Mentoring UC Preservice Teachers and the TPA

Join our online Mentoring and TPA Workshop to boost your skills and get expert tips in a fun, interactive way!

Mentoring and TPA Workshop

Overview

A workshop on the theory and practice of mentoring pre-service teachers and an overview of the Teaching Performance Assessment.

Session Information

This professional learning workshop will cover two main topics. Firstly, the theory and practice of mentoring will be discussed, followed by an overview and discussion of the final placement assessment known as the Teaching Performance Assessment(TPA) that many of our pre-service teachers will be completing whilst on placements this year.

Mentoring Pre-service Teachers

“Classroom-based teachers are relied upon to mentor pre-service teachers in the practical aspects of learning to teach. The classroom based teacher who agrees to mentor a pre-service teacher needs to nurture, advise, guide, encourage and facilitate authentic learning experiences for developmental growth" (Ambrosetti & Dekkers, 2010; Le Cornu, 2005).

This part of the workshop is aimed at experienced teachers who are new to mentoring pre-service teachers, or who are thinking about coming back to mentoring after some time away.

This workshop offers opportunities for teachers, whether experienced with mentoring or new to it, to engage with current research relating to mentoring. During the workshop, participants will learn about current research and practices in relation to mentoring. Participants will then be given time to actively reflect on their own experiences of mentoring with the session's presenter, as well as their teaching colleagues to develop a richer understanding of the benefits of mentoring to both the pre-service teacher and the classroom teacher mentor.

The Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA)

The second part of this professional learning workshop will relate to the Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA). The TPA is a capstone assessment task that all final year, final placement Initial Teacher Education degree students across Australia must complete be be deemed 'classroom ready'. In this part of the workshop, a background to the assessment will be provided, along with resources to support mentors when their PSTs bring this assignment into their final placement. There will be plenty of time to ask questions and we aim for you to leave with a clearer sense of the assessment task and your role in supporting the PST to complete this on their final placements.