Conclusions+&+Reflections


 * Conclusions and Reflections Page ("So What??")**
 * __Conclusion__**

Relationships are the key to success for any teacher. It is all about the relationships between teachers, students, parents, administrators, support staff, and other community members. If you can not establish good relationships, you will never receive or pass on knowledge, and from an evolutionary learning perspective, your teaching will become extinct. You will not have the opportunities to pass on the content, knowledge, and skills for students to become lifelong learners, nor will you be able to spread the passion for teaching amongst fellow colleagues. If you build good relationships, you can inspire your students and your colleagues.

Learning is not linear. As it is evident with the teacher mentoring relationships, learning is a journey that happens throughout one’s career. We often think that the most important learning happens at the beginning of a teacher’s career because the sheer volume of information that needs to be acquired, understood, and synthesized is phenomenal. It is true that there is a lot to learn. Teachers must not only navigate through daily routines and procedures, but they must also learn the curriculum and pedagogy, expectations, and culture of the school and district. After surviving the first few years, many of these once new obstacles become routine, and more in depth learning can take place. Teachers can be more reflective about their practice or start to tackle new challenges.

Everyone can be a mentor at anytime in their career. For example, in schools, there are formal partnerships that have been created through mentoring programs. In these partnerships, it is clear who the “master” and the “student” is. However, mentors are anywhere and everywhere. A mentor could be the brand new rookie teacher next door, who may not be the expert in the classroom yet, but is an expert with technology (ie. blogs, wikis, using SMART boards). Their expertise and knowledge may give another teacher the opportunity to deeply learn in new ways that they never knew before. It all boils down to the fact that everyone is a lifelong learner. As long as you are open-minded, deep learning can happen anywhere at anytime.

have an appreciation of the world around them.

ignite the passion the passion with in your colleagues to inspire one another

If you are unable to establish a relationship

If you create the good relationships you will be able to... If you can't relate to the students, it's time to leave the profession.

learn from each other key each other buoyant

can't do it alone never teach in isolation evoluationary successful - continuum of learning - successfully pass along knowledge

But This was certainly true in our research.

We were all comfortable with our classroom teaching, curriculum and pedagogy and decided that we would explore the use of technology, specifically the use of a wiki - this w. We need to explain this

Cycle of in depth learning through the master's program, choice to become students again. cycle of learning - next challenge continue to learn through the pursuit of a masters learning can happen at any point b/c within that the wiki gave us the opportunity to challenge ourselves. We were very uncomfortable - many spots where learning can occur.

2. You can be a mentor at any stage of your career** The steepest learning occurs at the start of any new activity. For instance, as a beginning athlete learns new skills, they face their greatest hurdles, whereas the learning curve is not as steep as they gain more knowledge and experience in their sport. In the same way, we often think that the greatest learning happens as teachers are beginning their careers, and in some respects this is true. Beginning teachers have so much to learn about the mechanics of teaching such as attendance, report cards, parent-teacher conferences, interim reports, prescribed learning outcomes, classroom management, and lesson planning. They face innumerable challenges as they negotiate the culture of a school, the profession, and the classroom.
 * 1. LIfelong learning is not linear

But in-depth learning happens later in a teacher's career when the mechanics are second nature and teachers have more opportunity to become more reflective about their own practice. The trivial, surface level aspects are mastered so that teachers can now concentrate on the "meat and potatoes" of teaching, and delve into the real purpose of why they began working in this profession. In this way, teaching is a continuum of lifelong learning.

However, lifelong learning is not linear. Everyone can be a mentor at different stages of their career. Some people do not even realize that they are a mentor. For example, the beginning teacher next door is just as much of a mentor as the seasoned teacher down the hall. A beginning teacher may actually be a mentor without evening realizing it; they may challenge teachers to reexamine how and why they teach. A prime example of this was brought to light when we chose to use the wiki in our research. Introduction of new technology into the education environment is not a new phenomenon. For example, the use of paper over the chalkboard slate or the change from using ink and quill to the ball point pen all pushed educators to reevaluate and learn news ways to impart knowledge. These changes were initially met with skepticism and opposition and yet were overcome. These were all opportunities for the seasoned teacher to once again become the new learner. The current drive towards computer technology integration in schools has made this knowledge reversal even more pronounced. Beginning teachers are often the expert in this field of education while the veteran teacher is the novice; the mentor can become the mentee and the mentee can become the mentor.

We started by questioning how we were inducted into the profession. We examined our experiences and we found out that mentorship was a major component of our success. So, what does it mean to be a mentor? There may not be a clear answer for this; it is not a goal but a journey. Being a mentor is not an end point. It's about a life long journey that explores how teaching and learning is beneficial for the whole person. Mentorship creates communities of best practice that challenge individuals to work synergistically to educate the heart, mind, and soul of the student in all of us. Now, we look forward to continuing our journey - not as experts - but as students of our craft.

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** Teachers need continual support -What characteristics about us are salient to the issue of mentoring? -What are the commonalities? The interlocking evidence/overlapping issues -What will we do less of/more of? -What will we keep, stop, and start? -Keep it about us - what we learned, what we will do as opposed to what others should do or say - more reliable and valid this way -Can speculate, wonder, try, explore.. -Common outcome: being better at what we do -Being a mentor does not mean you are experienced - there is a balance of humility -Teaching is cyclical - different areas, different cultures - sometimes at the top, sometimes at the bottom -You are a mentor and a mentee at all times, no matter what, at all times in your career -We are always learning from each other and teaching others along the way -Mentoring and menteeing are not really at either ends of a spectrum -What WE learned; not so much about the research; more personal

a dditional notes from conversation with Elaine:

-learning is not linear -lifelong learning -when are we done? -what does it mean to be a mentor and who is defined as a mentor? **