Thank you, dear Elizabeth, for sharing your experience and co-working with others!

I enjoyed reading your post. Really inspiring :)
Keep being tuned!
That's so precious that your mentees are so responsive, flexible and open-minded - the more, the better!

Cheers, 

Anastasiia

Dear All, I just want to share with you the experience I had today with two of the three groups of teacher educators. Last week I asked them to read the first three chapters of the Handbook for Exploratory Action Research. In our meetings, several teachers said that they were pleasantly surprised about and very happy with the book. They had never thought teacher research can be explained in such straightforward and "non-threatening" manner. They said they were able to relate to the stories told by other teachers, the language was clear and concise; suddenly, they felt research did not appear to be so daunting. Since the manuscript of the Mentoring Handbook that Richard is sharing with us follows the philosophy, the topics and the layout of the EAR Handbook, it is an essential resource, not just for this "course", but for your future work with your mentees. If you only have time for one book, this should be it. (I am aware that many of you know it inside out, but still.) For mentoring, I found the Angi Malderez interview well-reasoned, informative and full of passion. As it happens, she was my British Council Summer School teacher in Exeter in 1983, and I only saw her again last year in Istanbul after about 35 years. The passion of that young lady has only grown, I can tell you :-) ...

Hi Rozaith,
I completely agree. Differences in culture can turn into a barrier. 

Dear Maria
Many thanks for sharing these!

Dear Elizabeth
Yes, you are right. I recently presented a short paper in Hyderabad (AINET conference, India) on the challenges of doing AR in the classroom. 
As you rightly pointed out, classroom research should be voluntary in nature. So is PD! I am part of the  British Council's  Action Research Mentoring Scheme which is an excellent model for encouraging Teacher Research.

Yea, may be by relating the evidence that they have to their research questions. 

Dear Richard
It's a good idea to share an overall structure and know where we are heading. Yes, it takes time to become autonomous and am trying to get some 'visible signs' that reveal their ability to research on their own.

Hi Richard! Yes, it does make sense. Sure, as you organize them well. I do understand the issue with poor internet. Wish you to have no inet probs here at all!
I think resilience is the best trait ever on the way to autonomy, isn't it? Have a nice Thursday!

Hi Anastasiia, since you've asked me a direct question I shall answer it! These days I'm mainly involved mentoring mentors, and the most challenging thing is (sometimes) communication, as I'm doing it at a distance, especially these days with colleagues in Nepal. I also worry if I contact them enough and sometimes there are problems with internet connection, so we have to be flexible. But they are very resilient, and I get joy from seeing them becoming more independent. I also think a vacuum is often filled if there's a good overall structure and people know basically where they're going - these days I don't interfere to control things as much as I used to, and I reckon that's what enables people to become more autonomous, less dependent. Does it make sense? 

I feel the most important challenge is to make them believe that they can do research. They have created a thought hurdle in their mind, which has to be replaced with the notion that classroom research is for the teachers facing issues in the classroom. Once that is achieved all other steps  become seemingly possible.

I, Syed Irshad Ali, a Post Graduate Teacher in English working at TS Model school and Govt. Jnr College, Pegadapally Jagtial District.

Hi, Richard! Hello, everyone!
Thank you so much for sharing your precious handbook and other materials. Much appreciated.

I really like these Exploratory Action Research steps as it reminds me of some Reflective journals that a teacher can keep on a daily basis, which can serve us as the so-called step-by-step analysis on teaching and performing lessons on our CPD way.

In my humble opinion, research is part of our development of both teachers and mentors. First, it comes from within, I call it an inner necessity and intention to become better and absorb knowledge :). Hence from my observation, I can state that many teachers feel lack of motivation due to many reasons and, let’s say, are tough sometimes to be motivated and ‘pushed’, likewise our students who demand constant sources of inspiration. That’s why I am sure we, as mentors, should always keep the ear to the ground, reflect and refresh mentees’ needs/journals from time to time. For example, I always (each month for sure) offer my students various challenges, journals, checklists to brainstorm if their goals have changed, to see if they’re into this or that thing in order my lessons would be really fruitful. 

Well, concerning some challenges that happen/might happen during mentoring.

1. TIME: We don’t have problems with logistics as all of us work remotely, but to land on time or find one time-slot suitable to everyone can be hard.
2. COMMUNICATION: nowadays it’s sometimes not easy to engage people into active participation (as I see from the experience of our school mentors). As an observer of that situation, I can state if somebody is tough, our mentors can’t influence or engage them at all.
3. SHARING is caring: I do strongly believe that while sharing you exchange not just knowledge and experience but energy. It’s great when you can share some teaching cases and discuss your failures or successes with colleagues. As a rule, there are fewer people who can share anything, again, there are definite reasons, usually, they don’t want to spend time because they are very busy or because of anything else.
4. FEEDBACK: we all want to get desirable constructive feedback that will underline or pinpoint our drawbacks, help us grow and make a self-correction. The problem is you must believe in your mentor, see their empathy and objective thinking towards you.

 

Who is a mentor for me?

Well, being a demanding person myself, I have lots of requirements for my mentor :).
This person should be experienced (I am sure years and expertise matter (though there are exceptions, of course).
A mentor is an inspirer. They motivate by their example, actions, deeds.

A mentor never stops learning. They are life-learners eager to know more and become better.

A mentor is non-judgemental and not competitive with you in a bad sense of this word. Mentors shouldn’t compete with you and be afraid that you might become better one day. They should be self-sufficient not to suppress you. They should be truly radiant.

 

Anyway, I’m sure all people and students are already our mentors to some extent because you learn something new from anyone daily.

Question: Richard, what’s more challenging in mentoring for you nowadays? How do you cope with it?

Thank you.

 

Warm wishes,
Anastasiia

--
Zekeriya D.