MAKING MENTORING MATTER: SUPPORTING GROWTH FROM NOVICE TO MORE EXPERT TEACHING
Presenter: Bruce Wellman
MiraVia
Bruce Wellman is co-director of MiraVia LLC. He consults and presents for school systems, professional groups and publishers throughout the United States and Canada, presenting workshops and courses for teachers and administrators on interactive/ collaborative instruction, thinking skills development, learning-focused conversations for supervisors and mentors, presentation skills and facilitating collaborative groups. His numerous publications include: Learning-Focused Mentoring: A Professional Development Resource Kit, Data-Driven Dialogue: A Facilitator’s Guide to Collaborative Inquiry, and Mentoring Matters: A Practical Guide to Learning-Focused Relationships.Key Ideas/Findings:No one is born knowing how to teach. Classroom instruction is one of the most complex intellectual and emotional tasks that any professional undertakes in modern society; and the journey towards expertise is a lifetime’s work. Successful journeys begin with skilled counsel and guidance. Effective mentors model and point the way for novice teachers as they develop their teaching skills from novice to more expert levels. The knowledge base on teaching is both wide and deep. Expert teachers develop their capacities in four areas: knowledge of the structure of the disciplines; knowledge of self; knowledge of teaching skills and strategies; and knowledge of learners and learning.
- Defining expertise
- Principles and approaches for supporting the development of teaching expertise
- An expert mentor’s professional lenses
- Developing mentoring expertise
Links:
- Wellman, B. (2006, November 4). Making mentoring matter: Supporting growth
from novice to more expert teaching. Video retrieved from
http://www.curriculum.org/NTIP/videos.shtml - Wellman, B. (2006, November). Navigating a Continuum of Interaction:
Coaching, Collaborating & Consulting for Professional Excellence.
[PowerPoint slides]. - www.miravia.com