Dr. Clayton Smith reading to a Windsor public school elementary class
The Faculty of Education created a Concurrent Education Mentoring Student Experience Program, which is now being offered to first and fourth-year students in the Concurrent Education Program. In this program, fourth-year students mentor first-year students in the Concurrent Education Program.
We are engaged in conducting action research that will explore the educational outcomes and program effectiveness of post-secondary concurrent education (pre-service teaching) student-mentoring programs. At this university, fourth-year concurrent education students mentor first-year concurrent education students. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the peer-mentoring program increases the sense of integration and satisfaction in first-year concurrent education students, and leadership skills in fourth-year students. Additionally, we hope to gain a better understanding of how these goals can be accomplished. The planned study will seek to answer four research questions, including a) What connections do first-year students make between mentee experiences and adjustment to university, learning, and professional growth? b) What connections do peer mentors make between the experience of peer mentoring and personal growth? c) What are the areas of intersection between the needs of first-year students in the concurrent education program, and opportunities for professional development for fourth-year students? d) What formats and approaches best support mutual growth in these relationships? Interns will participate in all parts of the research project, including research design, data collection, data analysis, and publication. An opportunity exists for contributing researchers to become co-authors of our published research.
This project has been approved by the University of Windsor Research Ethics Board and is funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Explore Grant.
We have begun writing an edited book (Springer), Mentoring to Support Teacher Canadidate Development. A call for chapter proposals will be announced shortly,
If you are interested in learning more, contact Dr. Smith at Clayton.Smith@uwindsor.ca.