The context and practice of school-based mentoring of pre-service teachers in Zimbabwe

[摘要] Changes in teacher education that are experienced worldwide have continued to influenceteacher preparation in developing countries such as Zimbabwe. These changes have seenteacher education literally shifting to include schools in recent years and this has placed newdemands on teachers in schools. However, there has not been a corresponding capacitation ofschool personnel for their new roles. In addition to teaching, teachers have been expected toplay a critical role in teacher education as mentor teachers. This study, besides analysing thedifferences in mentoring contexts in secondary schools, sought to determine if and howdifferent mentoring contexts shape mentoring practices. In an attempt to provide a deeperunderstanding of how school-based mentoring of pre-service teachers is practiced in variousschool contexts of Zimbabwe and with what consequences for the classroom practices of thepre-service teachers, the current study used a qualitative multi-case study to investigatementoring contexts and practices in selected secondary schools in one district in Zimbabwe.The unit of analysis was the mentoring pair in conveniently selected secondary schools. Thementoring pairs were purposively sampled and comprised of pre-service teachers who wereon Teaching Practice (TP) in their final semester and their mentors from a population ofPostgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) students of the university that was studied.The data analysis process for interviews, observations of mentoring sessions and documentsresulted in the emergence of the main themes and selected sub-themes from the categories.The Vygotskian socio-cultural theory with its main tenets of mental development based onsocial interaction, the use of the more knowledgeable other (MKO), and the zone of proximaldevelopment (ZPD) was used as a lens to interpret findings of the present study. The mainthemes were contexts, mentoring practices, pre-service teachers' classroom practices andimprovements in mentoring of pre-service teachers.The findings of this study suggest that the contexts in which mentoring took place weredifferent and as expected, there were different challenges which formed the basis for improving the practice of mentoring pre-service teachers in secondary schools. In addition,the current study established that teachers, despite not having formal training in mentoring;they have been able to contribute to teacher development using their limited expertise in teacher education and at times limited resources. Though teachers were not specificallytrained as mentors, the way they have accepted their assumed new role of teacher educator inthe schools can be commended as they have made significant contributions to teacherdevelopment for no extra pay. Furthermore, teachers were informally in-serviced during thementoring process, especially on contemporary teaching methodologies. However, the studyrecommends the establishment of communities of practice as part of the schools-universitypartnership to capacitate the mentoring pairs. Consequently, the study proposes an evolvingmodel for improving school-based mentoring of pre-service teachers that could lead toimproved teaching and learning in secondary schools as they offer opportunities for learningto teach.

[发布机构] University of the Free State