Influence of mentoring and professional communities on the professional development of a cohort of early career secondary mathematics and science teachers

Abstract

A challenge for public schools is to successfully support and professionally develop early career teachers (ECTs) and thereby prepare them for long and successful careers in education. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to describe how the professional practices of early career science and mathematics teachers, some of whom are career changers, were influenced by their interactions with mentors and professional communities. Topics examined included the contextual elements that influenced the ECTs’ interactions with mentors and professional communities, how teachers positioned themselves within multiple professional communities, and how they perceived these experiences had influenced the development of their teaching practice. An extensive semi‐structured interview of the ECTs generated data that were analyzed to identify emergent themes and patterns. The findings of this study indicated that navigating professional communities and interacting with mentors had influenced the ECTs’ decisions to adopt important components of a learner‐centered approach to teaching that included engaging students in active learning processes, utilizing formative assessment, and responding to students' individual needs. These findings have implications for school policies and approaches related to supporting and professionally developing unique cohorts of ECTs.

Supporting novice mathematics teachers: The impact of an e-mentoring and video-based professional development program on teachers’ noticing skills

“…Using various materials (e.g., e-books, videos, and live lessons) and with the participation of 28 pre-school teachers and nine academics, the content supported the professional knowledge, learning environments and classroom applications of the preschool teachers. On the other hand, only a few studies reported findings of mentoring practices designed for mathematics teachers (Guler & Celik, 2022;Simonsen et al, 2009;Surrette, 2020). In an experimental study conducted by Guler and Celik (2022), an e-mentoring application enriched with both videos and video clips were used to enhance lesson analysis skills of twelve novice mathematics teachers.…”