Reflection on a One-on-one Mentoring Experience through a Lens of Constructivists by Jee-Young Won

Introduction

Integrating technology into our educational systems for effective learning and teaching has been discussed throughout the last decade. Some researchers have emphasized the role of teachers in the successful technology integration into schools (Gallo & Horton, 1994; Office of technology assessment, 1995). In order to have teachers play an active role in technology integration into schools, various methods of technology training for teachers should be provided.

Not to mention to the importance of inservice teacher training for technology integration, demands for the preparation of preservice teachers to use new technology into their future instruction have been proliferated among teacher education researchers. In order to help preservice teachers incorporate technology into teaching, Stewart (1999) suggested that teacher education faculty should model the integration of technology. Teacher educators need to provide preservice teachers with the opportunities to experience on what technology-incorporated instructions look like. In order to make it happen, Stewart (1999) highlighted the importance of teacher education faculty's vision on how to improve their courses through the technology integration.

To help teacher education faculty provide a good model of technology integration into their instruction for student teachers, one specific training method, mentoring, has been chosen by many institutions (Kariuki et al, 2001; Smith & O'Bannon, 1999; Thompson, Hansen, and Reinhart, 1996). Through one-on-one relationship with a paired mentor, teacher educators are prepared as technology-proficient professionals, who can model effective use of technology for better instruction to student teachers (Smith, 2000).
In the fall of 2001, I took a graduate class in the College of Education at Iowa State University. The class was entitled as Technology in Teacher Education. As a class project, each student was asked to be a mentor for one faculty to help him or her integrate technology in their instruction.

During the semester, I helped one faculty member develop her WebCT course.
In this paper, I would like to describe my mentoring experience with her. Because, in my mentoring experience, I found some characteristics of the constructivist learning such as authentic task environments, case-based learning environments, learner-driven learning goals, and collaborative learning, I will describe my experience from the constructivist perspective. In order to do that, first, literature review on mentoring will be presented. Second, some characteristics of constructivism will be summarized. Third, profiles of mentee and mentor will be described. Forth, mentoring process will be reported in timely order. Fifth, reflections on the mentoring experience will be summarized. Finally, the paper will get to the epilogue where I conclude my mentoring experiences and provide some suggestions for future mentoring programs.
Literature on Mentoring

Mentoring has a long history in education (Stewart, 1999). This approach has been used to help beginning teachers grown up as good teachers with the assistance of mentor teachers. Experienced teachers serve as mentors to guide beginning teachers to apply their learning in the university to teaching practices more effectively and efficiently.
For successful mentoring programs, researchers suggested valuable guidelines based on their study on the mentoring in various educational settings in the last decade (MacArthur et all, 1995; Mills et all, 2001). From the results of the survey, which were collected from school districts in Michigan to identify the factors of good mentoring practices to retain new teachers, Mills et all (2001) recommend that a mentoring program should be planned with a consideration of the followings: (1) identify the best match of mentor and mentee, (2) develop a training program for mentors, (3) establish clear performance expectations, and (4) evaluate the effectiveness of the mentor experience. Because mentoring involves the relationship between mentor and mentee, interpersonal skill of the mentors is also an important factor for successful mentoring experience (MacArthur et all, 1995).

Good mentors need to take time to listen, help mentees grow as independent learners, and diagnose specific needs of the mentees. Emphasis on the individual needs of the mentees is important to make mentoring programs meaningful to the participants (Welty, 2000).
Although the original idea of the mentoring approach was that veteran teachers support novice teachers, research has shown that even student teachers can serve as mentors for their professors (Kariuki et all, 2001; Smith, 2000; Stewart, 1999). This kind of mentoring occurs to help university faculty integrate technology into their teaching practices successfully. Smith (2000) explained that technology mentoring for faculty is important because its ultimate outcome is effective technology integration into the K-12 classrooms through teacher educators' modeling of effective technology use in their teaching classes.

When mentoring programs are developed to help college faculty integrate technology in instructions, both mentors and mentees can benefit each other. A mentee can get a personal guidance from a mentor on how to plan their teaching using technology and how to integrate technology into their teaching (Kariuki et al, 2001). Technical skills are also increased through the mentoring experiences (MacArthur et all, 1995). Faculty mentoring for technology is good experience to student teachers, too. Serving as mentors, they can get a chance to reflect on their own teaching practices with technology (Kariuki et al, 2001). After the mentoring experience with one faculty member at Iowa State University, Stewart (1999) listed benefits for herself as a mentor as follows: (1) constant relationship with the faculty members, (2) recognition of their expertise, (3) increase of leadership skills, and (4) chance to learn from faculty members. In short, a mentoring method for technology integration is useful for both faculty members and students. They can grow together helping each other.

Literature on Constructivism

Constructivism is a learning theory addressing the active construction of knowledge by learners. This theory was first developed by Plato, then by John Dewey, and most recently by Heinz Werner, Les Vygotsky, and Jean Piaget (Wadsworth, 1996). Dixon_Krauss (1996) noted that the most crucial contribution of constructivism to education is its emphasis on the learner's active participation in constructing meaning rather than passive acquisition of knowledge. Fosnot (1996) noted that constructivism proposes learning as "an interpretive, recursive, building process by active learners interacting with the physical and social world (p. 30)."

In constructivism learning environments, roles of learners and teachers are quite different from traditional educational settings. Learners in constructivist learning environment are active meaning makers who actually interpret the world in their own ways. In accordance with the changing roles of learners, constructivist teachers take on different roles in the process of students' knowledge construction. Teachers have student generate their own hypothesis to construct meaning from the problem (Fosnot, 1996; Gould, 1996). Students are asked to collaborate to solve problems in a learning community where they can exchange ideas, reflect upon these ideas, and justify their ideas as norms in the community (Fosnot, 1996).

On the website of constructivism, Murphy (1997) summarized the characteristics of constructivism (See table 1). According to her summary, constructivism supports student-developed learning goals, student-centered learning activities, metacognitive and reflective learning, collaborative and cooperative learning, authentic learning situation, and problem solving learning.
This learning theory will be used in this paper to reflect on my mentoring experience.

Table 1: Characteristics of Constructivism (Murphy, 1997).

Mentee Porfile

Dr. R is a professor in the College of Education at Iowa State University. She is teaching a foreign language teaching method course as an undergraduate course to pre- and in-service teachers. She is also the director of the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center.
She is familiar with computers. In her personal and professional life, technology is immersed and used to make her life easier. She has used word processing and Excel programs. She has been using the grading software to maintain her grading for the class. Also, she utilized emails as a communication tool and a palm pilot as a record-keeping tool. She mentioned that she was impressed when she could take digital pictures using a palm pilot-attached digital camera. For her foreign language teaching method class, she has been incorporating WebCT as an online discussion tool and easy access to her course information. She is always willing to learn a new feature of technology to help her teaching better and effectively.

In the first meeting with me, she expressed her goals for the mentoring activities. She wanted to explore more functions of WebCT to make it more useful to students. She also wanted to redesign the first page of her WebCT course. Finally, she liked to get some advice to buy new grading software for her class.

Mentor Profile

I am a Ph. D student in the Department of Curriculum and Instructional Technology at Iowa State University. I got my B.S. in English Education as a Foreign Language in Seoul, Korea and taught a middle school English class for one year. Then, I got my M. S. in the Curriculum and Instruction at Iowa State University. Currently, I am working for the Master of Science in Agronomy program at Iowa State University. I have developed web-based interactive course materials for the MS in Agronomy program since 1998.
My technology competency was intermediate to advanced. I have a low level of computer anxiety. I am familiar with most of web-based instruction development tools as well as basic desktop publishing software. My major interests in technology are to use distance education as an approach to reach to people who want a lifelong learning and to develop a standard for a good distance course.
I registered for the mentoring course this semester because I would like to experience on staff development activities for technology integration. My goal for this mentoring course was to see how two different background possessing people interact each other to learn together toward the technology integration for better learning and teaching.

Mentoring Diary

The mentoring session was held every week in the fall of 2001 from October 1 to December 10. Originally, I was supposed to work with three faculty members who were interested in the use of WebCT for their classes at the same time. However, because of time conflict, two other faculties except Dr. R were assigned to the other mentors. Because the three faculty members were interested in the same tool, WebCT, we met all together one time in the early semester to share ideas how they had been integrating WebCT into their teaching units. That meeting was so valuable, that I would like to talk about the meeting a little bit more in the next section of this paper.

In the first meeting, Dr. R and I sep up the goals of our meeting roughly: (1) Grading software purchase, (2) Exploration of evaluation tools in WebCT, (3) Redesign of the WebCT course appearance, and (4) Some trouble-shooting she had currently. However, we agreed upon that we could do any projects whenever it came up as an important issue depending on her needs.
Dr. R's previous use of WebCT was that she put some course information including assignment lists, grading criteria, and course syllabus on the WebCT and used a communication tools such as a discussion board and chatting rooms. Mainly it was not used actively by students as an interactive learning tool but used as a supplementary information storage tool. Dr. R hoped to learn how to utilize the WebCT to make it more useful to her students.

On the weekly-based arrangement, we met every Monday for one-hour. Except the first meeting session, we met in her office and used her own computer. She mentioned that the use of her own computer at her private office gave her a comfortable environment.
In the first half of the semester, we spent on developing a grade sheet by using the Excel program. Though she said that she would like to purchase new grading system software, I suggested to her that she try Excel program first to see if it works for her. After a couple of weeks, she could have her own grading worksheet in Excel. She was satisfied with the feature of the Excel for her class assessment process. She could insert formulas into the cells and even write simple formula into the cells if necessary. Through the semester, she used the worksheet as a grade book for her class.

In the second half of the semester, most of time was invested to explore the feature of the evaluation tool in the WebCT. We added a grading tool to her WebCT course, so that each student can check his or her grades via WebCT. She was happy to add this tool to her course because she felt that the tool made her WebCT useful for her students.

Through all the meeting sessions, we kept thinking how we could empower her course with technology incorporation and have her students get some benefit from the results of our mentoring experiences.
In the next section, I would like to reflect on my mentoring experiences in more detail. My learning journal that I kept after each meeting, Dr. R's comments she made during the meeting time, and my observation on Dr. R's technology integration growth would be main sources for my reflections. I will try to look through my mentoring experiences from a constructivist learning perspective, which emphasizes (1) learner's active learning, (2) teacher as facilitator, (3) authentic, problem-based learning situations, and (4) collaborative and cooperative learning environments.
Reflection
In this section, I will look back on my mentoring experiences based on the following characteristics of the constructivist learning.
· Collaborative learning environment
· Teacher's role as facilitator
· Learner's role as active learner
· Authentic learning situations

Collaborative learning environment

Constructivism encourages learners to collaborate to solve problems. Learners are asked to form a learning community where they can exchange ideas, reflect upon these ideas, and justify their ideas as norms in the community (Fosnot, 1996). During the semester, I encountered this kind of learning environments by myself.

First of all, Dr. R and I always worked together to make WebCT function as it should. There was no authorization that I need to know everything on technology and she knows everything on teaching practices. We have not known every aspect of technology but we knew we could solve any problem through working together.

And whenever necessary, we could get any helping hands from other faculty members or other graduate students. As I mentioned earlier in this paper, we had a meeting session with other faculty members to share their uses of WebCT for instruction. For the meeting, they loved to share their ideas and so enthusiastic to provide some suggestions for the problems that others brought. It was an experience of interactive learning community among the faculty members where they share ideas how they incorporated WebCT into their teaching practices.

Also, the mentoring class itself was a good example of collaborative learning environments. In the class, there were twelve graduate students who have various levels of technology experiences. In every class meeting, we updated our mentoring projects and asked for some help if we need it. Many students mentioned that, though they could not solve problems during their mentoring meeting, they felt secured because they could get right solutions from the class.

The opportunity of collaborative learning in my mentoring project was the most valuable experience that I had in this semester. Learning technology integration would be rich when we place ourselves in an interactive learning community where we can share ideas on how we integrate technology in our professional lives and solve any problems collaboratively.
Mentor's role as learning partner

In a constructivist learning environment, teachers have students generate their own hypothesis on a problem and provide opportunities for students to explore these hypothesis to construct meaning from the problem (Gould, 1996). Also, teachers provide students with support and assistance within the zone of proximal development (Bodrova & Leong, 1996). To accomplish this, teachers need to be sensitive to the levels of cognitive development of each student.

Before the actual mentoring sessions began, to me, the mentoring implied one-way relationship, in which one person (who knows more than the other) provides some information for the other to help him or her become knowledgeable to something. Having this kind of perception on my mentoring experiences, I thought I needed to be the person who takes a lead and provides a model that the mentee could follow to be a successful learner. However, as the semester went on, I noticed that my mentoring experiences should be a two-way-relationship rather than a one-way. The mentor and the mentee would be a learning partner for each other, so that they are able to exchange their own expertise and help each other construct her own learning in meaningful ways.

With the changed perception on the role of myself as a mentor, I could react to my mentee differently. Rather than providing every detail in every step for her, I could step aside and let her lead our meeting. For example, one day, we had a problem in deleting some student records from WebCT. She expected me to solve the problem. I could not find the solution and asked her if she wanted to try to fix it. For a while, she brainstormed how she could solve the problem and tried several approaches. Finally, she fixed it by herself and expressed her satisfaction with her own troubleshooting.

It was joyful to watch her growing in technology integration. In the early semester, she had no prior experience in using Excel for grading books. After several sessions invested on creating a grading worksheet in Excel for her class, she was comfortable in manipulating the Excel grading sheet by herself. She added all the grades in the worksheet at home by herself. She said that she was happy to know that Excel can do grading. She mentioned that she would use the worksheet as a template to grade her class in the next semester. I could see that Excel began to be integrated into her teaching life as a class management tool. In this process, I played a role as a facilitator, who helps Dr. R apply her learning in our meeting to her teaching practice. One-on-one mentoring made it possible for me to facilitate Dr. R's learning within the zone of proximal development because I was able to diagnose her needs and progress to provide an accurate and in-time assistance.

Mentee's role as active learne

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In the constructivist learning environment, learners play a central role in controlling their learning (Murphy, 1997). They are active meaning makers who construct knowledge in their own pace in the interaction with outside world (Harris and Graham, 1994). They set their own learning goals in the negotiation with a teacher.

Dr. R is naturally an active learner, who does not hesitate to try alternative ways of solving a problem. She was not afraid of making a mistake to learn WebCT. When we explored some new features of the WebCT, though she did not internalize the functions instantly, she eventually figured out how she could make those learning meaningful to her daily teaching practices.
Also, she enjoyed working with other people as well as me. The interaction with others was important for her to construct her learning. The discussion with other faculty members who had common interests in WebCT in the early semester, she could refine her learning goals. One day, we could not solve a problem while developing the Excel grading sheet. Suddenly she asked her secretary to come to her desk and ask for the solution. She was invited to her learning construction. On that day, we formed one instant learning community where we worked together to solve a problem.

Finally, Dr. R set the goals of our meeting sessions through the discussion with me. The learning goals were not fixed, so that she could set a new goals based on her needs during the semester. Because we focused on developing WebCT course to make it useful to students, at the end of the semester, she could set new goals for the next semester as follows: Improvement of discussion board uses and creating a video clips page where students are able to see and analyze various teaching methods through online.
Authentic learning situations

Constructivism supports learning in relevant, realistic, authentic learning situations (Murphy, 1997). Learning technology in a mentoring situation is one example of the authentic learning. In the mentoring program, faculty members can learn technology through the connection with their teaching life, which is real world to them. Learning technology to improve their instruction makes it possible to construct their learning in individual contexts, where learning is meaningful and valuable to their real life.

Epilogue

In this paper, I could reflect on my mentoring experience with Dr. R with a lens of constructivism. Mentoring made it possible for Dr. R to learn technology in the authentic learning situation with my facilitation. During this semester, Dr. R actively constructed meaningful learning on WebCT and Excel through the collaboration with others (i.e., faculty members, secretary, and other graduate students) by forming formal and informal learning communities.

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