There is ample research (Bova & Phillips, 1994; Cordeiro & Smith-Sloan, 1995; Daresh, 2002; Ginty & Gaskill, 1993; Playko, 1995; Riche, 1979) to demonstrate the need for and benefits of mentoring both in the business world and with first year teachers. Mentoring allows a more experienced person to work directly with a less experienced person. Some benefits of such a relationship can include knowledge transfer, increased learning, creation of a support network, a decrease in job stress and anxiety, and an opportunity for the prot&#233;g&#233; to learn the big picture. School administrators face an increasing number of challenges in a job where new responsibilities are created almost on a daily basis. Many states will experience a shortage of qualified administrative applicants for open positions. This shortage is due to the retirement in the next several years of many existing administrators in addition to a larger number of positions accompanying increased school enrollment. Many states are exploring ways to address this concern. The first is through a reevaluation of certification criteria (training). The second is through the development of mentoring programs for new administrators (keeping the administrators we have). However, there is little research available on the mentoring of new administrators. This study identified the existing opinions, beliefs, and attitudes, including perceived value that administrators have towards mentoring for their job assignment. Statistical significance was determined at alpha < .01 for each analysis of variance between the groups. There was one item on the survey where a statistically significant difference was found between gender; assessment and grading (p(F) = .007). There was one item on the survey where a statistically significant difference was found between principals and assistant principals; school management (p(F) = .008). There was one item on the survey where a statistically significant difference was found between administrators who have and have not served as a formal mentor; time for discussion together (p(F) = .003). There was one item on the survey where a statistically significant difference was found between administrators who have and have not served as an informal mentor; mentor at same school level (p(F) = .005). However, the final two items of statistical significance are from Section B of the survey. Section B had a reliability of Cronbach's alpha = .50 (see Table 1). Therefore, results of these items must be viewed with caution. It is important to note that 400 out of 414 (96.7%) individual item analyses found no statistically significant differences between the various groups. / Ed. D.

This qualitative study described the development and implementation of a professional support program for beginning teachers in a school division for the 1997-98 school year. The community members including mentor teachers, principals, and central office staff, supported specific needs in a structured program to assist beginning teachers to learn how to teach. The study involved 25 beginning teachers with no years of experience who were paired with mentor teachers from their elementary schools. The study focused on the experiences and perceptions of the beginning teachers and mentors in the program building process. Phase one description includes components of program planning and development including design, collaboration, and resources. Identified beginning teacher needs, professional support community needed to provide support for the beginning teachers, program contents, and a timeline of activities, complete the description. The description of phase two of program delivery includes specific activities for beginning teacher meetings, recommendations for school-based activities between beginning teachers and mentor teachers, mentor teacher meetings, and connections to school principals. Methodology included a combination of questionnaires, participant observation and field notes from program planning meetings, beginning teachers meetings, and mentor teacher meetings, research journal, and collection of documents. Text was created from these methods looking at larger themes and issues that emerged to allow for an understanding of beginning teachers and what is involved in their necessary support. This study suggests that there are several key program essentials for providing support for the beginning teachers. Program essentials include: (1) building program awareness;(2) establishing goals; (3) determining beginning teachers' needs; (4) having a broad-based program participation; (5) preparing participants for their support roles; (6) identifying benefits to program participants; and (7) providing a program structure. A program structure includes: (1) a kick-off of the program and orientation for beginning teachers; (2) a recommended school-based activity schedule of times and topics for a collaborative relationship between beginning teachers and mentor teachers; (3) beginning teacher meetings held three times during the year for beginning teachers to meet together; (4) and mentor teacher meetings for mentor teachers to meet together. Time is an important issue for beginning teacher support with time needed to plan and develop the program and to build trust among program participants. While mentor teachers find the process of supporting beginners satisfying, they also appreciate receiving tangible benefits such as stipends, release time to work with beginning teachers, and program training. These rewards provide verification of the school division's valuing of the enterprise. An ongoing program evaluation system contributed to program planning decision making and assessment of program effectiveness. With a support program designed to meet individualized needs, beginning teachers feel supported and appreciated in their first year of teaching. In addition, a school division gains an understanding of what is needed to build support and community building for the beginning teachers and how to assist the mentor teachers as they support the beginning teachers. / Ed. D.

This developmental research used primary components of Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations theory to develop a technology mentoring program for K-12 instructional environments. This investigation utilized K-12 teachers, administrators, technology coordinators, and higher education faculty to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed technology mentoring program. Findings showed that this program would be very effective in K-12 instructional environments. The final product resulted in a step-by-step procedural guide consisting of suggestions and activities that can be used to implement a technology mentoring program. / Ph. D.

There is increasing recognition of an impending shortage of educational leaders to fill vacant administrative positions. Consequently, interest in finding ways to support, guide, and retain novice principals has emerged. Mentoring is a popular and effective means of transferring knowledge from an experienced principal to a newly appointed one. Little attention, however, has been given to the process of formal administrative mentorships and how they can be shaped to meet the varied needs of new school principals. The purpose of this study was to explore the personal experiences of novice and veteran principals and the underpinnings of the formal administrative mentoring program in one local school district in Virginia. Seventeen principals were interviewed as participants in this case study. The study was implemented through the use of qualitative research methods of inquiry, including interviews with an administrator of the mentoring program, in-depth interviews with principals, and examination of available documents. This research presents the perspectives of both novice and veteran principals regarding the extent to which their formal mentoring experiences helped them. The data that emerged from this study demonstrated that the formal administrative mentoring experience provided the participants with a greater clarity of role, developed their understanding of the organization, thus facilitating their socialization into it, and helped with diminishing their feelings of isolation. The participants reported that mentoring helped increase their understanding of three major roles of the contemporary principal: (a) instructional leader; (b) school visionary; and (c) team builder. According to the novices, mentors helped them learn how to integrate into the school system through interaction with their communities and how to negotiate their needs within the school division. Novice principals' responses reflected ambivalence about this particular area of their mentoring experience and the help it afforded, however; their responses appeared to be related to their years of experience and the positions they had previously held in the division. Mentees and mentors alike reported that mentoring helped reduce their feelings of isolation through the development of camaraderie with one another as well as a network of colleagues. Most of the participants in the study reflected overall positive perceptions related to their formal administrative mentoring experiences. / Ed. D.

The Education Commission of the States in 2007 reported that 16 states had a policy for alternative licensure for school leaders and 23 states had a path for alternative licensure but not a policy (Education Commission of the States, 2007). Therefore there were 39 states that offered a policy or path for obtaining licensure for school leaders through an alternative route. This information suggested a nation-wide development and warranted investigation. First year principals, as are first year teachers, are in need of a mentor. The current principals are the individuals who would be asked to mentor newly hired principals. This quantitative study was conducted to gain insight into the willingness of elementary principals to mentor alternatively licensed principals. The Virginia Association of Elementary Principals (VAESP) agreed to email the web mail questionnaire to their public school principal members as of March 1, 2010. The questionnaire was sent to 515 elementary principals in Virginia. One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was the statistical procedure used to determine the relationship between the predictor variables and the willingness of elementary principals to mentor alternatively licensed principals. The data indicated that Virginia Elementary School Principals are somewhat willing to mentor their peers. However, they do not feel that alternative licensure is a good route for principal licensure. / Ph. D.

No description available.

Yes / This summary document presents the main areas of enquiry and summarises the key findings from the quantitative stage of this study; a survey of PCS lay officials undertaken in March 2013. It is presented here as a quick reference document to summarise, in bullet point form, the key findings from the full research report which presents detailed top level results, by gender, for the whole survey.

No / The crucial role of mentors.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2004. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The introduction of Affirmative Action Programmes in South Africa has left managerial development at the centre of management focus with the growing realisation that there is no quick fix. It is argued that, in order to make a substantial contribution to the managerial development process, management should not only seek to obtain the goals of the organisation, but first to obtain the goals of the individual within the organisation after which the first will follow. Against this background mentoring has been used successfully to develop high potential managers to build a diverse organisation and to foster the management of change. The study aimed to highlight not merely the many benefits to be gained from successfully implemented mentoring programmes, but also the many complexities inherent to the process. In the final analyses, mentoring programmes can only add value if the process and underlying critical success factors are understood. It is hoped that this research will result in more mentoring programmes being implemented across a broader spectrum of employees in order to create a sustainable and competitive advantage through the retention of knowledge and increased competencies of employees. The cost of such programmes is relatively low compared to their value if implemented correctly and may well hold the key to unlocking a wealth of talent. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die implementering van Regstellende Aksie Programme in Suid Afrika het bestuursontwikkeling op die voorgrond geplaas met die toenemende besef dat daar geen maklike oplossing voor is nie. Ten einde 'n substansiële bydrae tot die gebied van bestuursontwikkeling te maak sal bestuur nie alleenlik die doelwitte van die organisasie moet nastreef nie, maar ten eerste die doelwitte van die individue binne die organisasie moet nastreef waarna die eerste vanself sal volg. Teen hierdie agtergrond is mentorskapprogramme al suksesvol gebruik om potensiële bestuurders te ontwikkel, om diverse organisasies te bou en om die bestuur van verandering suksesvol te fasiliteer. Die werkstuk sal nie alleenlik die voordele van suksesvol geïmplimenteerde mentorskapprogramme uitlig nie, maar ook die komplekse aard daarvan onderstreep. Mentorskapprogramme kan slegs waarde toevoeg indien die proses en onderliggende kritiese suksesfaktore verstaan word. Die doel van die werkstuk is om mentorskapprogramme as bestuursontwikkelingstrategie te bevorder en sodoende 'n breër spektrum van werknemers te bereik ten einde volhoubare kompeterende voordeel te bewerkstellig. Die koste verbonde aan sulke programme is relatief laag in verhouding tot die waarde wat toegevoeg kan word indien dit korrek geïmplimenteer word en daar bestaan geen twyfel dat dit 'n belangrike bydra tot bestuursontwikkeling kan maak deur die talent wat wel bestaan te ontsluit nie.

George Eliot's fiction is filled with mentoring relationships which generally consist of a wise male mentor and a foolish, egotistic female mentee. The mentoring narratives relate the conversion of the mentee from narcissism to selfless devotion to the community. By retaining the Christian value of self-abnegation and the Christian tendency to devalue nature, Eliot, nominally a secular humanist who abandoned Christianity, reveals herself still to be a covert Christian. In Chapter 1 I introduce the moral mentoring theme and provide background material. Chapter 2 consists of an examination of Felix Holt, which clearly displays Eliot's crucial dichotomy: the moral is superior to the natural. In Chapter 3 I present a Freudian analysis of Gwendolen Harleth, the mentee most fully developed. In Chapter 4 I examine two early mentees, who differ from later mentees primarily in that they are not egotists and can be treated with sympathy. Chapter 5 covers three gender-modified relationships. These relationships show contrasting views of nature: in the Dinah Morris-Hetty Sorrel narrative, like most of the others, Eliot privileges the transcendence of nature. The other two, Mary Garth-Fred Vincy and Dolly Winthrop-Silas Marner, are exceptions as Eliot portrays in them a Wordsworthian reconciliation with nature. In Chapter 6 I focus on Maggie Tulliver, a mentee with three failed mentors and two antimentors. Maggie chooses regression over growth as symbolized by her drowning death in her brother's arms. In Chapter 7 I examine Middlemarch, whose lack of a successful standard mentoring relationship contributes to its dark vision. Chapter 8 contains a reading of Romola which interprets Romola, the only mentee whose story takes place outside nineteenth-century England, as a feminist fantasy for Eliot. Chapter 9 concludes the discussion, focusing primarily on the question why the mentoring theme was so compelling for George Eliot. In the Appendix I examine the relationships in Eliot's life in which she herself was a mentee or a mentor.