This Research Topic will include research from scholars who aim to provide further development of the concepts of mentoring, coaching, and tutoring as an enterprise. We need to consider more deeply the similarities and differences among the concepts of mentoring, coaching, and tutoring. Certainly, the three are related, but there are differences among them. In general, according to Irby (2012), “mentors can coach but coaches hardly ever mentor, and mentors and coaches can tutor, but tutors rarely mentor or coach” (p. 297). Given the demands under which teachers work during and after a pandemic, it is critical for teachers to discover their own readiness for change through the three. Although the integration of coaching and mentoring for school leaders has increased over the past several years (James-Ward, 2013), how to evaluate a mentoring and coaching program for developing novice teachers’ instructional capacity is still sparse. The components of the three have not been clearly defined, and many questions remain unaddressed regarding the specific mentoring, tutoring, and coaching strategies that result in instructional capacity building of novice teachers and various practices that support their teaching effectiveness and professional development (PD).
With a focus on building teachers' instructional capacity, we aim to determine how well teachers' mentoring, coaching, and tutoring as an enterprise translate their teaching practices and the perceived impact of the learning on their instruction from their perspectives. Encouraging mentoring, coaching, and tutoring as an enterprise for teachers fosters self-awareness of their limitations and strengths in addition to learning from peers' practices and experiences. Mentoring and coaching programs help teachers create a support network, identify the importance of professional learning communities, and how to apply new instructional strategies. However, what constitutes an effective mentor, coach, or tutor serving novice teachers to develop their instructional capacities in underserved schools with high concentrations of emergent bilingual (EB) and economically challenged (EC) students is still a matter of debate and is relatively unexplored in the research literature. Therefore, the purpose of this special issue is to reflect on the concepts of mentoring, coaching, and tutoring as an enterprise and effective mentoring, coaching, and PD programs to focus on the roles of the mentored, the role and process of mentoring, and the role and process of coaching novice teachers and their practices with experienced peers.
In this Research Topic, we aim to (a) include qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies, (b) increase international representation, (c) publish papers on reflection practices and mentoring and coaching during and after a pandemic, (d) publish more papers on mentoring, coaching, and tutoring as an enterprise from a variety of disciplines, and (e) move the special issue to a broader readership with more references to the papers published. We aim to move Mentoring, Coaching, and Tutoring further toward becoming a discipline in and of itself. Irby (2020) indicated that there are arguments for moving mentoring into a discipline because it (a) has a set of practices that define it, (b) has a defined knowledge base that is focused only on the topic of mentoring and similarly focused published books, (c) has published studies using quantitative and/or qualitative methods grounded in the social sciences, (d) has content and procedures for training, and (e) has professional scholarly journals and associations (p. xiii).
This Research Topic will include research from scholars who aim to provide further development of the concepts of mentoring, coaching, and tutoring as an enterprise. We need to consider more deeply the similarities and differences among the concepts of mentoring, coaching, and tutoring. Certainly, the three are related, but there are differences among them. In general, according to Irby (2012), “mentors can coach but coaches hardly ever mentor, and mentors and coaches can tutor, but tutors rarely mentor or coach” (p. 297). Given the demands under which teachers work during and after a pandemic, it is critical for teachers to discover their own readiness for change through the three. Although the integration of coaching and mentoring for school leaders has increased over the past several years (James-Ward, 2013), how to evaluate a mentoring and coaching program for developing novice teachers’ instructional capacity is still sparse. The components of the three have not been clearly defined, and many questions remain unaddressed regarding the specific mentoring, tutoring, and coaching strategies that result in instructional capacity building of novice teachers and various practices that support their teaching effectiveness and professional development (PD).
With a focus on building teachers' instructional capacity, we aim to determine how well teachers' mentoring, coaching, and tutoring as an enterprise translate their teaching practices and the perceived impact of the learning on their instruction from their perspectives. Encouraging mentoring, coaching, and tutoring as an enterprise for teachers fosters self-awareness of their limitations and strengths in addition to learning from peers' practices and experiences. Mentoring and coaching programs help teachers create a support network, identify the importance of professional learning communities, and how to apply new instructional strategies. However, what constitutes an effective mentor, coach, or tutor serving novice teachers to develop their instructional capacities in underserved schools with high concentrations of emergent bilingual (EB) and economically challenged (EC) students is still a matter of debate and is relatively unexplored in the research literature. Therefore, the purpose of this special issue is to reflect on the concepts of mentoring, coaching, and tutoring as an enterprise and effective mentoring, coaching, and PD programs to focus on the roles of the mentored, the role and process of mentoring, and the role and process of coaching novice teachers and their practices with experienced peers.
In this Research Topic, we aim to (a) include qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies, (b) increase international representation, (c) publish papers on reflection practices and mentoring and coaching during and after a pandemic, (d) publish more papers on mentoring, coaching, and tutoring as an enterprise from a variety of disciplines, and (e) move the special issue to a broader readership with more references to the papers published. We aim to move Mentoring, Coaching, and Tutoring further toward becoming a discipline in and of itself. Irby (2020) indicated that there are arguments for moving mentoring into a discipline because it (a) has a set of practices that define it, (b) has a defined knowledge base that is focused only on the topic of mentoring and similarly focused published books, (c) has published studies using quantitative and/or qualitative methods grounded in the social sciences, (d) has content and procedures for training, and (e) has professional scholarly journals and associations (p. xiii).
