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Inside The Mentors’ Experience: Using Poetic Representation To Examine The Tensions Of Mentoring Pre-Service Teachers., Sharon L. Mcdonough

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The supervision and mentoring of pre-service teachers during professional experience is complex work that requires a range of skills and capacities. Professional development for this work has traditionally been limited, however, and mentor teachers report experiencing tensions in their work stemming from their roles as both supporter and assessor of pre-service teachers. Despite the central role that mentors play in professional experience, their voices are underrepresented in the literature. In this paper, I draw on interview data to examine teachers’ experiences as mentors and the tensions they experience. I use poetic representation to illuminate the tensions and emotions of …