Author(s): Betty Achinstein and Steven Z. Athanases
Publisher: Teacher College Record
ISBN: 0161-4681, Pages: 1486-1520, Year: 2003

With pressures to plan, perform, and manage, new teachers often attend less to the learning of individual students. However, there is no fault to novice teachers since many models of learning to teach describe this as a natural development and once a teacher progresses the focus will move from self, to curriculum, and finally to students.

Betty Achinstein and Steven Athanases discovered in their study, which drew on the practice of 37 experienced teacher induction leaders and the case studies of mentor/new teacher pairs, that mentors can actually interrupt the above described tendency of new teachers and focus them initially on the learning of individual students, especially the underperforming. However, problems of focusing on individual learners are varied and often complex.

After conversing with experienced teacher induction leaders Achinstein and Athanases learned that mentors who were able to tap the knowledge of both student and teacher learners, pedagogy for classrooms, and had deep knowledge of assessment, including: assessment of students, curriculum and standards, and the formative assessment of new teachers were better able to help focus new teachers early on individual student learning.

The teacher induction leaders used in the study provided much information on mentor knowledge and abilities needed to focus new teachers on individual student learning and growth. One table in the report shows three main areas teacher induction leaders believe are most pertinent (see below). Each of the main ideas is then detailed, with description and examples for each.

One key point is that mentors must have knowledge of effective instructional strategies, which means they should know strategies, know how to recognize them in the beginning teacher, and know how to coach to increase the use of them. Another is that mentors need to know the students in a new teacher's class and not just be a "drop-in" visitor. A mentor should be known not only by the teacher but also by his/her students. And finally, the most critical, according to the teacher induction leaders, is assessment. The domains of assessment essential in the mentor's repertoire of practice include assessment knowledge linked to instruction with students, linked to frameworks, and linked to the process of interacting with new teachers to focus their instruction on individual students. This study may be read in full for a fee of $7 at http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=11554.