Open AccessHarnessing the potential of recently retired physics teachers to mentor new physics teachers
Author(s) -
Daniel Cottle
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
physics education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.343
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1361-6552
pISSN - 0031-9120
DOI - 10.1088/1361-6552/ac3931
Subject(s) - subject (documents) , mathematics education , teacher education , teacher preparation , pedagogy , physics education , intervention (counseling) , psychology , computer science , library science , psychiatry
Three new physics teachers graduating from a university provider of initial teacher education in England were paired with a recently retired physics subject specialist teacher in order to provide informal mentoring during their first year of teaching. The aim of this was to explore if a mentoring intervention of this kind could support teacher knowledge growth of the new physics teachers and influence their retention in the teaching profession. Qualitative data from the study suggests that substantive content of the mentoring discussions that took place addressed issues of general pedagogy and pedagogical content knowledge. The retired teacher mentors were enthusiastic and able to act as mentors. Suggestions emerge for ways of facilitating the mentoring.