ATEE Annual Conference 2015 – Programme and Abstracts Book, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 24 – 26 August 2015
029 - Conversation patterns in mentoring conversations during internship in initial teacher education (ITE) Sissel Østrem, Nina Helgevold, Gro Næsheim-Bjørkvik University of Stavanger, Norway Conversation patterns in mentoring conversations during internship in initial teacher education (ITE) This paper addresses mentoring during internship in initial teacher education (ITE) in a Norwegian context. Especially conversation activities and patterns during mentoring conversations have been object of research. The material consists of 54 video-recorded mentoring conversations between student teachers and their mentors during internship in the fourth semester of initial teacher education (ITE). Data was collected in two different settings. First, mentoring sessions in a business as usual situation (BAU). Thereafter mentoring sessions after an intervention with a lesson study design (INT). Four subjects, mathematics, physical education, natural science and English as a foreign language, were included in both conditions. The questions we pose are: What differences could be observed when comparing conversation patterns in the two settings? Will Lesson Study contribute to more enquiry-based attitudes among the student teachers and their mentor teachers? Collaborative enquiry is seen as important when learning teaching (Cochran-Smith & Lytle 1993, Edwards & Protheroe 2003) in reform minded ways. Activity theory and mediating tools are applied as a framework for interpretation and discussion of results. Mediational means are of psychological or physical kinds (Vygotsky 1986). Säljö (2001) argues that physical artefacts must be understood as human ideas and thoughts transformed into a material form and integrated into human actions. Course handbooks are both psychological and physical tools (Douglas and Ellis 2011). In our study a handbook was developed by university tutors and mentor teachers in collaboration as preparation for INT. We developed an observation protocol for the main category Conversation activities. Based on the empirical data the following subcategories were used: Describing, Giving reason, Lecturing, Asking questions, Giving advices and Commenting. Our data can be labeled ‘thin descriptions’ (Rivera & Tharp 2004). Such an observation system will make possible comparisons of events across time, institutions, communities, or cultures. Observations were registered every two minutes also marking who was doing the talking and which physical tools that were present. Striking differences became visible between conversation activities in the two conditions. In INT, participation was more evenly distributed and enquiry oriented approaches more apparent. In addition, observable physical tools were more frequently used, and also the duration of the conversations were longer. If enquiry oriented attitudes are to be stimulated in ITE it seems as if the traditional mentoring conversations should be extended with other approaches including development of mediating tools.
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