How does one progress from protégé to professional to master? For thousands of years, it was accomplished by apprenticeship to a master, on a one-to-one or one-to-few basis. The advent of the industrial era necessitated training more people at a time than this model could accommodate; hence, the modern educational era. The traditional classroom model and coaching became standard. The disadvantage of this model, however, is that the nuance of the “master” is lost because it can only develop over a long-term, individual, guided, mentoring relationship. Although our institutions of higher learning successfully develop accomplished professionals with their three-tiered model of teaching, service, and research, these authors propose moving educators closer to the “master” level of skill by reincorporating the individual mentorship model in conjunction with small cohort coaching.

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