Mentoring a Student Teacher
Being a mentor for a student teacher is a very important job. You have many responsibilities when you are a mentor. If you aren’t sure where to start, you are in the right place. I have some tips and resources for you! This is the third in a series of posts about mentoring a student teacher. Keep checking back for more tips and resources.
Mentoring a Student Teacher Topics
- Part 1: Preparing for your Student Teacher
- Part 2: Introducing your Student Teacher
- Part 3: Releasing Responsibilities to your Student Teacher
- Part 4: Communicating with your Student Teacher
- Part 5: Planning with your Student Teacher
- Part 6: Observing your Student Teacher
- Part 7: Giving Feedback to your Student Teacher
- Part 8: Grading Tips for your Student Teacher
- Part 9: Reflecting with your Student Teacher
- Part 10: Thanking your Student Teacher
Releasing Responsibilities to Your Student Teacher
Once your student teacher is introduced to the families, you need to set up a schedule for releasing responsibilities to your student teacher.
If your student’s school gives you a suggested schedule, you should follow that. If not, you can use these guidelines to help you.
You need to think about how long your student teacher should spend observing you. Make sure they have a few days to observe and take notes on routines. This also gives them time to learn the names of your students.
Once your student teacher has a chance to observe your teaching, then you can think about giving him/her more responsibilities.
Print the “What to Observe” page and give your student teacher multiple copies. He/she can fill it out while observing you during the first few weeks.
Start slowly. Give your student teacher easy routines first – walking students to other places in the building, read alouds, transition times, etc.
Then start planning and co-teaching with your student teacher. Start slow. Spend a lot of time explaining your thinking when you are planning and reflect together after lessons.
Build on previous experiences. Make sure you are both comfortable with what is decided. Also rely on a schedule to help you through the student teaching experience.
Slowly let your student teacher start teaching lessons. Each week, he/she can take over more lessons.
These tips should give you a good starting point for working with your student teacher. The full guide has more tips and tricks for you.
