Joe is a new teacher who switched careers and brings energy and passion—but little formal preparation—to his first year of teaching. Sonya is in a teacher-residency program and will spend a year with an expert teacher before entering her own classroom. Carla started her first teaching job mid-year, stepping into a hard-to-fill position with emergency credentials. Bethany is a young preservice teacher, nervous but eager as she balances her final graduate coursework with semester-long student teaching.
Each of these new teachers fits the profiles of the educators who enter the profession today, coming in with vastly different backgrounds, preparation, and needs. Most are assigned mentors, but they require guides who can provide differentiated support.
For veteran teachers who have mentored colleagues for years, this shift in the professional needs of new teachers comes as no surprise. Because teacher shortages are now commonplace and complicated, many pathways into the classroom increasingly require little to no clinical or pedagogical training. The resulting strain on mentors to backfill knowledge gaps is growing, at a time when the number of veteran teachers able to serve as mentors is also diminishing. This is consistent with what mentors in the field share with us in our work as university researchers: They are often mentoring more than one mentee, each with a differing level of readiness for teaching. The potential negative impact on mentor teachers' well-being and their subsequent retention cannot be understated.
Demystifying Mentorship Myths
There is a persistent myth that the skills of good teachers and quality mentors are synonymous. But effective mentoring—like good teaching—requires preparation and expertise. Mentors are too rarely equipped, compensated, or professionally recognized for this key teacher-leadership role. As more teachers enter the profession with a patchwork of training and expertise, we must prepare mentors for new kinds of coaching, advising, and counseling duties. And we should begin by understanding how these professional mentors—veteran teachers formally trained to induct educators into the profession—approach their work.
Mentor teachers can have an enormous impact on how teachers are inducted into—and thereby retained in—education.
A decade ago, beginning in 2016, we received a series of Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) state-funded grants to support clinical faculty training. As a part of those development efforts, we collaborated with a group of 18 mentor teachers in our Northern Virginia school-university partnership network to develop a free mentor-training program called Mentoring Virginia. These mentors, who came from across licensure areas and grade levels, used research literature as a foundation to design an asynchronous, self-paced program with a range of practices (e.g., working with adult learners, building relationships, providing feedback) beyond the typical curriculum schools often use, which focuses primarily on mentoring logistics (e.g., due dates, deadlines, and forms).
In the past five years, over 1,000 teachers have completed the training, which addresses research-based mentoring pedagogies, including building mentor/mentee relationships, observing and providing pedagogical feedback, co-planning and co-teaching, and navigating difficult conversations. In most instances, the modules take five to seven hours to finish, and individuals complete the training as required by their school district or university partner. We analyzed written reflections from 112 of those teachers who completed the training to identify the skills of effective mentors they felt were most important.
The Skills for Mentorship
With the right support, professional mentors can do more than support logistics for new teachers; they can intentionally empower novice educators from varied preparation backgrounds as they transition into the profession, relying on four mentoring practices.
1. Professional Mentors Take a Collaborative Approach
Professional mentors recognize the power of collaboration, particularly around co-planning and co-teaching, yet they frequently note having to squeeze in or overlap these important conversations with existing responsibilities as a result of not having adequate time built into their schedules to work with mentees. So, they allow space for feedback delivery and application through more casual conversations and approach such exchanges in the way they would with any colleague. As one mentor teacher wrote, "I used to think that I would need to primarily instruct my mentee...now I think that the process of mentorship is collaborative, emphasizing a process of listening, observing, [and] discussing." These open discussions of teaching—rather than assessments of "ineffective practice" from an expert to an apprentice—allowed mentors to model reflection as a crucial teaching skill, with both parties recognizing their own and each other's growth.
2. Professional Mentors Are Experts at Gradual Release
Professional mentors articulate how to grow their mentees over time. As one teacher wrote to a hypothetical mentee, "As I gradually release you, more and more will be expected of you, and I will provide feedback for you both in an informal and formal manner." Mentors detailed scaffolding their mentees toward professional and pedagogical independence through modeling and think-alouds, and, when possible, transitions to co-planning and co-teaching. This stands in stark contrast to turning over responsibilities with no support or not relinquishing responsibilities at all. The training not only helped professional mentors recognize the benefits of releasing control, but it also taught them the mechanics of differentiating for their mentees' unique needs and not restricting them from trying new things.
Professionalizing mentoring offers an alternate pathway for veteran teachers to take on new challenges, hone unique skills, and deepen impacts from within the teaching profession.
3. Professional Mentors Recognize Their Roles in the Teacher Education Pipeline
Professional mentors embrace their vital role in teacher retention. Mentors described essential aspects of their job as modeling work/life balance, helping mentees establish a network of support, and teaching mentees to never forget their everyday impact. Each of these mentor actions contributes positively to new teacher well-being.
As one mentor shared with a mentee, "There will be times where you question your career choices and your daily lessons, but I hope that every day you are able to see the positive impact you have on those around you." Mentors viewed this aspect of their practice as one that continued beyond the formal mentoring structure and timeline, encouraging teachers to view them as a lifelong resource. Mentor teachers were also careful not to offer support as "toxic positivity"; rather, they acknowledged that teaching is a challenging career, employing honesty to prepare future teachers for the long term.
4. Professional Mentors Know Their Worth
Professional mentors acknowledge mentoring as a skillset distinct from their expertise as preK-12 pedagogues—one that requires intentional preparation in working with adult learners. The training grew not only the expertise of the mentors, but also their self-actualization as professionals inhabiting the mentor role. As one mentor shared, "I used to think that I would need to primarily instruct my mentee and share ideas for lesson planning, implementation, and classroom management. Now I think that the process of mentorship is collaborative, emphasizing a process of listening, observing, discussing, and offering positive feedback. It is a two-way street." Mentors identified mentoring as a professional trajectory—a position that might challenge them in ways beyond teaching.
Professionalizing mentoring also has the potential to counter teacher attrition for veteran education professionals, who often leave the classroom due to a lack of advancement opportunities. Professionalizing this role offers an alternate pathway to take on new challenges, hone unique skills, and deepen impacts from within the teaching profession—opportunities that are particularly useful for veteran teachers who may crave leadership avenues without aspiring for administration or higher education.
Investing in Professional Mentors
Mentor teachers can have an enormous impact on how teachers are inducted into—and thereby retained in—education. Our examination of asynchronous modules reinforces that professional learning can still be effective virtually. What is key is that mentor preparation addresses the multifaceted skills of mentoring beyond the logistics of a specific induction program.
The "professional mentor" role alone will not solve teacher shortage crises. But as today's teachers enter the classroom, a professional mentor who feels capable of supporting the full range of mentees' needs increases the odds that neither these veteran teachers nor their mentees will soon leave the classroom behind.
