The role of mentoring has evolved over time. In 1988, Anderson and Shannon identified the following five functions of mentoring: teaching (modelling, confirming, disconfirming, informing, questioning, prescribing); sponsoring (supporting, protecting, advocating); encouraging (inspiring, affirming, challenging); counselling (listening, clarifying, probing, problem-solving, advising); and befriending (accepting and relating). The authors explained that the distinctive feature of mentoring is that it is an “ongoing caring relationship”
(Anderson and Shannon cited in Powell, 2016, p.29). However, other authors criticised this definition, because the functions listed “describe an ideal which is rarely realised in practice” (Cain, 2009, p.45).
In 2005, CUREE’s National Framework for Mentoring and Coaching (2005, p.4) defined the role and activities of a mentor as:
Identifying learning goals, supporting progression, developing learners’ control over their learning, active listening, modelling, observing, articulating and discussing practice to raise awareness, shared learning experiences, providing feedback, guidance and direction, review and action planning, assessing, appraising and accrediting practice, brokering a range of support.
This described a more elaborate version of mentoring by introducing aims, objectives, and goals to be achieved through the mentoring process. Similarly, Smith (2007 cited in Brydson, 2011, p.53) advocated that the role of a mentor
encompasses advisor, catalyst, critical friend, guide, listener, role model, sounding board, strategist, supporter, tactician, and teacher.
While the literature advocated that both the mentor and the mentee should have specific roles, and that these roles shape the mentoring outcomes (Koç, 2012; Hudson, 2013a; Davis and Fantozzi, 2016; Garza et al. 2019), the mentors’ roles are often not well-defined in the ITE context (Borko and Mayfield, 1995; Bullough, 2005a; Cain, 2009; Livingston, 2014; O’Dwyer and Atlı, 2014; Klieger and Oster- Levinz, 2015). According to Ambrosetti et al. (2014), without role clarity for both the mentor and the STs (who they refer to as mentees), mentoring will continue to occur according to preconceived perceptions. The authors studied a vast body of literature concerning mentoring that focused on the interconnectedness of the roles of mentors and mentees, and collated the prominent aspects of the mentor role that were cited, in order to create a list of roles for both parties. For the purpose of the present study, only the mentors’ roles were examined, in order to inform the investigation of the CTs’ role in the professional learning of STs in Saudi ITE. The following table presents the aforementioned authors’ list of mentor roles, including specific actions that mentors perform under each role. This list exemplifies how research can both inform and challenge practice, especially in underdeveloped countries where mentoring is a relatively new concept in the education context.
Role Role description
Supporter The mentor offers encouragement and direction to the mentee. As a support person, the mentor introduces the mentee to other staff, informs them about
rules and policies, and also provides feedback to the mentee.
Colleague The mentor treats the mentee as a professional by advocating for the mentee and sharing their professional knowledge and skills.
Friend The mentor provides the mentee with companionship and camaraderie. They also act as a critical friend, and encourage the mentee to try new tasks and
challenges.
Protector The mentor shields the mentee from unpleasant situations, raises the menteeprofile, and defends the mentee’s actions. ’s
Collaborator The mentor works alongside the mentee on tasks, and they plan and implement lessons in unison.
Facilitator The mentor creates and provides opportunities for learning and development. The mentor allocates time for the mentee to perform tasks, and creates a place
for the mentee to action a task.
Assessor The mentor assesses the mentee’s performance, and assigns a grade or mark.
Evaluator The mentor tracks the progress of the mentee by appraising the menteeprogress, and provides feedback. ’s
Trainer/ Teacher The mentor provides the mentee with specific instructions about performing tasks, and assists during their performance.
Reflector The mentor thinks critically about, and reflects on all aspects of the mentoring process, including the performance of the pre-service teacher, as well as their
own development as a mentor and practitioner.
Role model The mentor demonstrates and models skills and behaviour for the mentee, including tasks, actions, interactions, and processes.
TABLE 2-2.ROLES OF MENTORS (ADAPTED FROM AMBROSETTI ET AL.,2014)
The above table demonstrates that while the roles of a mentor are numerous and multidimensional, the majority focus on the development of the mentee/ST, with the exception of the role of reflector, which also targets the development of the mentor, providing an opportunity for the mentor to reflect on their own development and teaching practices (Ambrosetti, Knight and Dekkers, 2014). Reflection is an important developmental aspect for the role of Saudi CTs, and could be highlighted in their prior education as a skill they could benefit from developing for their own learning, as well as for enhancing their STs’ professional development during their practicum (this is discussed fully in Sections 5.2 and 5.3).
When assessing the ways in which mentors conduct the role of mentor, it is important to consider the skills and pedagogical strategies they employ (Rice, 2008), as it may be necessary for them to possess skills other than that of being an excellent teacher, which is the main criteria for selecting CTs in Saudi Arabia. A considerable body of ITE literature concerned the investigation of the qualities and skills of effective mentors. For example, Hobson et al. (2009) consequently reviewed more than 900 references regarding mentoring involving beginner teachers, and established the following five conditions for effective monitoring:
1. Providing mentees/STs with emotional and psychological support to make them feel welcome, accepted, and included;
2. Always making time for mentees/students by holding regular meetings; 3. Giving mentees/students the freedom to make decisions, and to develop
their own teaching styles;
4. Lesson observation, both of and by STs, followed by constructive feedback. Mentors’ observation of their mentees’ lessons is most valuable when its objectives are agreed upon in advance;
5. Ensuring that mentees are always challenged and sufficiently encouraged to consider deeper levels of thinking and reflection about teaching and learning.
This list of conditions highlights the importance of such research findings for informing mentoring practice, and underlines the discussion in Chapter One concerning the necessity of such research in the Saudi education context, as no published Saudi studies or official documents were located during the course of this present review that described the role or responsibilities of CTs in the professional learning of STs in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, while the above conditions are helpful for the majority of education settings in developed countries, caution is required when attempting to adapt them to other settings. For example, in the Saudi context, the first three conditions could be performed by CTs, as they are
already expected to provide some form of support, time, and feedback to STs’ professional learning (see Chapters 4 and 5). However, conditions three (constructive feedback), and five (ensuring that mentees are always challenged and sufficiently encouraged to consider deeper levels of thinking and reflection) are more challenging for the Saudi ITE context, because the mentor-mentee relationship is top-down, which, for socio-cultural reasons, limits the constructive professional dialogue to direct orders and formal evaluation, according to a pre- defined evaluation form (see the reflective theory of learning, Appendix 5, pp.251).
A number of studies (Orland-Barak, 2002; Burns et al., 2006; Bloomfield, 2009; NIE, 2009; Hennissen et al., 2011; Aderibigbe, Colucci-Gray and Gray, 2016; Garza et al. 2019) found that, as in all forms of teaching, mentoring is most effective when it meets the mentees’ needs. Therefore, mentors of beginner teachers should respect their mentees as adult professional learners (see Section 2.3), accounting for their individual learning needs, and ensure that the strategies employed not only support their learning, but are also responsive to their concerns, and are appropriate for their current stage of development (Burns et al., 2006 in Laneshia et al. 2018). Moreover, Burns et al. (ibid.) believed that mentoring forms a key part of the practicum, and therefore, proposed that mentors should be familiar with the characteristics of adult learners, how they merge their previous experiences with their new roles, and how to employ this knowledge when designing tasks. Moreover, the authors stressed that mentors should be mindful of the fact that adult learners prefer to actively partake in the learning process, and that they learn better when the topic is of immediate value. In addition, several studies suggested that mentors should help mentees to identify their conceptions of teaching, in terms of their perception of learning how to teach, and that mentors should agree individual goals for the mentoring process with their mentee (Wyre, Gaudet and McNeese, 2016).
Another significant aspect of adult learning during the practicum is critical thinking, since when mentors teach critical thinking to their STs, they help to create professionals who can learn from their previous experiences and current
training to provide effective self-assessment that, in turn, engenders better decision-making, and hence more influential management.
On a more technical level, the extant ITE literature noted that pedagogy is one of the main theoretical aspects of teachers’ professional learning, and that it should be taught by the mentors to their STs. Some researchers developed practices/skills for mentoring pedagogical knowledge, and Hudson (2013a, p.363) stated that the mentor’s articulation of pedagogical knowledge is “fundamental”