Teachers\u27 Preferences on the Qualities and Roles of a Mentor Teacher

Research Note: From the preface: The purpose of this investigation was to address the gap in professional development literature related to mentoring, specifically as it applies to nontraditional cases, beyond new teacher induction. In particular, we examined teachers\u27 preferences on mentoring characteristics and practices to determine whether nontraditional mentoring (owing to grade level changes, subject area changes, and newly adopted school district curricula) would be consistent with or contradict models of mentoring based primarily on the induction of new teachers. This report is part of a larger investigation that explored a curricular change initiative in a large urban school district and is a companion to another article published in JTPE about the same program (see McCaughtry, Kulinna, Cothran, Martin, & Faust, 2005). This report takes a more phenomenological approach to the investigation of mentoring as we report only teachers\u27 mentoring preferences. We wanted to share, in their own words, how teachers described effective mentoring and then compare that perspective to theorized models