From humble beginnings: evolving mentoring within professional development for academic staff

This paper reports on a research case study into a form of mentoring for teachers in higher education in Ireland with 30 academic staff. It begins with an exploration of the concept and practice of mentoring in the world of higher education professional development; focus will be limited to an overview of the concept of teacher mentoring, an exploration of its various expressions, and identification of facilitative measures that institutions can take to foster teacher mentoring. In theory, mentoring is beneficial for the mentor, the mentee, and the organization. Much of successful facilitating requires not only the transmission of information but also the care and encouragement of individuals to encourage reflective practice. Some problems arose in matching mentors and mentees, with too much of a knowledge/status/experience gap inhibiting and impeding the process. However the scheme is maximizing the best resources that a higher education can have – its own staff. Ultimately, the study discusses the nature of the benefits and considers how might this good idea be more widely adopted and practiced within the field of teacher professional development.