Teacher professional development of experienced teachers and novices: the mentoring hybrid program

Abstract

The early years of the teaching career are a particularly complex period, as these teachers usually have the most complicated classes in difficult schools and rarely receive institutional support. In view of the lack of initiatives and programs aimed at the follow-up and support of beginning teachers in their first years of professional activity, an intervention research is proposed that aims to investigate the contributions and limits of a Hybrid Mentoring Program for the professional development of novice teachers and experienced teachers, the mentors, from different levels of teaching, from different emphases, namely beginner teachers, experienced teachers and the program itself. Its realization seeks to understand the different implications of the hybrid character - understood as the articulation of virtual and face-to-face activities (Vaughan, 2010), of closer relations between the teacher education and the teaching performance and overcoming the usual disconnection between university-school (Zeichner, 2010) - for learning processes and professional development of teaching teachers novice in interaction with experienced teachers, mentors. The theoretical framework includes: beginning teachers; experienced teachers; mentors, mentoring programs; teaching and professional development; knowledge base; university-school partnership; hybrid learning spaces; written narratives: Veenman, 1984; Abarca, 1999; Mizukami et al., 2002; Garcia, 2002, 1999; Shulman, 1987 and 2005; Zeichner, 2010; Vaughan, 2010; Slater, 2010 etc. A constructive-collaborative approach (Cole and Knowles, 1993) is adopted for research and intervention. The data will be derived from different data collection tools obtained in face-to-face and virtual environments such as writing essays and biographies, writing journals and participating in forums and discussions, seminars, study groups, etc. The analysis of the data will be given procedurally since it can generate information and understandings to define the contours of the program and guide the action of the researchers. It is intended to obtain subsidies for mentoring programs with teachers of different levels and the comparison of this proposal with others already accomplished; analyze the hybrid character of the initiative, as well as specific aspects about beginning teachers and experienced teachers acting as mentors. The proponent group has extensive experience in face-to-face actions and via the internet for teacher training. It belongs to the permanent researchers of the PPGE-UFSCar with a consolidated academic production related to the subject of the proposal. One of the spaces that the proponent group has used to develop programs, courses and investigations is the Teachers´ Portal of UFSCar, located at www.portaldosprofessores.ufscar.br. This portal has, over time, provided information of different natures to any user and provides space for research usually based on a collaborative model of university-school interaction and focuses on processes of learning and professional development of teaching. In the various investigations, programs and courses developed the proponents have assumed that the teachers have knowledge that is built along their trajectories as students and professionals, which can be expanded, adjusted, revised in view of the characteristics of the various contexts of action and career moments. Another assumption is that teachers generally need support to develop professionally and that peer-to-peer dialogue, especially intergenerational in virtual or face-to-face spaces, with school and classroom issues as a focus, is an important tool in this process, despite the lack of knowledge in this respect. (AU)