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Scholarly studies on mentoring have mostly focused on traditional mentor–mentee relationships, with little or no emphasis on how institutionalized mentoring activities that include different pedagogical approaches could be used to enhance the professional development of academics. To address this knowledge gap, this article examines how an institutionalized multilevel mentoring program could be used to enhance the professional development of early-career academics and academics in designated groups in a South African university.

The data for the study were gathered from 18 mentees and 2 program administrators using semi-structured interviews. The data gathered were assessed by way of thematic analysis that involved a detailed process of identifying, analyzing, organizing, describing and reporting the themes that were developed from the data set.

The findings revealed that when mentees participate in different mentoring and professional development activities that are structured based on different pedagogies, they can engage in higher-order thinking processes and develop multidisciplinary experiences within an expanded professional learning community. Enabled by the situated learning setting, mentees can negotiate the meaning of their professional practice within a professional community and comprehend the nuanced pedagogical approaches including scaffolding learning used by mentors to shape their career trajectory and guide them to secure promotions.

The current study contributes to the scholarly discourse on situated learning by showing that mentoring could be planned and implemented as a pedagogical endeavor with diverse learning activities and structured as a form of professional development program within a professional community.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a qualitative study of the learning and development of 70 external mentors during the first year of their deployment to support early career teachers’ professional learning as part of a national initiative aimed at school improvement in Wales.

The study adopted a narrative methodology that elicited accounts of external mentors’ learning experiences that were captured as textual data and analysed using an inductive approach to identify: first, the manifest themes that appeared at declarative level, and second, the latent (sub-textual) themes of external mentor learning and development.

Four key themes emerged that indicate the complexity of transition to the role of external mentor in high-stakes contexts. From these, eight theoretically-informed principles were derived which support mentors to embrace uncertainty as essential to their learning and development, and to harness the potential they bring as boundary-crossers to support the development of new teachers.

The study investigated the first year of a three-year programme and worked with one form of qualitative data collection. The research results may lack generalisability and a longitudinal study is necessary to further explore the validity of the findings.

The eight principles provide a foundation for mentor development programmes that can support ambitious goals for mentoring early career teachers.

The study addresses the under-researched area of the learning and development of external mentors at a national scale.

To present the findings of the comparative evaluation of two transitional mentoring programs developed for new library and information professionals in Australia, one as a group program and the other with pairs of mentors/mentees.

The research project involved an initial review of the literature. A comparative study was undertaken, with a survey approach to collect data from the participants in the transitional mentoring programs. The study obtained data about three key areas: career‐related, learning‐related, and professional development.

It was found that participants had a high level of satisfaction with both the programs and both mentor and mentee reported positive career, learning and personal development outcomes.

The study was limited to one year of transitional mentoring activity for one professional field in Australia. It would be beneficial to continue the study over a longer period of time to collect further data from other participants.

The research project highlights evaluation of mentoring programs. The project has helped develop an initial understanding of benefits to be gained through mentoring relationships to support new professionals. The study is likely to have wider application across other professional disciplines and may encourage professionals to consider mentoring as a valuable part of career development.

The paper provides information about two different models of transitional mentoring programs, together with one possible approach for the evaluation of mentoring programs. The paper offers support and encouragement to any professional group planning to establish and manage a mentoring program.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an innovative model of mentoring that evolved over the past ten years as a result of experience, research and self-study. This research, conducted in Orthodox Jewish day schools will raise awareness of potential benefits of mentoring as an effective means for supporting Q1 teachers’ classroom effectiveness and sense of well-being. Background research is presented on mentoring as a powerful tool in supporting teachers throughout their careers. An original aspect of this paper is the analysis of exemplary cross-cultural mentoring intentional training, ongoing support and solicitation of feedback. Findings are based on samples from data collected over several years and are analyzed using qualitative tools. The authors discuss implications from two published self-studies of an exemplary mentoring model in which mentors worked with teachers and explore considerations for teacher well-being.

A qualitative–narrative approach was chosen for these studies. The findings were drawn from three sources of data: open-ended questionnaires, end-of-year letters teachers wrote to their principals reporting on changes in their classroom practices and in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with teachers, mentors and administrators in each of the schools participating in the program.

The two self-studies, in tandem with the teachers’ surveys and reflections, illustrate how the teachers viewed the connection between the mentoring they received and their own professional growth. Overall, teachers reported a general satisfaction as a result of participating in the mentoring program. Many noted that the program provided a useful framework offering a personalized approach to their professional development. The teachers were directed to frame their own learning agendas by setting their own instructional improvement goals and asking meaningful questions relevant to their particular classroom situations.

Limited sample size and private religious school environment might put limits on implications.

The presented model has universal implications. A personalized mentoring model, with supplementary professional development sessions geared toward topics supporting well-being, can be applied in any educational setting. Schools leaders must find ways to foster teacher satisfaction and keep teachers engaged in their own learning. Offering teachers a personalized approach that supports continued growth while encouraging them to set their own learning agendas can serve as a vital bridge to teacher satisfaction and well-being.

The findings of this paper have implications for school improvement, cross-cultural mentoring, mentor training and teacher well-being.

Original aspects of this paper include: the self-study of exemplary mentoring program, application of mentoring in cross-cultural environments, teacher well-being in private schools and mentoring of teachers in Orthodox Jewish schools.

This article explores the contribution of mentoring to the professional development of novice principals. Based on Abbott’s (1988) framework, the authors suggest that effective mentoring depends on the extent it develops professional core knowledge, which includes the skills of diagnosis, intervention and inference that are heavily based on academic knowledge, practical experience, self-awareness and reflective ability.

An exploratory qualitative methodology was applied to discover principals’ perceptions of their mentoring. The authors interviewed 15 novice principals about their mentoring events and conducted a category-based analysis to find out how these events reflect contributions to their diagnosis, intervention and inference skills.

The study found that most of the mentoring events provided support for the intervention skill, while ignoring the skills of diagnosis and inference. We suggest that to develop novice principals professionally, mentors should place similar emphasis on all three skills.

The small research population and its possible bias toward positive mentoring experience may present only part of the picture. Still, the data provided important insights into how mentoring supports (or not) professional skills development, even in the best cases. Using professional skills in a large sample survey of effective and less effective mentoring relationships would help to validate this framework.

First, the findings serve as a guideline for mentor training programs to help develop mentors’ ability to support all three professional skills. Second, the findings may help novice principals to evaluate their mentoring relationships and their contribution to developing professional core knowledge skills.

The professional skills framework adds to the principal mentoring literature by emphasizing the importance of diagnosis, intervention and inference skills, in addition to certain content and specific conditions.

Mentoring is an important mode of professional development in many countries. It involves an experienced colleague supporting the development of a new principal. Reports the findings of one aspect of a major national research project on mentoring and teacher education in England and Wales. Considers the nature and purpose of mentoring and examines the “match” between mentor and the new headteacher. Reports on the benefits of mentoring for new principals, mentors and the educational system, and discusses certain limitations of this approach to professional development. Presents several conceptual models of the mentor relationship and reports that the dominant normative conception is that of peer support. Concludes that mentoring is valuable in supporting principals as they adapt to their new role but it may lack the rigour to be a really effective mode of professional development.

When assistant principals experience positive mentoring and professional development, they can obtain valuable knowledge and leadership skills from these learning opportunities. To better understand the formal and informal mechanisms assistant principals use to expand their knowledge and skills, the purpose of this paper is to examine important advice mentors provided for them and the professional learning activities that prepare them for their school leadership roles.

Semi-structured interviews with 69 elementary, middle, and high school assistant principals were conducted. Questions focused on the advice mentors have provided and significant learning experiences that have aided in their growth as school leaders.

Results reveal that assistant principals greatly appreciate insights from mentors about how to enhance decision-making skills, improve people and communication skills, reflect on their personal qualities and capabilities, and clarify their values and beliefs. Their preferred means for professional growth is to work with former and current administrators they trust and respect.

This study goes beyond examining the structural and procedural aspects of mentoring by describing highly valued advice provided by mentors affecting assistant principals’ professional development and growth. For mentoring to be effective, this study suggests that mentors should provide opportunities for assistant principals to develop their decision-making, people, and communication skills as well to clarify their personal capabilities, values, and beliefs.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) mentorship has been identified as an important component of professional identity formation in higher education (HE). This may be especially true for education-focused or teaching stream (TS) faculty to thrive in times of changing organizational structures and work environments. The purpose of this paper is to present a critical reflection on the experiences in a faculty P2P mentoring for teaching program and considers the ways in which such programs can influence professional identity formation among TS academics.

In this paper, a matched faculty mentorship pair from Nursing and Chemistry disciplines uses critical reflection as a process of inquiry to interpret their experiences of building and sustaining an effective mentoring relationship as part of the P2P program, and to consider implications for professional identity formation and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Through the P2P program, the authors discovered that establishment of clear goals, a commitment to teaching and mentoring processes, and a mutual desire to build a relationship based on authenticity and reciprocity resulted in positive short- and long-term impacts on instructional practices. Professional identity was strengthened through intentional engagement and the opportunity to connect with like-minded peers, contributing to a renewed sense of confidence and commitment.

Interest in examining professional identity formation in HE has been growing over the past decade. This paper is novel in the critical reflection on a structured peer mentorship initiative through the lens of professional identity formation, with implications for planning and executing mentoring programs for TS faculty.

The purpose of this paper is to examine principal mentoring, a process that is significant in principal identification, socialization, development, and retention.

The study was framed within the social constructivism paradigm and thematically examined individual perspectives to develop the thematic constructs relevant to the participants’ experiences of and perceptions about principal mentoring.

Thematic analysis of the interview data from 16 principals from the state of Georgia, USA, revealed five major themes related to leaders’ experiences of and perceptions about principal mentoring: mentoring as recruitment; mentoring as socialization; mentoring as support; mentoring as professional development; and mentoring as reciprocal learning.

These findings were limited to the sample of principals used for this analysis. Researchers are encouraged to examine principal mentoring in other contexts.

The results of this inquiry suggest the need for formal and informal mentoring opportunities for new and experienced principals and call for further research on comparing mentoring practices between the large and small schools systems.

The paper identifies mentoring as an important path to principal effectiveness and contributes to the corpus of literature on educational mentoring by examining the perceptions and experiences of new and experienced principals about the mentoring they received and provided.

In recent years mentoring has been promoted as an essential, yet complex, new teacher induction dynamic. Mentors generally develop their knowledge of this role in isolation and in situ, and despite extensive research in the field few studies investigate how mentors learn. Therefore it is important to continue to examine the complex aspects of learning to mentor. The purpose of this paper is to focus on understanding the knowledge, attitudes and skills required by mentors to simultaneously focus on their own learning, new teachers’ learning and student learning.

In this New Zealand study the authors examined a pilot programme aimed at shifting mentoring practices to an educative model. Through a two-year professional development intervention, 22 participant mentors inquired into, analysed and documented their practice. Data were gathered through learning conversations, action research documentation and reflections. They were analysed using qualitative methodology.

Evident was a shift in mentoring practice from a focus on the transmission of knowledge-for-practice to inquiry into knowledge-of-practice. Change was observed after sustained and serious engagement with evidence about mentoring practices. However the shifts did not come easy, nor were they assured.

This study is not without limitations. Transferability is potentially problematic. The pilot study was well resourced, therefore expecting the implementation and outcomes to transfer to other contexts without similar resourcing maybe unrealistic.

The findings contributed to the development of a mentoring curriculum and national guidelines for mentoring new teachers.

While the findings emerged from a situated context, the theoretical and practice issues reported are matters for international attention, particularly the matter of transitioning from a well-practiced, efficient teacher mentor to an adaptive educative mentor.