Susan K. Brondyk – författare

Changing people’s practice is difficult, shifting the culture of an organization even more so. This book is a description of how one education preparation program did both. This is the story of how they transformed their student teaching program, creating tools and structures that resulted in mentors and student teachers working together in new ways. At the heart of their model is an assessment tool—STAT, for short—used to track the growth and development of student teachers and guide conversations between the college supervisor, cooperating teacher and student teacher. Although this book describes Hope College’s new student teaching model it is really about change. This story takes the reader through the complex change process of one institution, examining the loosely coupled dynamic between leaders and individuals. It describes the natural tension between support and autonomy as program leaders walk alongside individuals as they enact a new practice. This book is intended for teacher educators interested in a developmental model of mentor support, but also for those faced with the daunting task of making changes in their own program. There are lessons learned, however, that go beyond teacher preparation and may serve as a catalyst for others as they engage in their own change process.

Changing people’s practice is difficult, shifting the culture of an organization even more so. This book is a description of how one education preparation program did both. This is the story of how they transformed their student teaching program, creating tools and structures that resulted in mentors and student teachers working together in new ways. At the heart of their model is an assessment tool—STAT, for short—used to track the growth and development of student teachers and guide conversations between the college supervisor, cooperating teacher and student teacher. Although this book describes Hope College’s new student teaching model it is really about change. This story takes the reader through the complex change process of one institution, examining the loosely coupled dynamic between leaders and individuals. It describes the natural tension between support and autonomy as program leaders walk alongside individuals as they enact a new practice. This book is intended for teacher educators interested in a developmental model of mentor support, but also for those faced with the daunting task of making changes in their own program. There are lessons learned, however, that go beyond teacher preparation and may serve as a catalyst for others as they engage in their own change process.

Mentoring in educational contexts has become a rapidly growing field of study, both in the United States and internationally (Fletcher & Mullen, 2012). The prevalence of mentoring has resulted in the mindset that “everyone thinks they know what mentoring is, and there is an intuitive belief that mentoring works” (Eby, Rhodes, & Allen, 2010, p. 7). How do we know that mentoring works? In this age of accountability, the time is ripe for substantiating evidence through empirical research, what mentoring processes, forms, and strategies lead to more effective teachers and administrators within P-12 contexts.This book is the sixth in the Mentoring Perspectives Series, edited by Dr. Frances Kochan former Dean of the College of Education at Auburn University. This latest book in the series, co-edited by Linda J. Searby and Susan K. Brondyk, brings together reports of recent research on mentoring in K-12 settings for new teachers and new principals. The book has already garnered accolades from mentoring experts: