I Know How It Feels: How Online Mentors Help Pre-Service Teachers Negotiate Practicum Tensions in the Third Space

Abstract

Researchers have shown that mentoring has a positive impact on student teachers’ professional learning during their practicum, but it can also be highly problematic due to the inherent power roles in mentor-mentee relationships. Via this study, I offer new insights by examining how we can leverage information technology to address the tensions associated with face-to-face mentoring. Using third space theory as a conceptual framework, I examined how group mentoring played out when it was enacted in a digital social semiotic space. Transcripts of online mentoring conversations and semi-structured interviews were analysed using genre and discourse analysis to understand how mentors helped student teachers negotiate tensions of practicum teaching, and how language is used to build ties in online learning environments. The findings suggest that when mentoring is enacted in a third space, mentors and mentees have more opportunities to contest the norms and identities that are associated with traditional mentoring practices operating in schools.