A Tool Kit for Mentor Teachers

As a mentor teacher for many years, I’ve learned that veteran teachers have a critical opportunity to pass on good practice and promote self-efficacy to our student teachers. If you are considering hosting a student teacher, here’s my basic tool kit for making the most of the experience for them, and for you, right from the start.

Establish a Connection and Build Trust

When I first meet with a student teacher, we do so in my quiet classroom without students. Why? That first meeting needs my full focus for a very important moment in this courageous person’s life. We sit down, we laugh, and I show them the sign on the door that shows their name on it next to my own. Then I get right into questions, particularly about their experiences and their goals.

This conversation often goes for more than an hour, sometimes two, and that’s great. In this meeting, I always hand the student teacher a new planner that matches my own. I also give them a notebook, exactly like mine, where I’ll be taking notes about our lessons or writing down ideas and wonderings.

Offering the planner to the student teacher is, to me, the greatest way a mentor can include a student teacher right from the start. The matching planners say, “This isn’t my meeting. It’s ours.“ This is critical for student teachers; they want to do important work. The planner makes that tangible. I’ve literally seen their eyes light up when they understand that they have a mentor teacher who is going to share the class with them. I’ve also learned that one of the things student teachers fear most is that the mentor teacher will close them off.

These small gifts send an immediate message that control won’t be an issue. Everything we discuss is open, yet between us. This alleviates stress because the student teacher knows there won’t be any secret judgments. If they struggle with pacing, we’ll tackle it together. If they do well at launches, we’ll celebrate that together.

I conclude by letting the student teacher know that I am so happy to host them. I make sure to let them know that they won’t be thrust into anything they don’t feel comfortable with until they are ready.

Understand the Student Teacher’s Schedule as Part of Yours

Student teachers are juggling multiple stressful schedules, from their university courses to our shared classroom, their personal lives, and often a work schedule too. Because of that, I quickly obtain their university pacing guide, week by week—either from their program or directly from the student teacher.

However the schedule shakes out, you’ll want to enter the key dates from their schedule into your own teacher planner. I do so with a specific color, so the student teacher always knows I’m aware of what they have coming up.

This helps reduce a lot of stress for your candidate because now they have a collaborator on projects. When they have a tough day, I remind them that they are keeping to their pacing and that is a reason to celebrate! I make sure to ask questions about things that are coming up, and I remind the candidate that we’ll make room in our schedule for their lesson or for their unit.

Facilitate Co-teaching Through Invitation

In the first couple of weeks, I break the teaching “ice” with invitations. I might be teaching a lesson, and I’ll invite the student teacher to help me with the slide deck from the class computer. I invite them to fill out nurse passes, take attendance, and answer the phones. I also invite them to give their opinion during the closure of a healthy class debate.

During guided practice, I invite them to show students when they come to a tough word in their own reading or share their favorite way to solve a subtraction problem. During independent practice, I might invite them to work alongside a student, a table, or a small group that needs a little nudge, or even a student excited to share at the lesson’s close. While doing this, I constantly talk with the student teacher about what I’m doing and how I’m doing it, and noting moments that we might discuss after the lesson.

Provide practice and Rehearsal

Over time, I’ve also learned the value of rehearsal with student teachers. Teaching requires many snap decisions, and student teachers can get overwhelmed by trying to juggle everything.

Practicing a lesson step-by-step with a student teacher takes away the mystery, provides them with a scaffold to rely on during their lessons, and helps them take a breath. When we rehearse, I can ask them what they might do if x or y happens. These questions are perfect to ask before the lesson because candidates appreciate when they’re set up for success, instead of being criticized after what they might feel is a failure.

After the Lesson, Keep Opportunities to Teach and Reflect

Student teachers clearly see that their mentor teacher has a passion and love for teaching just like they do. As we reach those moments where they begin to take the reins, they might feel uncertain about what they want to, should, or could teach. My solution for this is to make sure that we discuss, daily, any opportunities that they are excited for. This becomes part of a normal routine where we reflect and discuss what happened, what could have happened, and what should have happened during the day.

I often model for the student teacher what I know I could have done better or want to do better. I solicit advice from them, and it’s often during this part of our talk that I provide a “table offer” for them to try something out that I wish I had done. Maybe they have an idea for a better chart or a better graphic organizer. Maybe they would love to pull groups with students based on a quick exit slip. Perhaps they’d like to jump in and reteach a lesson or try on a new challenge.

Always Give Feedback

Finally, my biggest piece of advice for anyone mentoring a student teacher is to always, and I mean always, give feedback. I keep a notebook in which I constantly write things that are always shared with the student teacher.

I abide by the three-to-one rule: Always celebrate three positive things for any one thing I want the student teacher to work on. Student teachers, I have found, hold one goal at a time in their hearts, and going step-by-step on those goals is the best approach. My strongest advice is to always mix in a healthy dose of feedback about yourself throughout the day too. By noting times when your pacing didn’t work well, or when you could have created more thought-provoking questions, you’ll let the student teacher know that this work we do is all a process—one that they can love as much as you do.