Mentoring in a Cohort Model of Practicum: Mentors and Preservice Teachers’ Experiences in a Rural South African School

Tabitha Grace Mukeredzi

SAGE Open, 2017, vol. 7, issue 2, 2158244017709863

Abstract: Little is known about mentoring student cohorts from largely urban backgrounds doing practicum at one school, living alongside the community, and sharing residential facilities with teacher educators in a rural context. This article reports Bachelor of Education students’ and mentors’ school-based mentoring experiences during a 4-week residential practicum in a rural setting. Data generated through in-depth group discussions with students and mentors were analyzed using content analysis. Experiences revolved around professional support, lesson observations and feedback, collaboration, and modeling. Notwithstanding that mentors were a source of wisdom in practical knowledge for students, they gained valuable professional knowledge around teaching styles and learner engagement from students. Collaborations rejuvenated mentor practices and stimulated their reflection, enthusiasm, and passion for work. Nondevelopmental experiences related to poor mentor communication, lack of modeling lessons, and objectivity in feedback. Although the overall impression from participants was positive, there is evidence of unequal mentor–mentee relationships and failure to construct the mentoring process as a journey of initiation into the preservice teacher’s life role. I illustrate that in-school mentoring in the South African education context may be enhanced, if school-based teacher educators are exposed to mentoring practices and school-based supports through comprehensive ongoing training to better prepare them for supporting not only preservice teachers but also novice teachers.

Keywords: cohort; mentoring experiences; mentor; preservice teachers; rural school (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244017709863 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:7:y:2017:i:2:p:2158244017709863

DOI: 10.1177/2158244017709863

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().