Mentoring Through ‘Feedback Dialogues’ in a Student–Teacher Placement in Greece: A Small-Scale Collaborative Case Study

As an ‘authentic learning experience’, the school internship or placement holds immense learning potential for student–teachers and has been widely studied in music teacher education. Yet on-site and in-situ conversations that prospective teachers hold with mentors and their learning potential have been largely overlooked. This collaborative, small-scale research investigation aimed to offer an insider’s perspective of the function and characteristics of ‘feedback dialogues’ between a mentor teacher and student teacher dyad in the context of a school–university partnership in Greece. Through a line-by-line interaction analysis, the findings are mapped out across four learning potentialities of dialogic feedback (Steen-Utheim & Wittek, 2017): emotional and relational support; maintenance of the feedback dialogue; the offering of opportunities for students to express themselves; and the other’s contribution to individual growth. These shifted across phases and feedback cycles (pre- and post-teaching, post mentor-teacher observation) during the school placement, signifying the need for more nuanced mentoring pedagogies in music teacher education. Implications for stakeholders are discussed.