Professional learning through a generative approach to mentoring: lessons from a Training School partnership and their wider implications

Abstract

This article explores the development of a generative, research‐based approach to mentoring initial teacher training students in a Training School/university partnership. Drawing on data from mentors, trainees and pupils it describes two phases of development, both of which use video recordings of participants' classroom practice to stimulate reflective dialogue. The authors point to the additional pedagogical insights made available through accessing pupil voice and the potential contribution such learning conversations can make to transforming the professional knowledge of both mentors and trainees. They highlight the dispositions and conditions which support the co‐construction of this inclusive approach and how it has contributed to the development of the school as a learning community. The authors suggest its wider relevance and how it can contribute to the creation by the profession of a new epistemological base for professional learning.