CURRENT PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHER MENTORING

<doi>10.24250/jpe/Vol.32/1/2023/LCT

Abstract

From the perspective of the ideas promoted by modern educational paradigms, the role and activity of the mentor teacher must converge with them, both in terms of carrying out the practical educational activity by the mentor teacher and in terms of advising beginning teachers or the students/pupils carrying out their pedagogical practice. How they carry out the mentoring activity and how they coordinate and direct the didactic activities of the beginning teachers or students are essential factors in their initial training with an impact on their future didactic activity. A current, modern perspective of the mentor regarding the elements of the educational process, regarding its procedural teaching-learning-evaluation, will support the shaping of an appropriate, up-to-date vision for the mentored individuals, which will be reflected in their own teaching activities. The quality of the teacher mentoring activity is conditioned not only by the characteristics that define the profile of a competent mentor (pedagogical expertise, interpersonal skills, communication, the ability to provide constructive feedback, to ensure proper management of lessons, etc.) but also by the implementation in the educational practice and the mentoring activity of the trends of modern educational paradigms. In correlation with the abovementioned ideas regarding the development of the teaching mentoring activity following the characteristics of modern educational paradigms, we investigated the opinion of a group of teachers in pre-university education regarding the importance of carrying out the teacher mentoring activity and the didactic activity in general in agreement with the trends in the evolution of didactics and current paradigms.