Mentors Matter: Good Teaching Really Can Be Passed down to Student Teachers, New Research Finds
July 16, 2018
By: Matt Barnum
Source: Chalkbeat
Do student teachers learn more when they’re mentored by especially effective teachers?
The answer may seem obvious, but there’s been little research confirming as much. Until now.
Three studies released this year offer real evidence that good teaching can be passed down, in a sense, from mentor teacher to student teacher. In several cases, they find that the performance of the student teachers once they have their own full-time classrooms corresponds to the quality of the teacher they trained under.
And as many teacher preparation programs face pressure to improve, the findings offer a common-sense prescription: invest in finding the most effective possible teachers to supervise their trainees.