There is no need to sit on my hands anymore! Modelling and scaffolding as mentoring tools during co-teaching

The title of this chapter is a statement made by Megan, a student teachers’ mentor, after she and her student teacher Selma experienced the collaborative mentoring approach (CMA) and co-teaching as a mentoring activity in this approach.

This chapter describes this CMA, a mentoring practice built on cycles of three lessons, which was designed to provide mentors with opportunities to share and discuss practical teaching knowledge using (explicit) modelling and scaffolding as mentoring tools. Co-teaching is part of CMA.

The approach was studied in two schools of secondary education in the Netherlands. At the time of the research project both schools participated in a school-university partnership in teacher education, meaning both schools and university feel a shared responsibility for teacher education. Teacher education in these partnerships asks for a transformation of the traditional practicum into guided work-based education. Guidance provided in CMA is seen as a contribution to a work-based pedagogy providing support to student teachers’ workplace learning.

Five different teams of mentors and student teachers participated in this study, but here we will especially follow Megan and her student teacher Selma during their collaborative lesson-based conversations and co-taught lessons. Next to their experiences the theoretical background of this approach will be discussed. At the end of the chapter we will also go into some challenges related to the implementation of the approach.