Chapter 2: Taking The Mentoring Of New Teacher Educators Seriously: Lessons From a Clinically-Intensive Teacher Preparation Program

The challenges facing teacher educators entering their first faculty position in a clinically intensive teacher preparation program reflect similar difficulties that novice teachers encounter upon entry to their own classroom.

Just as new teachers must learn the ropes while performing the work of teaching (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Wildman, Niles, Magliaro, & McLaughlin, 1989), so, too, must novice teacher educators learn to create clinically based learning opportunities for teacher candidates (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, 2018; Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009) while learning to navigate the university system, establish their practice as field-based practitioners, earn strong student/course evaluations (Ramsden, 2003) and address the realities of “publish or perish” (Russell & Korthagen, 1995).