Chapter 9: Advancing the Professional Development of Beginning Teachers’ through Mentoring and Action Research
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Published:2002
Jack Levy, Lynn Shafer, Kristy Dunlap, 2002. "Advancing the Professional Development of Beginning Teachers’ through Mentoring and Action Research", Teacher Training and Effective Pedagogy in the Context of Student Diversity, Liliana Minaya-Rowe
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The Language Minority Teacher Induction Project (LMTIP) at George Mason University seeks to increase achievement of bilingual students through a mentoring system for beginning teachers that features reflective practice and action research. It was developed after a careful analysis of relevant literature and discussions with K-12 partners. Incorporated in the model is a research design which addresses each of the project’s main features. The questions which explore the role of action research are presented below, and are the main focus of this chapter.
How can action research contribute to the academic achievement of bilingual students?
How can action research contribute to an improvement of instruction for bilingual students?
How can mentoring, reflective practice and the formation of teacher support groups contribute to successful action research in multilingual settings?
The mentoring system, supported by reflective practice and teacher research, resulted in many examples of improved academic achievement and instruction for bilingual students. In addition, it contributed to the confidence and resiliency of the project’s beginning teachers.
The project has been a benefit to the school in that it helps all of us better our teaching skills through the interactions of the teachers in the group. A lot of us discovered that we had mutual problems with the kids, and the group was able to come up with answers that no one teacher was able to come up with alone.
—Beginning high school teacher
