Additionally, findings suggest that regardless of the perceived approach, a walkthrough observation may be considered an authentic feedback data source.

Transitioning from Student to Professional: Preservice Teachers' PerceptionsThe ongoing national discourse on warrants a continued focus on the affective dimensions of the complex process of learning to teach (Billet, 2009). As Hollins (2011) has indicated, assuming responsibility for one's role as a professional is an important dispositional component of a teacher' s effectiveness, suggesting that education programs must intentionally coordinate learning and teaching responsibilities for preservice teachers by helping them to shift from self-as-student to self-as-teacher (Holt-Reynolds, 1991).Preservice teachers enter their preparation programs with preconceived notions about teaching that are strongly influenced by their own experiences (Fajet, Bello, Leftwich, Mesler, & Shaver, 2005). These preconceptions can enhance or impede learning and ultimately influence preservice teachers' interpretations of their observations and experiences during their initial contact and interaction with students, teachers, and other school personnel (Kagan, 1992). Additionally, the development of becomes more complex when education programs impose their own value systems on aspiring teachers rather than helping them to foster their own moral and ethical (Borko, Liston, & Whitcomb, 2007). As Shin (2012) suggested, preservice teachers need time to dialogue about and to self-reflect about their thinking as a means of promoting their professional growth. In response to Shin's proposal, our study examined preservice teachers' of their growth and transition from university students to teaching professionals in a field-based practicum prior to student teaching. A better understanding of preservice teachers' of their emerging before student teaching may inform educators how to design clinical experiences that help prepare them for the realistic demands of the profession.Conceptual FrameworkDispositions in EducationThis study is guided by a conceptual framework that encompasses dispositions, self-regulation, and identity and illuminates preservice teachers' of their field experiences and emerging dispositions. Since the notion of professional is somewhat nebulous, greater clarity is needed due to the multiplicity of definitions and labels (Ripski, L°Casale-Crouch, & Decker, 2011). Providing clarity for an educator preparation program can help guide expectations and knowledge and skills for its preservice teachers in learning how to respond socially and professionally in an educational setting. Dispositions are described as a set of prescribed behaviors or practices that may be aligned with a set of standards or expectations (Thornton, 2006, p. 54). For example, in the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) Model Core Teaching Standards (Council of Chief State School Officers, 2013) are defined as of professional action and moral commitments that underlie the [teaching] performances (p. 6). Aligning expectations with standards is one way to provide preservice teachers with a personal compass that can be used for self-assessing their actions and behavior. According to Thornton (2006), dispositions are habits of mind including both cognitive and affective attributes that filter one's knowledge, skills, and beliefs and impact the action one takes in the classroom or professional setting (p. 62). When an individual embraces this perspective, the choices that are made as a professional are inculcated and reflected through actions and words. While the descriptive language used to define may vary, teacher behavior, characteristics, and perceptions are common threads (Wasicsko, 2007, p. 54). Despite the varying definitions, are viewed by many as critically linked to student success and a necessary professional expectation (Hallam, 2009). …

Blogging, a mode of electronic journaling, has been identified as an effective means to help pre-service teachers to construct meaning about their experiences. The purpose of this study was to examine pre-service teachers’ reflections about their praxis through blogging and to describe the nature of their growth and development. The use of reflective writing through blogging helped to identify three themes that emerged from the data: (1) validation, (2) prescriptive, and (3) self-assessment. Our findings suggest that blogging facilitated a community of learners that provided support and encouragement. Pre-service teachers’ reflections revealed a focus on the mechanistic aspects of teaching without critically examining the nature of what was observed. However, our findings also suggest that structuring reflective thinking through blogging has the potential to foster a nascent understanding about teaching and learning.

This mixed methods investigation specifically examined Latino high school adolescents’ perceptions of teacher behaviors that demonstrate caring. A chi-square test was conducted to analyze the frequency of responses, and focus group interviews were conducted to expand on the results. The data indicated that although Latino male students were as likely to perceive the same behaviors Latina female students perceived as important or very important, a higher percentage of female students rated the same items as important. This investigation situates Latino high school adolescents’ voices as a pivotal agent to inform about the critical nature of caring for all students.

The critical challenge of recruiting, preparing, and retaining high-quality mathematics and science teachers for high-need urban schools is complex. Therefore, identifying factors that support and impede a teaching residency program's implementation may have the potential to build an effective initiative that will benefit all stakeholders. The purpose of our study was to examine preservice teachers' perceptions about their experiences in the Teaching Residency Program for Critical Shortage Areas program, a federally funded program designed to address teacher shortages in mathematics and science in high-need schools. Three themes emerged from the data analysis: (a) the residency framework, (b) a relevant curriculum, and (c) immersion in an authentic school context. Our findings have the potential to inform policy-makers, school administrators, university directors of school partnerships, and other individuals who have direct influence on teacher recruitment and retention.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine preservice teachers’ perceptions of their learning and teaching experiences in a mentor's classroom during a year-long field-based placement in a high-need urban school. In addition, the authors sought to examine how the experiences contributed to their professional growth and development as future teachers.Design/methodology/approach– This qualitative study used constant comparative analysis (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) to examine preservice teachers’ responses to an open-ended questionnaire, program survey, and also in focus groups about their mentoring experiences.Findings– The findings provide insight into participants’ mentors’ influence during a year-long placement and into characteristics of effective mentoring that contributed to their growth. Major findings of preservice teachers’ mentoring experiences in a high-need urban setting reflected two dominant themes: experiencing a pedagogical fulcrum and navigating the tributaries of professionalism.Research limitations/implications– The study is limited by the small number of participants from one large public university and included only secondary preservice teachers enrolled in one residency program designed to prepare mathematics, science, and special education teachers. Caution should be taken against generalizing the findings, regarding preservice teachers’ learning and teaching experiences in a mentor's classroom, to resident teachers in other areas due to the small sample size and interpretation of the findings.Originality/value– The findings provide a different perspective about the mentoring process to that provided by previous studies because preservice teachers learned and taught in the mentor's classroom during one academic school year without being evaluated by the mentor. The findings illuminate preservice teachers’ professional growth fostered by their experiences and highlight characteristics of the mentor's influence that contributed to their development.

In this exploratory qualitative study we examined teachers’ perceptions of teacher behaviors that convey caring in upper elementary and middle school classrooms. Data collection included teacher interview, classroom observations, and teacher self-reflection. Major findings include specific caring behaviors perceived by teachers that are identified and described in four themes: (a) fostering a sense of belonging, (b) getting to know students personally, (c) supporting academic success, and (d) attending to physiological needs. Our findings contribute to a body of research on caring by including teachers’ voices and illuminating an authentic approach in caring for students. Our description of caring behaviors and patterns of interactions demonstrate caring in ways that may not be congruent with the norm. Thus, our findings may provide new insight for educators to examine their personal ideology.

This article reports on an exploratory study of Latino high school students’ perceptions of a caring teacher and identifies specific teacher behaviors associated with care in a classroom environment important to Latino students. The findings suggest ways of improving Latino high school students’ academic experience through culturally responsive caring in ways congruent with Latino high school student’s needs. I argue that educators have an opportunity to assess their caring behaviors based on what Latino high school students perceive as caring. I also argue that educators must listen to what Latino students have to tell us in order to foster an environment that may lead to more positive schooling experiences for Latino students. In addition, this paper invites educators to engage in a critical self-analysis of classroom practices to examine how their behaviors facilitate and impede Latino student success.