Being adaptive to the individual novice teacher is considered a condition for effective teacher mentoring. The aims of this study are therefore to explore (1) mentoring activities through which mentors intend to adapt to the individual novice teacher and (2) characteristics of adaptive mentors. Information was collected through on-site, post-mentoring conversation interviews with 18 mentors holding different mentoring conceptions, from different programs for Initial Teacher Education in the Netherlands. Four adaptive mentoring activities were identified: (1) aligning mutual expectations about the mentoring process, (2) attuning to the novices' emotional state, (3) adapting the mentoring conversation to match the reflective capacity of the novice teacher, and (4) building tasks from simple to complex relative to the novices' competence level. Adaptive mentors were (1) more likely to mention activities intended to support construction of personal practical knowledge and (2) less likely to mention activities intended to create a favourable context for novice teacher learning. Suggestions for using findings to enhance mentor adaptiveness are discussed.

Current mentoring models for teacher preparation and induction emphasize the need to engage novice teachers' learning through collaborative professional learning communities. Mentors in such communities are expected to engage in joint knowledge construction with novices, and to be 'co-thinkers' who enact a developmental view of mentoring, as well as 'co-learners' who are willing to engage in mutual learning with their novices. These two aspects are assumed to be associated in mentor thinking. The aim of this questionnaire study was, therefore, to explore the relationship between mentors' mentoring conceptions and their mentoring motives. Participants were 726 secondary education mentor teachers, associated with 13 institutes for teacher preparation in the Netherlands. Results showed that a motivation to mentor for personal learning was more strongly associated with a developmental conception of mentored learning to teach than with an instrumental mentoring conception. The same was found for a motivation to mentor for contributing to the profession, but less pronounced. These findings suggest potential strategies for the selection and preparation of mentor teachers for programs that intend to foster collaborative inquiry approaches for novice teacher support.

Mentor teachers' views of their mentees Gisbert van Ginkel a , Jannet van Drie b and Nico Verloop c a radboud teachers academy, radboud university, nijmegen, the netherlands; b research institute of Child Development and education, university of amsterdam, amsterdam, the netherlands; c iCLon graduate school of teaching, Leiden university, Leiden, the netherlands ABSTRACT Successful mentoring relationships are essential for novice teachers entering the teaching profession. The success of the mentoring process depends in large part on the diagnostic abilities of the mentor, but there is little research on how mentor teachers view their mentees. In this small-scale study, we explored how 11 mentor teachers describe similarities and differences between their mentee teachers. We found that mentor teachers' descriptions predominantly relate to differences in personal engagement with pupils, identifying as a teacher, perfectionism and self-confidence. Mentors tended to describe these differences in terms of traits and dispositions. We provide suggestions for addressing this issue in mentor preparation and for using findings in mentor training, and we provide a conceptual framework for future studies of mentor teachers' views of their mentees. High diagnostic ability is a distinctive feature of both successful teaching and mentoring (Schwille, 2008). In teacher mentoring, it requires professional knowledge of mentee teachers as adult learners (Reiman & Thies-Sprinthall, 1998). Successful mentoring relationships are considered essential for novice teachers to survive their initial teaching experiences, develop their teaching competencies, and define their teaching lives (Fairbanks, Freedman, & Kahn, 2000; Long et al., 2012; Marable & Raimondi, 2007). Precondition for such successful mentoring relationships is a good match between mentor and mentee. Therefore, mentor teachers are expected to attend to the different and individual needs of their mentee teachers (Bullough, 2012). These different needs may derive from mentee's different learning preferences, teaching concerns, stages of development, readiness levels regarding various teaching competencies, tensions in professional identity formation, images and beliefs about teaching, and goals and expectations concerning the mentoring relationship

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