Reverse mentoring and peer coaching as professional development strategies

Abstract

Presently, learning a foreign language is an essential academic requirement in several contexts, hence the importance and the need for effective teaching in this field at all educational levels starting with the first years of school. As a consequence, teaching and learning in elementary school is a key issue to success in the learner’s future language learning. However, at some public elementary schools in Colombia there are many factors that hinder this process. One of them is the fact that most of the teachers who are in charge of teaching English in elementary schools are not sufficiently trained to do this job (McNulty & Quinchía, 2007). For this reason, the aim of this study is to strengthen the pedagogical practices of the participating teachers. Guided by the theoretical foundations of peer coaching and reverse mentoring, this mixed-methods study examined strategies for professional development via results of an English test, class observations, questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, and journals. Findings show the effectiveness of the proposal in terms of the professional growth of the participants who exchanged teaching experiences and pedagogical tools within a mutual and trusting atmosphere. This helped them to enhance their knowledge about teaching a foreign language and test new teaching techniques and strategies to favor their students’ language learning.

Using Reverse Mentoring to Transform In-Service Teachers’ Beliefs About How to Teach English

“…Augustinienė and Čiučiulkienė claim that "effective reverse mentoring is based on the duality of roles and is always a twoway flow of learning which may be characterized as a boomerang effect" (p. 76). Likewise, Porras et al (2018) affirm that the relationship between in-service elementary school teachers and student-teachers in a reverse mentoring experience was strengthened because the attitude of both sides was open and collaborative. This concept is coherent with Murphy's (2012), who points out that mentoring facilitates reciprocal gains for those involved in terms of learning, growth, and development Therefore, these aspects are clearly related to changes in assumptions and participants' preconceived notions of themselves as mentors and mentees.…”

“…This shows that being an English teacher at any school level requires not only a good command of the language, but also the use of a specific methodology. According to Porras et al (2018), "it is paramount that teachers be sufficiently qualified since they play an important role as facilitators of the teaching and learning process, equally, [they] are a source of input for their students, especially at the elementary level" (p. 170). For this reason, the reverse mentoring stage was beneficial for the in-service teachers since they became aware of the importance of possessing knowledge as regards how to teach English to children.…”

Engagement, inclusion, knowledge sharing, and talent development: is reverse mentoring a panacea to all? Findings from literature review

“…A number of the articles published on reverse mentoring were not data-driven but were written using an original conceptual idea that provided a framework and opportunity for new research (Baily, 2009; Bolser and Gosciej, 2015; Boysen et al , 2016; Brinzea, 2018; Chaudhuri, 2019; Chaudhuri and Ghosh, 2012; Harvey et al , 2009; Lawrence, 2017; Morris, 2017; Murphy, 2012; Napier, 2006; Sanner-Stiehr and Vandermause, 2017; Zauschner-Studnicka, 2017). Few studies have been found to use a mixed-method approach to measure the effectiveness of reverse mentoring (Chen, 2018; Leedahl et al , 2019; Leh, 2005; Porras et al , 2018). The quantitative studies have been mainly descriptive using survey and cross-sectional research designs, quasi-experimental design and regression analysis (Biss and DuFrene, 2006; Chen, 2014, 2015; Hechl, 2017).…”

Teacher's Well-Being - A Premise For The Development Of The Professional Community

“…actors pursuing the same goals and sharing a common temporality (Díaz-Vicario & Gairín Sallán, 2018). According to Porras et al (2018), teacher interactions promote reflective practice, as they question their own knowledge and learning process and find the best ways to encourage the professional development of their colleagues (Porras et al, 2018).…”