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University of Udine
GIREP Seminar
2003
The recently established pre-service teacher training has created in Italy new professional figures of trainers that before did not exist, among them the mentor of trainees in schools. The present contribution intends to analyse their professional roles in Italian schools: the hypothesis at the basis of this study is that this new figure of trainer not only is it fundamental for pre-service teacher training, but also can contribute to introducing innovation and professional reflection in schools and become the link which has been missing so far in Italy between pre-service teacher training, in-service teacher training, school development and university applied research.
The contribution will outline the main professional characteristics of mentors, the roles that these teachers have in pre-service training and the way in which they perceive their role of trainers. Case-studies will be qualitatively analysed: mentors will be interviewed and questionnaires will be used to gather information on their role in teacher training and in the school life.
The study will show how these professional characteristics (teaching and relational competences, mastery in the subject taught) are a fundamental asset both for the school system and university. These teachers possess the interest for continuous learning, abilities for establishing collaborative relationship with colleagues, organisational skills, strategies of self-reflection and self-monitoring, interest in finding new solutions to teaching issues and problems, awareness of the complexity of the teaching profession. All this is needed for innovation in teaching and for establishing the link between university applied research and innovation in schools. The study intends to show that mentors can become the missing link in Italy between applied research in teaching and its implementation and testing in schools, provided that the newly established working relationship between school and university will be maintained and its quality improved in the years to come.