Abstract
The Music Mentor Plus program was designed to introduce mentoring strategies teachers can implement during supervision of student teachers and early field experience interns, while also fostering connections between field-based modeling and university methods course content. Throughout the 2015–2016 school year, seven music teachers and two university music education faculty members engaged in a series of live workshops and ongoing electronic communication. Participants joined in discussions and role-play activities and completed readings and reflection assignments. In this article, we present an outline of the program as well as reflections on the experience from the faculty leaders and participating teachers.
School-based music teachers are expected to participate in professional development activities designed to improve their planning, teaching, and assessment. School or district-level professional development often occurs through assigned Professional Learning Communities directed toward implementation of particular instruction and assessment approaches, regularly coupled with discussion of impact on student learning. Other professional development activities include participation in short-term workshops focused on specialized topics offered by schools, school districts, professional organizations, or universities. While these types of professional development can provide useful ideas that may influence teaching practice, both are based on an assumption of expertise originating from external sources, rather than from teachers’ practice-based experiences (Craig, 2009; Stanley, 2011).
Teachers might participate in another type of professional development, variously referred to as a teacher community (Grossman, Wineburg, & Woolworth, 2000), collaborative teacher study group (Stanley, 2011), or knowledge community (Craig, 2009). This approach to professional development includes the creation of shared goals designed to foster teacher learning, regular meetings, and discussion that may be coupled with discussions of student learning impacts. Teachers or external associates (e.g., administrators, university professors, or consultants) facilitate meeting structure and content. Although this model has the potential to foster meaningful collaborative learning, particularly for music teachers who often experience isolation from other teachers based on teaching schedules or content area expertise (Conway & Christensen, 2006; Krueger, 1996; Russell, 2012; Scheib, 2004), groups may struggle with encouraging various perspectives, responding to disagreements, and maintaining a regular meeting schedule (Stanley, 2011).
Mentoring preservice teachers is another practice-based experience that many teachers engage in during their careers, and therefore it can be considered a type of professional development since it takes place within the school context over a period of time (Borko, 2004). Mentoring can function as professional development since it requires mentors to critically examine their teaching and then use this as a framework when advising novice teachers (Conway & Holcomb, 2008; Feiman-Nemser, 1998; Van Driel & Berry, 2012). Mentoring serves as a form of professional development when mentors gain new ideas from the preservice teacher, engage in more reflection on their practice, increase engagement of students, or modify their instructional approach (Hudson, 2013; Smith & Nadelson, 2016). Other potential benefits of mentoring include increased professional commitment (Grisham, Ferguson, & Brink, 2004; Weasmer & Woods, 2003), increased leadership capabilities (Field & Philpott, 2000), and use of reflection-in-action (Schön, 1983) where teachers demonstrate increased awareness and subsequent adjustments in their teaching (Lai, 2010).
While mentor teachers serve a critical function in the development of preservice music teachers’ pedagogical content and professional knowledge (Shulman, 1986), guidance for their supervisory work is often limited (Achinstein & Athanases, 2006; Berg & Sindberg, 2015; Zaffini, 2015). The lack of systematic mentor development is based in part on the assumption that mentoring and teaching are analogous. However, “one cannot simply pull veteran teachers out of the classroom, call them mentors, and expect them to have the skills needed to handle this complex work” (Helman, 2006, p. 81). Achinstein and Athanases (2006) suggest the knowledge base for mentoring is divided into three broad domains: (1) learners and learning, (2) curriculum and teaching, and (3) contexts and purposes. Effective mentors assume a “bifocal perspective” (Achinstein & Athanases, 2006, p. 12) when mentoring as they consider the immediate needs of the preservice or early career teacher within the larger context of learner needs, the curriculum, and social or political contexts. Mentors need to develop not only knowledge of adult learners and novice teacher development and concerns but also strategies for promoting and assessing novice teachers’ abilities to reflect as well as their willingness to respond to critiques.
Training and support for preservice teacher mentors are varied. While some teacher preparation programs require mentor training, many do not. Some teacher preparation programs offer mentor workshops, although much of the support provided to mentors is delivered via text-based communications from the university or informal one-on-one support (Zaffini, 2015). While individual and text-based approaches provide some support, mentoring is more likely to result in professional development if universities provide opportunities for mentors to collaborate on their work as teachers and mentors over a sustained period of time (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; Opfer & Pedder, 2011).
In a cross-cultural study of preservice teacher mentoring, the most effective mentors regularly engaged in conversations with other teachers about teaching and learning to teach (Feiman-Nemser, 1998). Research on music mentor preparation has also identified regular interactions with other mentors as an important aspect of mentor development (Conway & Holcomb, 2008). Studies of mentor development point to the need for mentor interactions with other mentors over several months, which suggests that mentors’ knowledge bases are socially constructed. Mentor development programs that include mentors with varying levels of mentoring experience who regularly meet to share strategies, accomplishments, and challenges function as communities of practice (CoP) (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Veteran mentors gain leadership skills while all mentors glean valuable insights from discussions of others’ prior mentoring experiences and responses to questions about mentoring.
Therefore, mentor development programs based on the CoP model that are sponsored by a university have the potential to broaden in-service teachers’ understandings of their crucial contribution to preservice teacher education. Such programs could include discussion of the music education degree course sequence as well as goals for various field-based teaching experiences to help mentor teachers better understand what prior knowledge and experiences preservice teachers could apply to current teaching. Mentors might also realize that students completing one of their first field-based teaching experiences may not have yet learned about or had many opportunities to plan, teach, and assess.
Finally, mentor development programs that include discussion geared toward instructional practice can be especially helpful to mentors as they learn about the specific content preservice teachers are introduced to in methods courses. Gregory (1995) reported that only a small proportion of higher education institutions (18% of those surveyed) collaborated with K–12 teachers on choosing instructional strategies that are introduced in music education courses for preservice teachers, indicating that potential mentors may not have much familiarity with the university curriculum their preservice mentees are experiencing. Zaffini (2015) also noted that while mentor teachers typically have a solid background in teaching strategies, “training in newer, innovative strategies will serve mentors well who might be unfamiliar with other strategies as well as with any pedagogical methods currently being taught to novice teachers” in their university curriculum (p. 73). In fact, Smith and Nadelson (2016) found science teachers who were introduced to inquiry-based instruction as part of their mentor preparation gained new ideas, which resulted in modifications in some teachers’ practices. Therefore, mentor programs that include opportunities for university faculty and mentors to consider both instructional and mentor approaches can provide opportunities for broad-based professional development.
Based on the need for formalized mentor development identified in the literature as well as our own experience working with mentors and preservice teachers, we, two music education faculty members at University of Colorado Boulder, designed a program that could meet these needs in our local area. The purpose of this article is to share the structure and rationale of the program we created, along with our reflections and the feedback from participating teachers over the course of program implementation. While not designed as a research project, our goal in this article is to expand the knowledge base of the teacher education profession by sharing one program model for meeting the professional development needs of teachers who mentor preservice teachers.
As we designed this initiative, we chose the name Music Mentor Plus program. We specifically selected the Plus portion of the name to signify the professional growth aspect of mentoring and our desire to offer teachers support for developing as mentors beyond the assumed capacity that might come with their content expertise or teaching experience. Through the use of the word Plus, we also wanted to communicate to participants that various topics would be addressed (e.g., mentoring, instructional strategies, university teacher education curriculum and sequencing), and that relationships could be established or strengthened between teachers with varying levels of mentoring experience, thus adding to the network resources teachers would have for their work as mentors. In addition, the Music Mentor Plus program was designed to foster stronger connections between university methods course content and field settings where those methods and content could be modeled, thus contributing to a more integrated experience for preservice teachers. While our program had features of some collaborative teacher study groups (Craig, 2009; Grossman et al., 2000; Stanley, 2011), including teacher-constructed professional goals, ample opportunity for teacher discussion, and external program facilitators, the Music Mentor Plus program was unique, given the variety of topics addressed and the schedule (e.g., meeting both during the summer and on Saturdays during the school year rather than meeting only during the school year at the end of the school day), coupled with intentional involvement of teachers with varying levels of mentoring experience.
Specific program goals included (1) providing various resource materials to participants on instructional approaches and mentoring; (2) fostering increased knowledge of university curriculum and pedagogy through teaching demonstrations, document review, and discussions; (3) engaging participants in sustained peer-to-peer discussions; and (4) promoting reflective analysis of mentoring through group and individual activities.
Concept
To meet these goals, we envisioned a program that would allow music teachers to interact with each other and university teacher educators through a series of focused workshops, while at the same time supporting the teachers’ mentoring of one or more preservice teachers during the school year. The program began with a 2-day session in early August of 2015, during the summer recess for teachers in nearby districts. We planned follow-up sessions of 2 to 4 hours in length on Saturdays in September, October, January, and March of the 2015–2016 school year. By participating in the program for the entire year, teachers earned three units toward professional development and teaching certificate renewal (known as GRTE units). These units were equivalent to graduate credits for purposes of certificate renewal but were a special category of credits that could not be used as part of a graduate degree program of study.
To recruit participants for the program, we began by making a list of music teachers in school districts near our university who had been active in recent years with mentoring student teachers or practicum interns. We also included some music teachers who were reaching their second or third year of certified teaching and had not yet mentored preservice teachers, but whom we felt had potential as mentors. This process led us to contact 27 teachers over the summer of 2015, of whom 7 agreed to participate, beginning with the August workshop. While our long-term goal was to create a program that could be repeated in subsequent years and serve all types of music teachers, for the first cohort of the Music Mentor Plus program, we elected to limit participants to teachers with a band or orchestra teaching assignment in order to match our teaching specialties as faculty. The seven teachers who participated included four who were primarily orchestra-based and three who primarily taught band. These seven also represented teachers from elementary, middle, and high schools. Each of these teachers would be assigned a student teacher or practicum intern during the 2015–2016 school year.
To fund the program, we applied for and received a small grant from our university’s School of Education. The total amount funded was $3,547.50. The large majority of this funding was originally budgeted to cover the cost of the GRTE units at $70 per unit—a required processing fee paid to the university to document completion of the program and provide transcripts to the teachers when needed for recertification purposes. Other budgeted expenses included copies of a resource book for all participants, food for meetings, and some conference attendance costs for the faculty program facilitators. The faculty offering the workshops were not paid a stipend for planning the program or attending the summer and weekend workshops.
Program Agenda
We designed the program agenda around four components to meet the goals of the program defined above. These four components included the following: (1) resource materials, (2) presentations of music education program curriculum and pedagogical strategies, (3) peer-to-peer discussion, and (4) activities to promote reflective analysis of mentoring.
Resource materials took the form of articles, excerpts from books, instructor-prepared handouts, and website resources. A typical workshop included some reading materials assigned in advance, usually with response prompts that the mentors would complete prior to group discussion. Handouts and summaries of key discussion points were distributed during the sessions. Topics addressed by these resources included teacher development (Feiman-Nemser, 2003; Fuller & Bown, 1975; Miksza & Berg, 2013), mentoring strategies (Costa, Ellison & Hayes, 2010; Glickman, 1990; Helman, 2006), mentor characteristics (Conway, Smith, & Hodgman, 2010), and mentor needs and challenges (Zaffini, 2015). We chose these topics with the goal of introducing mentor teachers to key ideas from mentoring research and best practices that teacher educators may be familiar with but that may not have been explicitly addressed with K–12 teacher mentors.
In addition, we also planned several presentations designed to orient mentor teachers to the university curriculum and pedagogical strategies that preservice teachers would be experiencing prior to and concurrent with their field experiences. We based this component on a gap identified in the literature (Gregory, 1995; Zaffini, 2015) and confirmed by our own experience, between what mentors expect preservice teachers to know and what the preservice teachers have actually accomplished in their sequence of courses prior to field experience—particularly when dealing with early field experiences prior to student teaching. While our presentations used examples of curriculum and pedagogy from our university, we specifically sought to highlight common features that mentor teachers could anticipate when working with preservice teachers from most teacher preparation programs. These presentations included information on the sequence of courses in a typical bachelor of music education student’s program of study, the curriculum and materials associated with representative techniques and methods courses, example assignments from these courses, a demonstration lesson on pedagogical strategies from a methods course, and an overview of the summative evaluation forms mentors would use to provide feedback on preservice teachers during field experience. Participants had the opportunity to ask questions about the structure and sequence of the university curriculum, and in many cases they expressed surprise that the preservice teachers might not have had instruction in a particular area by the time that preservice teacher was engaged in an early field practicum. For example, several mentors mentioned that they had not realized a sophomore-level preservice teacher in a fall semester introductory field experience would not yet have had any formal conducting coursework.
Part of our goal in designing the Music Mentor Plus program was to allow mentor teachers to interact with other mentor peers. Mentoring of preservice teachers in K–12 schools often occurs in isolation with a one-on-one relationship between mentor and mentee. Our agenda therefore included multiple opportunities for group discussions to allow mentors to reflect on common experiences and understandings of mentoring. These discussions prompted participants to share ideas about qualities and characteristics needed as mentors, the challenges they faced when mentoring different students, and suggestions for meeting challenges based on past experiences. On several occasions these discussions yielded engaging dialogue between mentors where they identified commonalities in the ways they approached issues with mentees, such as strategies for communicating effectively, for setting expectations, and for dealing with situations that required the mentor to provide critical and sometimes awkward feedback to a mentee. Participants with less experience as mentors were able to probe and question the more experienced participants about the suggested strategies.
A key component of the Music Mentor Plus program was to promote reflection and analysis of the mentoring process. Our assumption was that while our participants’ prior formal education likely included experiences designed to promote reflection on their own teaching practice, they may not be as adept or experienced at reflecting on their role as a mentor. To support this goal, we designed activities where the mentors viewed and critiqued typical mentoring interactions. One activity used on multiple occasions involved using role-play to explore mentor/mentee interactions. We began with a video recording of an actual preservice teacher’s lesson, then asked participants to pair up, with one assuming the role of the preservice teacher and the other taking on the role of the mentor. The focus of this activity was to apply effective mentoring communication strategies presented in the workshop. The participant role-playing the part of the preservice teacher made statements and asked questions based on the context of the lesson video, and used prompts from a provided list of common challenges for preservice teachers. The participant in the mentor role was challenged to respond using strategies that encompassed directive, facilitative, and collaborative approaches (Glickman, 1990; Helman, 2006), including the use of paraphrasing and clarification or elaboration questions (Kee, Anderson, Dearing, Harris, & Shuster, 2010). The rest of the participants would observe the role-play interaction between one pair and would then participate in a group discussion probing the choice of strategies made by the mentor.
Another reflective activity involved viewing a set of prerecorded mentor-mentee dialogues we scripted to demonstrate both strong mentoring strategies as well as missed opportunities. In these scripted videos, a mentor-mentee dyad engaged in a postobservation conference of a hypothetical lesson, and the workshop participants were asked to critique the mentoring strategies employed. The group discussion focused on identifying mentoring concepts the participants could see being applied, while also asking them to explore alternative choices the mentor in the video could have made.
In addition to activities that took place during the in-person workshops, we designed a series of written assignments in order to provide opportunities for participants to apply concepts from the workshop content. Some small assignments prompted participants to read and reflect on a topical article or excerpt related to mentoring strategies. Each workshop participant was assigned a preservice teacher for a field experience practicum at some point during the school year in which the workshops occurred, so many of the assignments included applications in that mentoring context. Early on, participants were asked to set professional goals related to mentoring, and this was followed up by group discussion during the workshops over the year. For another task, we assigned participants into groups of two or three and prompted them to meet on their own to discuss current mentoring challenges and supports over the course of the year. The final assignment required participants to video record an actual postobservation conference with their assigned preservice teacher mentee and then complete a written reflection and self-critique on their application of mentoring strategies explored during the workshops.
Outcomes and Recommendations
Based on our observations of participant discussions, interactions with participants, and review of completed assignments, the Music Mentor Plus program provided a broad-based opportunity for participants to learn not only about effective mentoring strategies but also about new instructional approaches and university curriculum. At the same time, peer-to-peer discussions and assignments indicated participants were analyzing the components of effective mentoring while also fostering relationships with other teachers. Given the scope and length of the program, this model is an example of how a university-sponsored program for mentors can function as professional development (Hudson, 2013; Smith & Nadelson, 2016).
We gathered feedback from Music Mentor Plus program participants at the end of each meeting and at the end of the program through a Program Evaluation Survey. The survey included eight 5-point Likert scale items and four open-ended response items. We used the open-ended response items to solicit comments about the benefits of the program, perceived impact on future mentoring, and suggestions for program improvement. Overall, participants were positive about the benefits and impacts of the program on their teaching and mentoring, with mean responses ranging from 3.60 to 4.80 (strongly agree = 5) and seven of the eight item means above 4.00. The results of the eight scale items are included in the online supplemental table.
Several participants appreciated the opportunities for peer interaction and joint problem solving as indicated in the following comment:
I enjoyed hearing real stories from other teachers and being able to develop multiple solutions together.
Others commented on the authentic nature of the activities:
I loved the hands-on opportunities to work on listening, watching teaching videos, doing role plays, and reading thought-provoking articles.
Participants anticipated that the program would positively affect their future efforts to ask questions and foster individual growth when mentoring preservice teachers:
I will encourage them to find their own answers. I will listen more and ask questions more. I will be cognizant of where preservice teachers are in their development.
Participants also indicated the potential impact of the program on their teaching, through positive comments about teaching demonstrations by university faculty as well as teaching ideas gleaned from peers during role-play activities:
That’s a great idea [writing a unison melody to work on intonation] you gave me [when I was role-playing the preservice teacher]. . . I’m gonna use that!”
Since the primary goal of the program was to introduce and have participants apply various mentoring approaches and strategies, it was encouraging that several of the highest mean scores on the Program Evaluation Survey were for items that reflected participants’ feeling that they had improved as mentors or gained new strategies for mentoring. The teaching demonstrations we provided were intended to share examples from our instrumental methods course that preservice students might try out during practicum or student teaching, thus helping mentors to be better understand the model a student might be trying to approximate. It is possible that the mentors would experiment with and adopt similar teaching strategies, but since our program was based on a collaborative professional development model (Craig, 2009; Grossman et al., 2000; Stanley, 2011), during the presentation and discussion of teaching approaches we intentionally avoided positioning ourselves as experts who expected mentors to adopt the demonstrated teaching strategies.
Participants provided helpful feedback on the program, some of which (“more mentor discussions comparing experiences”) informed activities in subsequent meetings. Participants expressed a desire for more video-based observation and joint critique (“more preservice teacher video activities”) and more communication with other participants and faculty between meetings. Some participants also suggested the university continue the program as a regular summer workshop offering. In addition, participants indicated an interest in additional online resources that would help them apply what they learned about university curriculum and mentoring to their future work with preservice teachers, including a “beginning of the year Music Mentor Plus program cheat sheet” and “expectations for various practicum experiences” document, coupled with specific information on the preservice teacher’s prior teaching experiences and areas for growth.
Clearly, Music Mentor Plus program participants valued the opportunity to learn about mentoring approaches and expand their knowledge of components of effective mentoring through interactions with other teachers in simulated mentoring situations. Participant comments about wanting more interactions with each other between meetings and suggestions to offer the program as a summer workshop aligns with findings from research on the impact of regular interactions with other mentors on mentor development (Conway & Holcomb, 2008; Feiman-Nemser, 1998). It is possible that more frequent interactions and collaboration, perhaps via virtual meetings or additional small group assignments, could increase program impact on participants’ mentoring and teaching. Also, additional, easily accessible text-based resources for mentors could help sustain connections between program participants and university curriculum.
From our perspective as music teacher educators, it was gratifying to observe the formation and strengthening of relationships between participants as a result of the collaborative environment we established. In addition to potentially mitigating the isolation some of the participants might experience, we appreciated the opportunity afforded by the Music Mentor Plus program to regularly interact with and learn from local teachers who are accomplished professionals. At the same time, this program enabled us to sustain relationships with those participants who were alumni of our institution by offering them support through this in-reach activity.
In the long term, programs modeled on the Music Mentor Plus program could service more teachers and therefore be more effective if offered during the school year at the district level via in-service workshops and/or teacher instructional release. This recommendation is based on challenges we had with recruiting high school band teachers, given the conflict with summer marching band rehearsals. Of course, the ability to offer a mentor development program is dependent on available resources, including meeting space and monetary support from the university, district, or grants to cover the cost of licensure renewal credit and instructional release time. Also, offering such a program obviously adds another service activity to a music teacher educator’s schedule, which might require strategic planning.
While we did not intentionally incorporate an empirical research element with this program offering, future iterations of such a program on a larger scale might use either qualitative or quantitative research methods to assess the outcomes for mentors and preservice teachers, and generate further refinements to the program structure. For instance, it would be beneficial to directly observe mentors after they have had an opportunity to apply program content as a means of verifying the self-report data we captured. Program impact could also be assessed by surveying preservice teachers who are mentored by program participants.
Since the first Music Mentor Plus program cohort was limited to instrumental teachers, future expansion of the program to include teachers from other contexts (e.g., choral or general music) may need to account for the impact of those contexts on the mentoring challenges those teachers face. Our program participants generally worked with preservice teachers who shared an instrumental background. These mentors seemed confident in addressing mentoring challenges related to ensemble leadership and/or instrument pedagogy, for example; therefore, we spent minimal time reinforcing mentoring strategies on these topics. Choral teachers, however, might face specific challenges mentoring preservice teachers because of the wide-ranging levels of experience and different stages of voice change common to choral ensemble members. General music teachers in particular may face unique mentoring challenges when working with preservice teachers who come from a primarily instrumental or vocal ensemble background. Also, general music mentors who serve entire school buildings—where the population of students differs from secondary-level performing electives (Elpus & Abril, 2011)—likely would need to provide support in locating best practices for working with students from diverse backgrounds and students with disabilities. Taking these additional challenges a choral or general music mentor might face into account, those creating similar mentor development programs would need to modify program content to include discussion of and activities based on these challenges.
The Music Mentor Plus program model, given the varied levels of mentoring experience of program participants, functioned as a CoP (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Less experienced mentors often asked questions of experienced mentors during discussions, and more experienced mentors drew on their work with challenging preservice teachers, which provided nuance to discussions of mentor approaches and responsibilities. Although not an expressed goal of the program, the Music Mentor Plus program also served as a forum for participants to talk about the broader teaching profession. One participant wondered, “Mentoring for mentors . . . how come it doesn’t happen?”—which led to discussion of the lack of career pathways in the teaching profession (Natale, Bassett, Gaddis, & McKnight, 2013). The Music Mentor Plus program model can provide “mentoring for mentors” while fostering stronger connections with and between preservice teacher mentors who are important contributors to the development of preservice teachers. Perhaps such programs can lead to district-level leadership opportunities as program participants share what they have learned about mentoring approaches with colleagues while also serving as relevant professional development for music teachers.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
This program was supported by a University of Colorado Boulder WISE (Women Investing in the School of Education) Grant.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Supplemental Material
The table is available in the online supplemental material.
References
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