Reinventing Ed School 2: Coaching dosage/style

Common problems cited:

Bad Ones

*Mentor teacher doesn’t actually mentor.  Instead, treats student teacher as labor saving device.  Ends up in faculty lounge.  

*Diligent mentor, bad at coaching.  Not exactly unique to teaching.  Many star athletes are bad coaches.  

*Seems like few bad mentors are actually fired, but I’m not sure if anyone publishes data on this.  Is there a bad mentor Rubber Room?  

Good Ones

*Is 1 hour a week from a diligent mentor enough dosage?  Are 2 observations enough?  

*Low mentor pay.  Holy Toledo.  No merit pay for excellent mentors.  

*Most universities seem to reserve 5% to 10% of total tuition for mentor stipends.  Way out of whack?  Should it be more like a 50-50 split between funding profs and funding the coaches?  

*Focus on inputs, not outputs.  I.e., does any university hold mentor teachers accountable for the ultimate first-year success of those they mentored?  

Ed School Paralysis

*From an Ed School’s point of view, don’t 50+ mentor teachers invariably have very different ideas of what constitutes good teaching or how to get there?  Doesn’t that preclude much link of classroom to practice with any level of specificity?  Wouldn’t mentor teachers frequently contradict the professors back at home base?  

Chime In:

*How to solve these problems?

*Are these the right problems to solve?

 ~ Guestblogger Mike Goldstein