Engage in authentic conversation and reflection with experienced educators

The Role of Teacher Education in Mentoring Teachers

Guest(s): Sara Hoeve and Susan Brondyk
Date: 04/30/2025
Run time: 50:36
Season 4, Episode 6

In episode 6, Carol welcomes Sara Hoeve and Susan Brondyk who are colleagues in the school of education at Hope College. This episode focuses on The Role of Teacher Education in Mentoring Teachers. Sara and Susan give us a behind-the-scenes look at how they set up their mentorship programs to best support both the student teachers and the teacher mentors in schools. In conversation with Carol, they share how they get mentors and mentees on the same page, why establishing a common language is essential, and how they continue to support their new teachers even after they graduate from student teaching.

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Episode Audio

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Welcome to Corwin's Teacher to Teacher podcast with host, Carol Pelletier Radford. Carol is an experienced

classroom teacher and university educator, founder of MentoringinAction.com, and author of four best selling

professional books for teachers. She believes the best form of professional learning happens when teachers

engage in authentic conversations and share their wisdom.

In every episode, Carol and her guests share stories about pivotal moments in their careers, successful

classroom strategies, and personal actions they take to minimize stress and stay healthy. The Teacher to Teacher

podcast is a place to engage in authentic conversation and reflection with experienced educators. We hope these

conversations will energize you, keep you inspired, and remind you why you chose to become a teacher.

LIZ GILDEA: Hello, and welcome to the Teacher to Teacher podcast. I'm Liz Gildea, Senior Acquisitions Editor here at Corwin.

This season of the podcast focuses on mentoring in action. And today's episode is about the role of teacher

education in mentorship. Our guess for the episode are Sara Hoeve and Susan Brondyk.

Sara and Susan are colleagues at Hope College where Susan is the chair of the education department, and Sara

is the director of student teaching and teacher certification. Susan and Sara give us a behind-the-scenes look at

how they set up their mentorship programs to best support both the student teachers and the teacher-mentors in

schools.

In conversation with Carol, they share how they get mentors and mentees on the same page by establishing a

common language is essential and how they continue to support new teachers even after they graduate from

student teaching. They wrap up with tips for busy mentors to help make your mentorship program more

sustainable.

This conversation was packed with insights for those who organize mentor programs and for mentors

themselves. I hope it helps you identify new ideas for your program or practice.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

Hello, everyone. I am Carol Pelletier Radford, and I am the host of theT eacher to Teacher podcast. And we are in

season 4. I'm so excited. This is episode 6. And the topic for this episode is the role of teacher education in

mentoring teachers.

So usually, in our Teacher to Teacher podcast, we focus on K-12, and that's who our audience is, groups of

teachers who are listening and using this podcast to help them further develop. And I'm just going to do a shout

out for our-- in the notes, you will see a blog that I wrote called Podcast PD. And in Podcast PD, you can invite

your school districts to give you earned credit for professional learning hours for listening to the Teacher to

Teacher podcast, so I hope that you will do that.

I am excited to have two guests today from Hope College. And I know of their work because we both submitted

chapters to a book called Mentoring for Wellbeing that was edited by Ben Kutsyuruba And this book had a whole

focus on mentoring teachers around taking care of themselves and staying balanced. Because we know teaching

is a really tough job.

So Sara and Susan are my guests. I loved reaching out and having you say yes. So could you each introduce

yourselves and just give me a little bit about your teacher background and where you are now at the university

helping teachers? Susan.

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

Sure. Thank you for having us, Carol. This is great to have this conversation. My name is Susan Brondyk. I started

my career as an elementary teacher for 14 years. I'm a Montessori trained, certified teacher. And I actually, in

that time, started a school, a Montessori school. And so I taught early childhood and first through fourth grade

and loved being with the little ones and helping them grow and develop. That's really my passion.

And so, after I had three children of my own, I switched gears a little bit. And I went back. As I was getting my

master's, I started supervising student teachers at a few institutions and doing some adjunct teaching. And so I

found a passion for working with adult learners. And so that really took me into my graduate work where I

learned about mentoring. And I learned the practice of mentoring and the concepts and the skills that it takes.

And so I loved that time. And I was a supervisor at Michigan State for seven years. And my dissertation was

actually about the preparation of mentors. And so that work took me-- while I was there. I became affiliated with

a group called Launch Into Teaching. And we were going around the country working with large, urban districts

who had high turnover. And we would go in and work with their beginning teachers, their mentors, instructional

coaches, and the administrators.

And it was a really powerful experience to see how the contexts change and put in place these supports for new

teachers. And so I did that until I came to Hope College about 12 years ago. And there, I teach in the elementary

program. So I'm working with pre-service teachers who are going to be elementary teachers. I'm currently chair

of the department.

And then, when I arrived at Hope, they had a really robust student teaching program but very little in terms of

mentor preparation. And so that was one of the first things on the agenda for me. And I worked closely with the

director of student teaching at the time and created a program. And Sara has been in the role for, what, seven

years, something like that.

And she brought just a really fresh take on that. And I'll let her talk about how we're bringing all of our folks

together so they can hear the same messaging and really start their work together as they co-teach and co-plan.

So it's been a wonderful opportunity to really integrate some of the ideas that I'm passionate about into a place I

love.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

I can hear that in your voice. And I'm right there with you. I feel like I met a kindred spirit. And what shows up for

me in your introduction is the word, preparation. Because when I started doing this work decades ago, mentors

were not really prepared. It was just, like, match them up. Follow that teacher around. Just do whatever she's

doing. And that was the advice from higher education.

When I took a student teacher, it was, like, you're a great teacher. And I remember being so frustrated. And

that's actually how I launched my career. I'll share my story in a minute-- because I felt there wasn't a common

language of what we were doing in the practice to what teacher preparation in higher education was teaching in

the classes.

So Susan is the director of student teaching, and that was the role I played-- not Susan, Sara. So Susan is the

department chair. Sara, as the student teaching director, is the role that I morphed into from the classroom, so I'll

share that story. Please introduce yourself to our listeners.

SARA HOEVE: Thanks for having me as well, Carol. I appreciate this time to have this discussion about mentoring. So while Sue

started with the little ones, I was on the opposite end of the spectrum, and I taught high school social studies and

English, mostly 12th-grade English for a little over a decade in West Michigan.

And then I moved into a position as an instructional coach. So I began working with the teachers in the district to

develop their goals and collect data and observe them, while I was also doing my master's and then my PhD in

English education. So at that time, my goal became to really work with preparing new English teachers to get into

their own secondary classrooms.

Once I completed my graduate work, I started transitioning into post-secondary education and taught education

and English classes at Calvin University and at Purdue University. And then the director of student teaching

position opened up here at Hope College, which was a much shorter drive for me. So I joined the team here.

And during my time here, Sue and I have worked closely together on a few different mentoring projects, one of

them being what we call the Student Teacher Workshop, which she mentioned in her introduction. And that is

where we have started bringing together all of our cooperating teachers, our student teachers, our college

supervisors for a big night in the beginning of each semester where Sue and I and a few other of our veteran

cooperating teachers and college supervisors do a series of activities and instructional sessions that are on coteaching

and co-mentoring and co-assessing and really how to use a developmental mentoring framework and

language and giving the feedback.

And that has just been a joy. We've done that now for I think about four or five years, and it's just been a huge

success. And I think our mentors have grown a lot in their skills and working with and feel more prepared to work

with those student teachers.

The second project that Sue and I have worked on is developing a post-grad mentoring program for our

graduates during their induction period.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

And we're going to dive into that when we get into our topic. So hold that one because that actually is what I

really want to dive into about how teacher education programs can support the teachers who are teaching now.

Because I think we've been doing a decent job with the student teaching. I think what happens is the wake up

call when the student teacher is the teacher.

And then the preparation of the mentor changes and so forth. So that's our conversation today. So perfect segue.

Thank you. Before we dive into that topic, because I want to introduce it more formally, I want our listeners to get

a sense of how important, what mentoring is, well, to the three of us, for sure in an aha moment or an experience

that you have observed or felt yourself through these mentoring conversations.

Because mentoring is mostly through conversations with people. And they have lots of feelings that evolve

through a mentoring conversation that we know we've been part of. And I can kind of hear our listeners nodding.

Because most of us have been mentors informally, maybe not formal. And all of us have been mentees in one

way or another. And so let's just take a pause to snapshot what it really feels like before we talk about ways to do

it.

So Susan, what's a moment in time, just like a snapshot, when you either observed or felt something that you

saw mentoring making a difference?

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

I think back to a time-- in my class, there's a fairly large clinical experience. And I had a student in a classroom,

and I was actually working very closely with this teacher. She was one of my K-12 partners. And she knew the

program well. She knew what we were doing in class.

And this young woman who was the mentee was really struggling. You could just feel the vulnerability and the

angst that she was going through. And so we worked collaboratively, the teacher and I did, to help her identify

some of her strengths. Because this was someone who didn't feel like anything was going well. And so I think one

of the first things we did was to use our assessment tool to say, look at all these things you're doing well, which

helped her.

You could almost see her pause and say, OK, it's not all bad. And then to really use the tool to identify some

goals and to drill down and, as mentors-- both, I was in the classroom, and the other mentor was in the K-12

classroom, the third-grade classroom. We worked collaboratively to help this teacher work on the goals.

And some of it was emotional support. But a lot of it was content. So planning questions-- I would help co-plan

with her. The teacher was observing, giving feedback. But I think the collaborative nature of that was really a

powerful experience for me.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

I love that.

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

--to watch that growth.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

I love that. So I love the collaborative nature because sometimes we just think the mentoring is a dyad. It's just

the mentor can talk to the novice, and that's it. And we certainly want that because that's the collaborative. But I

feel like this is the supervision triad, right? the university, the school person, the mentee.

And sometimes the novices feel ganged up on because it's two people trying to help them. And sometimes it

works, which, it did work for you. And Sara, what's your reaction to that story? Have you heard that story before?

SARA HOEVE: I haven't heard that particular story. But we have, in our program, a big piece of it is that co-mentoring we call it.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

Nice. Nice.

SARA HOEVE: Because our student teachers have a foot in each world. They're in our classes where they're learning a lot of the

theoretical. And then they have a foot in the K-12 classroom and a mentor over there. So I think working

together, communicating together as mentors, only makes the mentoring we're giving stronger because we're

on the same page. We're each able to step in in different ways.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

And I think that what I heard you say, Susan, is the emotional piece. When someone just-- they're beginners. It's

like me learning how to play golf. I can't hit that ball. The ball is right there. You would think that I could hit it off

the tee. And yet, that is humbling and humiliating at the same time.

And these beginning teachers are so brave. So the work of a mentor and one or two, or however they collaborate,

has to be very tight so that it fills that emotional gap, if you will, that the novice is feeling. So these aha

moments-- I like to pause before we get into the real discussion because this is the mentoring. That's where the

novice can actually hear and change their practice to help students learn because that's the whole goal of

mentoring is have students be successful in the classroom.

So Sara, do you have a observation or from where you sit that shows us how important-- yes.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

SARA HOEVE: Yeah, I have one I'd love to share. So for research we were doing, I reviewed hundreds, probably, of mentoring

sessions between graduates of our program and a university-based mentor. And one of them, in particular, I just

recall so vividly because I think it really showed me the power of mentoring and the difference that it can make.

And we had a student who graduated from our program that was a very strong student, very successful student

teacher. And she was hired by an area school district into a Title I school, which she was very excited about. And

she had a mentoring session scheduled with one of our university mentors for the very first week she was

teaching. And in the mentoring session, her body language, her emotions, she is just overwhelmed.

And she goes on to talk to her mentor about what it's been like in the classroom. She has students with just a

wide variety of needs. She has emerging bilingual learners. She has students with autism. She has students who

are reading four levels below the grade level, just overwhelming. And no documentation from previous supports

they had received, little resources.

And she just said to her mentor, I can't do anything more than what I'm doing. And I'm just stuck. I can't do this.

And I think a lot of induction teachers feel that way. They just feel stuck and overwhelmed, and they don't know

how to move forward. And the mentor then jumped in and just did a masterful job in asking questions to really

help that new teacher reflect on the different challenges she was facing.

She helped her brainstorm strategies she could try with some of these students. She helped her brainstorm

procedures she could set up. She reassured her multiple times, like, you are capable of doing this. You're only

just in your first week. It's not going to always be like this. So she really reassured her. She offered to come into

the classroom to co-teach and model some strategies.

She just had so many different, wonderful, mentoring supports that she offered. And by the end of that session,

all those problems weren't solved. But that teacher, that new teacher, no longer felt stuck. There was at least a

plan to move forward. And I tell you, that happened, I think, five years ago about, that mentoring conversation.

And that teacher, that new teacher, that first week, she is still teaching in that same classroom.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

Yay. Thank you. I was going to ask. So that shift-- so this is what I'm hearing. And Susan, you can chime in too. So

there were a couple of things that you're saying that need to be part of preparation programs. Or our listeners

who are mentors in their school district, mentoring new teachers, it doesn't have to be from Teacher Ed. We're all

in this together helping the novices, whether it's formal, informal.

When we see somebody with the body language that needs help, we need to help. We can't say, I'm not a

mentor. I'm not being paid to be a mentor. I don't have that hat. Or I don't want to step on somebody's toes, or

all of those things that come up, that I hear from classroom teachers. Because we get nervous because we don't

want to cause problems.

But body language matters. And this was a prepared mentor who knew how to respond to that. And the other

thing that I heard in your story is hope. It's like, we just need to have somebody say-- I need to hear it, even

today. And I'm a retired teacher. Like, I just need to hear it sometimes, like, hope, like, yeah, you can do these

podcasts, Carol. Yeah, yeah, don't worry about it. We just need to hear this.

So those social and emotional skills cannot be buried anymore. That's that well being piece that is getting

sloughed away by education. Oh, self-care-- and it's-- OK, maybe it's not a mani-pedi. It's not that. It's an

attention to what's actually physically happening to people that are teaching. And look at the quick result. I

mean, that's amazing. We can do it.

OK, Susan, what do you want to say to what I'm saying, what Sara just shared? What do you think? Yeah.

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

Well, I think, when new teachers go into buildings in their first jobs, they want to be seen as professionals.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

Yes.

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

And it's so hard for them to admit their weaknesses when things don't go right. And so I think one of the things

that we have found-- I mean, Sara just said this was the first week of school. And I think we're finding that,

because they had this existing relationship, because the same person had mentored her during student

teaching, that they were able to pick that right up. She knew the mentee, knew of her personality, how to

approach that.

And so I think building that relationship is such an important part of the mentoring and whether it's existing or

whether it's something you do. But helping them to be a safe space for them to share their vulnerabilities is so

important.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

And that really leads to the topic that I want to dive into a little is the role of teacher preparation in being that,

and being that person that knows the student teacher, knows that they were great. Because what you said is so

true. Novice teachers go into a new place. I can remember-- my sons are both teachers. My husband's a teacher.

We're just, like, teachers everywhere.

And I was the director of student teaching at the University. He was, like, do not talk to anybody. I don't want

anybody to know that you're my mother. I want to get my own job. I want to-- if he hears this podcast, he'll have

something to say. But it's all true. So he gets his own job. I'm the mentor guru. My thing is, like, I write books on

it, I write-- blah blah blah.

He gets the job, and he has the worst, unprepared mentor. And he doesn't want to tell anybody that he needs

help. It's classic. It's just what you're saying. And I'm laughing a little because it worked out. And he's still

teaching, and he's happily teaching.

But what you're saying, we need to really hear. And maybe that's how we capture it through the body language

or how teacher preparation can work with the teachers at the school so that the novice teacher feels comfortable

and safe enough to say he didn't know what he was doing.

But he didn't want to tell anybody that he didn't know he was-- because I'm, like, why don't you go to your

mentor? He's like, I don't want him to know I don't know what I'm doing. And I was, like, oh, my god. So these are

real stories.

So let's hold that thought. And we're going-- so let me just tell a snapshot how I ended up in higher education. So

I was a fifth-grade teacher as well. I taught in fifth grade. I hosted a student teacher. And my whole experience

was, so what am I supposed to do? And the answer, at that point in teacher preparation was pretty hands-off. It

was just, do whatever you think is great.

And I, of course, being who I am, decide I'm going to write a book. So I write a handbook for the cooperating

teachers. That's what we call them-- A Handbook for Techniques and Strategies for Coaching Student Teachers.

And immediately, the department chair from the college came over to meet me in person and say, what are you

doing?

The good news is, we ended up collaborating because she-- they just never had reached out at that point in time.

Like, what you're doing is current, but everybody isn't doing it. And that's why I wanted you to be on the podcast.

So everybody isn't reaching out from higher education to follow their grads. So one thing led to another. I ended

up getting the doctorate.

I loved the student teaching. I get the job, like you, Sara, director of student teaching, mostly because I

complained a lot that higher ed wasn't doing what we needed to see in the classroom. It's, like, we are not

getting-- these people are not prepared. And now we have all these cooperating teachers who have to do all the

mentoring because you guys didn't do it.

So it was pretty much a little bit of a blame game, which I had to eat my words when I became the director of

student teaching and discovered how hard it was to actually do it from higher ed. Let's just stop there and let you

react to what I've just said. Sara, what do you think?

SARA HOEVE: Well, I think that is such an important point that you're making is that our programs need to partner, need to

listen to, the cooperating teachers that are in the classrooms with the student teachers as far as, what do they

need to be successful mentors rather than us sitting, like, oh, we're the experts. We're going to tell you what to

do. Like, we need to work together.

And I think, when we-- we have seen how important that was. When we built our student teaching workshop, we

brought in some of our partners in the classroom, our cooperating teachers that have supervised many of our

student teachers and said, what do our new, cooperating teachers need to know? What have your experiences

been?

Can you share some of the ways that you've been co-teaching that you have mentoring conversations, the

strategies you use? And that voice and then bringing in that voice to talk to the new cooperating teachers was so

much more authentic than just Sue and I coming from our offices to tell them how to [INAUDIBLE].

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

Exactly. Or getting the handbook of rules. I mean, that's what I got. And I wanted to know how to have a

conversation. Now, what happened after that, I'm now the director of-- I did similar to what you did. I brought

people in. The one thing that I did that I loved, that I wish more colleges would do, colleges of ed is that the

dean, we would give vouchers to the cooperating teachers as a gift, like a free course.

And nobody did them. The principals all took the vouchers because they were in master's programs, and the

teachers were too busy to take a course. So you're laughing, Susan, right? It's crazy, right? So I came up with an

idea. I said, how about this? I'm going to create a course for the cooperating teachers to prepare them. And

they're going to use their voucher. So they're going to get three college credits. And the dean supported it.

She was, like, good. Well, the principles weren't too happy because they lost their free voucher. But all that was

part of the preparation. And then, if a teacher didn't want to take the-- well, we didn't require it. But what

happened is, it, over time, all the teachers who took the course using the original book that I had written were

prepared. And slowly, we attritioned out the teachers who just did it for a voucher.

And then, we got to say, you had to take the course. I mean, it took a few years, but that was OK. And it made

such a difference in the preparation. Now, I say that for any college listeners on the call, like, it can happen. Or

whatever that motivation is to give credit for that, and they took the course at the same time they were student

teaching.

So that's how my book became, Mentoring in Action. Because people are like, well, do I have to take it before I

can take one? No, you're going to take it as you go. You're going to learn as you go. So reaction, Susan, what do

you think of that idea?

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

That's exciting. It's very exciting. Yeah, we actually offer a stipend to our cooperating teachers and [? Sketchys ?]

so they can get continuing ed credit. So we're trying to give some of those incentives. But we do have a robust

training and workshop experience for them where they can learn about our vision of mentoring.

They hear-- you talked earlier about a common language, right? So there's common vocabulary, having

everybody in the same room. So I think that that's really a powerful piece of that. So Carol, you mentioned

something a minute ago about how mentoring has changed where-- and I think, Sara, you had this experience--

where your mentor just left the room and just said here, your own.

I think one of the powerful things about our model has been this co-teaching that we're trying to promote, that

the cooperating teacher does not need to leave the room but can actually stay in the room and mentor. And the

novice--

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

I love that. I love that.

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

--can learn. Yeah, they can learn from them by being in the room rather than just exiting. But in order to do that,

we have to prepare them. What does a good mentor conversation look and sound like? So Sara and I actually do

this role-play where we play a student teacher and a mentee and a mentor about a conversation that was an

experience from Michigan State.

And then, we rewrote it the way we wish it had gone. And then we debrief it and pick it apart and think about the

moves that mentors make. And everybody laughs and giggles at our acting. But it's a fun way to really unpack

some of the elements of mentor conversations.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

I love that. Yes. And I'm happy to share anything that I have. I have a robust website, Mentoring In Action. You

can take anything from there, use the role-plays, the mini-courses. Because we have to share with each other.

We're working in this field, and we all are mentoring the next generation of teachers from wherever we sit.

So I want to just dive into that place of mentoring our graduates beyond when they graduate. So I stayed as

director of student teaching. And then a Carnegie grant came along where it was to focus on, how successful are

your graduates? Are they actually staying in teaching? And what we discovered in this NCATE review-- which it

was NCATE at the time-- was, we didn't really have a systematic way of following it. It was all anecdotal.

And a lot of the people at the university where I was working left the area. They came to school and then flew

back home to their other places. So we had to either make a decision to do online or try to figure out, how do we

follow our grads? And every university is different. So one of the things that we did that I wanted you to react to

is, the teachers who did stay local in the Boston area, we did bring back with a mentor who would facilitate a

group.

So I shifted to the Mentoring in Action book, that month-by-month book that Susan, you were saying you use. And

every month, they would come back, and we'd unpack the topic in the book. The biggest challenge was preparing

the mentors to be group leaders. So now we had been training them to be co-teachers, like you, we're on the

same path, or how to have a good mentoring conversation, how to listen, and all of that.

And now they'd have 10 teachers in a group at the university. How could they use that time to give hope, like

Sara was saying? They're coming in draggled. It's 4:00 in the afternoon. They've taught all day. How do we shift?

And that was our biggest challenge is creating an agenda of hope so they'd want to go back and teach, not a

gripe session.

So do either of you have any experience with beyond the graduation, group mentoring, or hybrid, or are you

exploring that? What's going on with that, with your program?

SARA HOEVE: So when Sue and I went to the AACTE conference to present about our model, we ran into a number of other

professors from other schools and that were also presenting. And I have found that a lot of schools are doing

different models for post-secondary mentoring or university-based mentoring.

Some of them, like your example, are that the new teachers come to the campus, which I love because it really

builds that sense of community. I think being a new teacher can feel pretty isolating sometimes. And so they're

able to have that community of each other, that cohort of each other. But also, like you said, be led through a

mentoring conversation that's helpful instead of just a venting, which they could do with their mom or their

friend. It can be guided by someone that can help them process their experience.

And then, our model is more going to them. So we send our college supervisors who already go through like

extensive monthly mentor training. We use that pool and send them out to work individually. Now, some of those

mentors then also do some activities where they get the five people that they're mentoring together. They take

them out for dinner, but that's pretty an informal piece.

And then, there's other colleges who are sort of doing a hybrid model where they have sometimes, like once a

month, where the students come to school and then also provide some individual time where they're going to the

campus. So I think it really depends on the resources that the college has as well as how many graduates they

[INAUDIBLE].

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

That makes sense. But I think it's an idea that we need to put more in the forefront for teacher preparation

programs. Because I think we do a pretty good job to get them there. But then, even your aha moment, it was

with a teacher the first week of when they get there, and who's partnering now? So Susan, any reaction to the

after-you-graduate model and ideas or how we can do a better job of that?

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

Yeah. I think I just would like to react to one of the things you said. It's got me thinking about how we get

teachers together. And it's the natural inclination is to complain, to gripe. And some of that is therapeutic. But we

found that case studies are really helpful when people can bring a case to the group and have everyone share.

And that I think they really can start to hear, number one, I'm not alone. And number two, here are some things

that somebody else tried that I can take back. And so I think that has been kind of a powerful tool that we can

use in these situations.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

I love that. I have moved more into the group mentoring model, even in the schools. The book I wrote,T eaching

with Light, we create circles of light. And we actually started it just for the novice teachers and the mentors. But

all the teachers wanted to come. So in some of the districts, oh, they just all come. And the goal is to-- yeah,

what's the problem? What's the challenge?

We all have had them. It's what do we do when we have them that the group-- there is something about the

group that goes beyond the dyad that I'm very interested in right now. So I'm just planting that seed with our

listening audience and encouraging more of this. And it can be done effectively on Zoom more than I thought.

I do have districts that are doing it and creating these circles of light where the teachers just get to dump a little

bit of what's not going-- but then they leave with hope because they get to share and react. And everything

you're saying is just so important. I so appreciate both of you today. So what's some advice for someone who is

mentoring or helping a new teacher that they can do easily? Not what we've been talking, big ideas. What comes

to your mind, Sara?

SARA HOEVE: I think, from both watching a lot of mentoring and from my own experiences working, as an instructional coach

and working with teachers in their strategic placements, really thinking about, as a mentor, helping them identify

or focusing on, I call it the big-ticket items. What, in all of this, that they're struggling with or in everything you're

seeing as a mentor, focusing in your energy on what's going to be most effective for student learning?

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

OK, yes.

SARA HOEVE: Rather than trying to solve every single thing that you see, it's kind of like the same approach I use when I teach

writing. I'm not going to comment on every single issue in the paper that I notice. But what's going to get me the

biggest bang for my buck? I have this limited amount of time. And to have this conversation, what can I focus on

that's going to have the biggest impact for their instruction on student learning in the future? The ways that are

student learning.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

Yeah, thank you. Susan, do you have one?

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

Sure. I guess, mine is, find your people. There's such a collaborative nature to all of this. I think, if you're in K-12,

find people who are like-minded. I have found my K-12 partners who share my vision of teaching and know about

our program. And those are the people-- and everywhere I think I've taught, I have found my people.

And they're people who not only dream with me, but they help me implement small things. That's how I started a

school, just by dreaming with someone. But also knowing yourself well enough to know what you need to

complement yourself-- I mean, I tend to be a very big-picture person. Sara is very detail-oriented. So I found--

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

That's a good match. That's a great team. That's a great team. That's a great team. So before we wind down,

you're each working on great projects. Just a snippet on what, Susan, what is on your plate right now? Many

things, but what's one project that you would like to infuse into this conversation?

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

Sure, Project Impact is a group throughout Michigan that is working to create mentoring standards for the

Michigan Department of Education. It was a grant that was put out. It's being overseen by Western Michigan

University. But it brings together P-12 people, university personnel, as well as state department folks, and it's

been a really collaborative effort to-- it's based in theory. And we've been knocking out standards. And then the

next thing is to create curriculum and really start to get this out so that we have materials and things to support

K-12 districts as they work with their mentees and new teachers.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

I love this. Is any other state doing mentoring? I know the new Teacher Center Santa Cruz started-- that's how I

was trained originally-- had some standards and developmental continuums. But I haven't heard of any other

states, so keep us posted on that so we can add it to our notes in the podcast for people who are interested in

that. And what about you, Sara? You have many things on your plate, but what's a project that is of interest to

you right now?

SARA HOEVE: Well, and I want to also just put an exclamation mark on the work that Sue is doing. Because I think that we're so

worried about the teaching shortage, especially in Michigan. And our state has done such a great job in looking

at new recruitment options and putting a lot of money and resources into all of these different recruitment

programs. But retention, to me, is really where we're not focusing enough.

And somebody said at a conference once, retention is the new recruitment, like, retention, is this existing pool of

teachers that are already trained. And I would love to see more funding and resources going into mentoring for

retention purposes. And whether that's training mentors in our districts or supporting university-based mentoring

programs. But I'm glad that they're taking this initial step to do some mentoring standards, but I really would

love to see some more financial support and resources by the states, put into retention.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

Yes. I'm totally on board, triple exclamation. Actually, that's the project I'm working on. So the project I'm

working on is Mentoring for Teacher Success. It's on the Home page of my website in case anybody wants to take

a look at my big picture. I'm a big-picture person too, Susan.

And then I get to the details. But the big picture is, inspire confidence, build competence, and retain teachers.

And I think that's what we have to do. It's all the pieces that we talked about in this conversation. It's that

physical confidence, and it's the skills you talked about, Susan, the competence. There are strategies that we

have to keep building. And then, I do believe we'll retain teachers.

And it's through the mentoring and all everything we talked about. So final thought, big takeaways from this

conversation-- any surprises? What stood out to you? Any final thoughts for our listeners that we want to

emphasize, besides retention, which is a big emphasis?

Well, I think what a takeaway is for me is the collaboration, bridging the gap between PK-12 schools and higher

education. I've spent half of my career in a classroom more than 20 years, and the other half in higher education,

teacher preparation, a lot of different roles. And I really feel we're still in silos. And that this mentoring

conversation and the book that Ben put out, Mentoring for Wellbeing and how I found the two of you by reading

your chapter, kind of brought back that passion for me that we are both.

We are the teacher preparation. And we have a lot of people, their pathway is not through teacher preparation to

become teachers. So in higher education, these-- I worked in alternative pathway for seven years, helping

teachers that were in the classroom, training mentors to work with them. And they had never gone to college to

be a teacher. And we have those pathways. With retention, it's going to become more prevalent with retention

issues.

So I guess my takeaway and my big ask or inspiration is, how can we use our teacher preparation programs in

innovative, alternative ways to mentor the people who didn't go through our college program? I mean, that's a

piece. So that's a takeaway and another podcast. Susan, do you have anything you want to underscore?

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

Yeah, I think one of the amazing things that we are seeing is that our graduates now are out in the field and are

mentoring our new teachers. And the power in that has been amazing to see. There's a connectivity. And I feel

like we're building a network within West Michigan, certainly.

And other places can do this. When you see somebody who went through the program and maybe who even

struggled, who now has a student teacher or a beginning teacher in their building, and they are mentoring them,

it's just, it's this full circle. And I think the more that we can build those networks, the more powerful it will be.

And we've even seen some of this happen-- we were talking about the power of being-- or the availability of

doing this online. We've seen people connect who aren't living in the same places, and they're still supporting

one another. So I think-- and, I could see, even within schools, we're seeing little pods of people. And they're

starting to pull in other people.

So you're talking about, how do we reach people in our program. But I think they're also reaching folks within the

building because they see what's happening. And they see the possibilities, and they want to be a part of it.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

Bigger network. Thank you. Sara, last word.

SARA HOEVE: Yeah, I think that there's just a lot of reciprocity in developing partnerships between university programs and k-

12 schools. I think that there's so many benefits for both sides.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

Yes.

SARA HOEVE: Put in that effort to collaborate.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

And so many of us are from both sides, right?

SARA HOEVE: Right. Yeah.

CAROL

PELLETIER

RADFORD:

So thank you for that. I'm going to close out with some affirmations from theM entoring in Action and The First

Years Matter books. And the affirmations that I chose for this session are, "If you're a mentor, your affirmation is,

I am an advocate for novice teachers." And if you're a mentee listening to this-- and we're all mentees in different

ways, "I ask for what I need so I can be successful."

So I want to thank all of you for taking your time to have this conversation that-- it's really near and dear to my

heart. This is my life's work, so was happy to share it. You're my people now, Susan. I found my people. So thank

you for being part of episode 6. And I hope our listeners would tune in to episode 7 for more real, authentic

conversations with teachers. Thank you.

SARA HOEVE: Thanks, Carol, for having us.

SUSAN

BRONDYK:

Thank you.

NARRATOR: Thanks, everyone, for joining today's Teacher to Teacher conversation. We hope this time together energized

you, inspired you, and reminded you why you chose to become a teacher. You can purchase any of Carol's books

and any books mentioned in the podcast online www.corwin.com.

Please leave a review and share this podcast with your colleagues. Thank you for listening to the CorwinT eacher

to Teacher podcast, a place to share teacher wisdom and engage in authentic conversations with experienced

educators.

SPEAKER: Come explore Corwin's free new teacher toolkit and resources. We've curated these resources based on

extensive research from teachers, coaches, and principals alike. Whether you are brand new or a veteran

teacher, find ready-to-go teaching tools at corwin.com today.

Sara Hoeve

After more than a decade in high school English classrooms, Dr. Sara Hoeve began teaching English and Education courses, as well as training teacher mentors. She currently directs the student teaching program at Hope College and serves as the President-Elect for the Michigan Council of Teachers of English. Her support of teachers extends to her research, which focuses on local censorship campaigns, critical literacy and induction mentoring.

Susan Brondyk

Dr. Susan Brondyk began her career as an elementary teacher, during which time she founded Greenhouse Montessori in Grand Rapids, MI. She is currently the Irwin B. and Margie E. Floyd Endowed Associate Professor of Education at Hope College where she teaches undergraduate preservice teachers, co-coordinates professional learning opportunities for the program’s mentors, and serves as department chairperson. She was instrumental in starting the Hope's mentor preparation program. Prior to coming to Hope, Susan held the position of Associate Director of Launch into Teaching at Michigan State University, which involved providing on-going, job-embedded support for mentors and instructional coaches working with beginning teachers in struggling urban districts across the country. Susan's research examines mentor preparation at both the pre-service and induction levels, most recently looking at how induction mentoring by educator preparation programs can improve teacher retention.

Carol Pelletier Radford

Carol Pelletier Radford is the founder of Mentoring in Action, an organization dedicated to the success of novice teachers and their mentors. Before she established her own organization to support mentors and new teachers, she was a veteran elementary school teacher and a teacher preparation leader. Carol is the author of Corwin’s bestselling books Mentoring in Action: Guiding, Sharing, and Reflecting With Novice Teachers and The First Years Matter: Becoming an Effective Teacher.

Carol received her Education Doctorate from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, where she focused her studies on mentoring and teacher leadership. She is also a certified yoga teacher who practices meditation and shares mindfulness strategies with educators through her online courses and website. Her podcast Teaching With Light features the stories of teachers and inspirational leaders. Her next passion project is the creation of a Teacher Legacy Network, where retired teachers can share their wisdom with the next generation of teachers.

You can learn more about Carol, find free resources, videos, meditations, courses, and all of her books at mentoringinaction.com/.

Twitter: @MentorinAction
Facebook: @MentoringinAction4Teachers
Instagram: @cpradford