abstract: Mentor teachers have a significant impact on pre-service teachers. Unfortunately, mentors are often underprepared for their role, and thus, the potential learning from a student teaching experience is not maximized. Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University provides training to mentors who host pre-service teachers during their student teaching experience. Training is delivered in two formats: online prior to the start of the semester and face-to-face each month throughout the semester. This action research study looked at how training contributes to mentor understanding and actions in supporting teacher candidates and how mentor support impacts teacher candidate performance. The study included two mentor/teacher candidate dyads and one university site coordinator. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from a variety of sources including observations of mentor trainings, teacher candidate lessons, and coaching conversations. Additional data sources included semi-structured interviews with mentors, teacher candidates, and the site coordinator. Analysis of data found that training may contribute to mentor understanding, but other factors matter too. The data also indicated that current training is insufficient at producing all desired mentor behaviors. With respect to the ways that mentors support teacher candidates, this study found that mentors play a multifaceted role, provide ongoing feedback, and employ various strategies during coaching conversations. This study found mentors help teacher candidates see their performance through the eyes of an experienced educator. Modeling and coaching helped teacher candidates improve. This study also suggests a positive, professional relationship between mentor/mentee and certain teacher candidate characteristics such as openness to feedback facilitate learning from a mentor. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Leadership and Innovation 2014

Work explores the benefits of mentoring for the professional development of teachers and students of teaching. The aim is to contribute to discussions of mentoring in the Czech Republic. The theme of mentoring in our conditions is relatively new, so the work seeks to contribute to the theoretical grasp of the subject too. Research is conducted in qualitative approach using case study design. Case there is interaction between the mentor and mentee, where are defined other criteria for the selection of teachers in the role of mentor to the research sample. Used data collection methods are: questioning by interview via instruction manual, expert interviews and a questionnaire with open questions. Other methods are the video analysis, documents and focus groups. Obtained data were analyzed according to several theoretical frameworks according selected strategy seeking hits/congruence and these initial theoretical concepts were enriched with data from case analysis and compared with each other. The results show that the benefits are perceived more on mentee side and benefits are accentuated and focused on the development in the profession, mentee gain as hints, tips and advice based on experience and the development of their independent thinking within the teaching profession. The benefits for the...