Reciprocal mentoring: Effects on mentors' development of expertise in teaching

Mentoring has been seen as an ongoing effort to professionalize teaching in teacher education since the 1980s. It is commonly believed that collaborating mentors and student teachers can benefit through the dynamics of school- based mentoring. Reflectivity is said to be one mechanism by which changes occur both in the student teacher and the mentor. Ethnographic research methods incorporating direct observation and interviews were employed in studying mentoring practices in initial teacher education. The mentors are language teachers who acted as mentors for students of the Bachelor of Education programme at The University of Hong Kong. An analytical framework, developed from the literature, is used to interpret and illustrate the effects of mentoring practices on the mentors' development of expertise in teaching; in terms of reflection, practical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. Results indicate that student teachers' practices in learning to teach become an object about which mentors engage in reflection. Reflection through conversations plays a key role in experienced teachers' development of expertise in teaching. Such reflection requires three kinds of capacities: theorizing practical knowledge, pedagogical reasoning and collaborative inquiry.