ABSTRACT
One of the primary challenges for designing mentoring programs is the distributed nature of teacher preparation programs, which occur across a diffuse network that requires a significant amount of communication among diverse entities, including university faculty, schools, departments, colleges and clinical placements. Highly skilled mentors can help teacher candidates and new teachers expand their learning through coaching and reflection. Extended professional development opportunities, such as workshops, academies, courses on mentoring provide opportunities to create in-depth understanding of both teacher development and mentoring. A primary focus of a mentoring academy, workshop, or course is the use of mentoring tools to facilitate student learning and teacher-candidate development. The communications between teacher preparation programs and their school partners should be part of a carefully orchestrated strategy for communicating expectations, sharing mentoring tools, and informing clinical educators of mentoring strategies. Depending on the nature of the event, they could be used in some way to disseminate knowledge about the practice of mentoring teacher candidates.
