Yearly archives: 2014

The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Mentoring: Strengthening Practice through Knowledge, Story and Metaphor. Diane Yendol-Hoppey and Nancy Fitchman Dana

This guide offers a refreshing approach to mentorship practice, offered through the stories of seven effective mentor teachers represented by different metaphors such as “mentor as story-weaver” and “mentor as tailor”.  These vignettes inform through real life examples, providing rich and detailed contexts for working with beginning teachers  rather than describing a list of do and don’t for mentors. The guide is grounded in the principles of reflective practice, constructivist learning and investigating teacher practice through inquiry. The book includes an excellent chapter on what it takes to be an effective mentor and reflecting on your mentoring practice. Each chapter is followed by useful exercises for discussion and exploration. This is an excellent book to use in a mentor’s learning team or book club.

Mentoring Matters: A Practical Guide to Learning-Focused Relationships. Laura Lipton and Bruce Wellman. Mira Via, CT, USA.

This mentoring guide has been used effectively to support mentoring skills and development in many programs throughout British Columbia. It is an excellent resource for introducing and working with the skills of a learning-focused relationship. It has an informative section on defining the mentor’s role through consulting, collaborating, and coaching, and provides in depth scaffolds for development of learning –focused verbal tools to create emotional safety and produce complex thinking. This guide is cognitively focused and articulates the developmental differences between beginning and ‘expert’ teachers.

Creating a Mentoring Culture: The Organization’s Guide. Lois J. Zachary, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2012

This guide provides a comprehensive roadmap for organizations wanting to create a mentoring culture. It also provides useful tools for analyzing existing mentoring efforts. The stories and examples are taken from different types of corporate and non-profit organizations, but offers concrete ways to expand and align processes that lead to stronger mentoring practices within educational settings. The book provides numerous tools for districts just getting started with mentorship or seeking renewal of an existing program. This is an excellent resource for thinking about mentoring from a broad and deep strategic perspective.