122nd General Meeting of the KCS

Type Poster Presentation
Area Chemistry Education
Room No. Grand Ballroom
Time 10월 18일 (목요일) 11:00~12:30
Code EDU.P-493
Subject The Relationship between Mentor Teachers’ Mentoring Characteristics and Mentee Teachers’ Reflective Practice in Collaborative Mentoring
Authors Jihun Park, Hanyoung Kim1, Jeonghee Nam*
Department of Chemical Education, Pusan National University, Korea
1Center for Science Teaching and Learning, Pusan National University, Korea
Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between mentor teachers’ mentoring characteristics and mentee teachers’ reflective practices in addition to determining mentor teachers’ methods of mentoring to enhance mentee teachers’ reflective practices. Participants of this study were four mentee teachers and four mentor teachers who participated in the collaborative mentoring program, as well as a research team that consisted of a professor as an expert of science education, a doctorate candidate, and a Ph.D student in science education who is also a researcher of this study. The collaborative mentoring program was managed by arranging four mentee teachers with less than two years of teaching experience and four mentor teachers into four pairs. The conceptual elements of the collaborative mentoring program applied in this study - ‘Communication Skill’, ‘Pedagogical Content Knowledge(PCK)’, ‘Reflective Thinking’, and ‘Reflective Practice’ - were represented in four activities titled ‘One-on-one Mentoring’, ‘Seminar and Workshop’, ‘Self-evaluation’ and ‘Discussion’. One-on-one mentoring, the core of the collaborative mentoring program, was performed five times. One-on-one mentoring provides mentee teachers the opportunity to reflect, after they have been given feedback on their actual classes by mentor teachers. This study compiled mentor and mentee teachers’ journals, records and transcripts from mentee teachers’ five periods of classes, lesson plans, evaluation forms of lessons, one-on-one mentoring records and transcripts, questionnaires conducted before, during, and after the mentoring program, and a questionnaire about the effects of one-on-one mentoring. The mentoring characteristics of mentor teachers’ were analysed quantitatively based on interaction methods with mentee teachers in one-on-one mentoring conversations, content of teaching feedback and feedback frequency from mentor teachers. A qualitative analysis was performed focusing on cases that exhibited mentoring characteristics. Mentee teachers’ reflective thinking was assessed for self-reflections of their classes and reflections on the support provided by mentor teachers. Mentee teachers’ reflective practices were analysed quantitatively through RTOP; a qualitative analysis was carried out based on mentor and mentee journals and a questionnaire about the effects of one-on-one mentoring. The conclusions of this study are as follows. Firstly, mentor teachers can improve mentee teachers’ reflective practices by facilitating conversation that helps mentees perceive problems in their teaching practices. According to the results of the study, mentee teachers’ self-reflection influenced their reflections on support provided by mentor teachers’ and generally led to reflective practices. Therefore, mentoring that assists the development of mentees’ self-reflection should be supplied in order to encourage reflective practices regarding support provided by mentor teachers. Mentee teachers’ self-reflection depended on mentor teachers’ methods of interaction. When mentor teachers applied unilateral and directive mentoring, self-reflection rarely occurred. However, when mentor teachers encouraged mentee teachers to discover problems on their own, using questions that promote reflective thinking, self-reflection was volunteered more regularly. Secondly, when mentor teachers give feedback, this support helps mentee teachers identify and solve problems by themselves and encourages mentee teachers’ reflective practices. The teachers who reflected on problems existing in their own classes practiced reflection well, although not every case of reflective thinking led to reflective practices. Reflective practices rarely materialized when mentee teachers were asked to solve problems without aid from mentor teachers because of the lack of PCK. However, when mentor teachers helped mentee teachers find solutions during mentoring conversations, mentee teachers were able to solve problems by themselves, and as a result, mentees practiced reflection more frequently. Thirdly, mentee teachers’ reflective practices can be encouraged when mentor teachers specifically emphasize reflective thinking. Although mentor teachers were unable to elicit voluntary reflection from mentee teachers due to their lack of strategies, when mentor teachers specifically emphasized reflective thinking, mentee teachers’ reflections on support from mentor teachers occurred frequently. Lastly, mentee teachers’ reflective practices can improve through continuous communication between mentor teachers and mentee teachers. Mentee teachers practiced reflection more often when they expressed the kind of support they desired from mentor teachers and when mentor teachers evaluated their own mentoring methods by constantly checking that mentee teachers were being helped by their mentoring. Mentee teachers’ reflective practices did not improve when their requests for support were ignored or when mentee teachers were unable to easily communicate the kind support they desired to the mentor teachers.
E-mail parkji6980@nate.com