Es ist etwas ruhig geworden beim Bildungsfutter… nicht, dass es nichts zu berichten gäbe, aber wie so alle Projekte, braucht auch ein Blog Pflege und Zeit und diese steht nicht immer in demselben Ausmass zur Verfügung. Jetzt habe ich aber gerade ein Buch „quergelesen“, welches sich als Buchtipp eignet:
Tillema, H., van der Westhuizen, G. & Smith, K. (Eds.). (2015). Mentoring for Learning „Climbing the Mountain“. Rotterdam Sense Publisher.
Zuerst einmal der Klappentext:
No doubt, students appreciate the talks they have with their mentors but do they learn from it as well? Conversations can be comforting or confronting, but above all they need to be helpful in the attainment of a higher level of proficiency and understanding. Are you, as a mentor, up to the task of „climbing the mountain“; that is, to attain the goals you have set with your students and create a truly learning conversation? Conversations are a prime tool in a mentoring relationship. Keeping track of the flow and direction of a conversation is a crucial element in mentor professionalism and a condition to ascertain learning will happen. Mentoring for Learning: „Climbing the Mountain“ concentrates on the need to get grip on what happens during a conversation between a mentor and a mentee to enable both mentor and mentee to understand the nature and route of their talks. The book provides tools for the professional development of mentors to conduct learning conversations.
Selbstverständlich habe ich mit sehr grossem Interesse mit Lesen begonnen, nicht nur weil ich gerne Berge besteige, sondern weil ich in meiner Dissertation ja auch sehr viele Mentoring-Dialoge untersucht habe bezogen darauf, ob diese von den Studiererenden (zukünftigen Lehrpersonen) zum Lernen genutzt werden und wie die Mentorinnen und Mentoren (in der Schweiz Praxislehrpersonen genannt), die Besprechungen gestalten.
Das Buch bietet eine Fülle von Texten und ist ein drei Teile gegliedert:
- Learning from Mentoring Conversations: Do we?
- Mentoring Conversations: A Two Hearted Affair
- Mentoring Professional Development – Learning to Become a Good Mentor
Besonders interessiert hat mich das Kapitel von Harm Tillema und Gert van Westhuizen „Mentoring Conversation and Student Teacher Learning“. Hier die Zusammenfassung:
This study analyzes ways in which mentoring can enhance the quality of learning conversations in teacher education. The specific focus is on the conversational strategies used by lecturer mentors and the expected and actual impact they have on student teachers learning. Using a case-design, 12 conversations between a student teacher and his/her mentor were analyzed in depth with regard to interactional moves by mentors to help students attain learning goals. The findings of this study suggest that: There is an overall positive effect of different conversational moves on student teachers learning outcomes. However, we noted that almost 60% of conversational talk was non-learning goal related, but could more easily be interpreted as relational talk. Closeness in the relationship was found to positively influence student teachers learning outcomes. No direct relation was found between specific mentor conversational moves and perceived knowledge productivity, although higher scores were found for a ˜low road approach, i.e., moves that explored and stay with the students current learning experiences. The implication for the quality of professional (teacher) education are discussed.
Lernen der Studierenden fassen die beiden Autoren mittels „kowledge productivity“, wobei sie davon ausgehen, dass „challenging (or „climbing“) conversations den Prozess der „knowledge productivity“ stimulieren können. Leider scheinen mir die Literaturangaben nicht ganz einleuchtend zu sein. Jedenfalls habe ich die Originaltexte gesucht und gelesen, finde jedoch weder bei Farr-Darling noch bei Baxter Mangold entscheidende Hinweise, wie eine „challenging conversation“ nun genau die „knowledge productivity“ befördert.
Die Autoren nennen jedoch drei Kriterien, welche „knowledge productivity“ umschreiben:
- Raising problem understanding: This criterion relates to an increased awareness, better understanding and insights gained as a result of collaborative exchange, i.e., conversation. The most important question of this criterion is: is the dialogue related to the practice of the student and does the student acknowledge the issues spoken about as relevant?
- Shifting perspective. This criterion relates to a conceptual change in the beliefs of the student by listening to the viewpoints of the mentor. Most important question of this criterion is: does the student find the ideas, brought forward during conversation, important enough to adopt?
- Commitment to apply. This criterion relates to how the student was involved in the conversation and showed interest in the discussion. Engagement and participative interaction with the mentor is regarded as important for a subsequent follow- up of advice given and recommendations made. The most important question is whether the student is interested in actively following up recommendations (Tillema, 2005).
Daraus leiten sie ihre Hauptfrage ab: To which extent does the mentors moves in conversation relate to the perceived learning outcomes of the student teacher?
Die „Moves“ (Gesprächshandlungen) der Mentoren gliedern sie in
- Moves that stay at the level of exploring i.e., talking about personal tacit beliefs as they relate to the existing knowledge base to be learned for a student, or
- Moves meant to be accommodating and supportive to scaffold learning i.e., starting from the students position (in beliefs or performance) and aligning it with a learning goal perspective, or
- Moves that deliberately guide the student toward the to-be-attained end result, i.e., providing directed feedback on relevant knowledge functional to the performance goal.
Leider finde ich hier die angegebene Literaturangabe (Edwards, 2011) nicht im Inhaltsverzeichnis und meine kurze Recherche befördert zwar ein Artikel der Autorin zu Tage, welcher aber nicht sehr viel mit den drei Moves zu tun hat. Sowieso werden im Kapitel die Literaturangaben etwas salopp gehandhabt, so fehlen konsequent die Seitenangaben und es wird dadurch nicht ersichtlich, welche Erkenntnis des Artikels nun genau leitend ist. Einige Artikel werden im Text zitiert, sind jedoch nicht im Literaturverzeichnis zu finden 🙁
Anyway: Zu den Ergebnissen:
- A mentors conversational approach consists of different conversational moves, signifying different strategies in conversation.
- Conversational moves, per se, do not significantly influence the student teachers perceived knowledge productivity. We noted, however, three dominant types to occur in conversations: a scaffolding and prescriptive one, which in combination we called a ˜high road approach, and an exploring one which we called a ˜low road approach.
- Student teachers who were having a regular, closer and positive relationship with their mentor were associated with higher knowledge productivity.
Der Artikel ist lesenswert, die Fragestellung superspannend, ich hätte mir jedoch einen etwas sorgfältigeren Umgang mit den Quellen gewünscht.
Hier geht’s zum Text auf dem Internet: https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/2317-mentoring-for-learning.pdf
Oder hier direkt herunterladen.