Online Mentoring Research

E-Mentoring for Highly Qualified Math and Science Teaching

        A priority of the New Jersey Department of Education is the provision of mentoring of New Jersey educators as a key effort in retaining newer teachers past the initial years in the profession.  As part of an award from the United States Department of Education for the Teacher Quality Enhancement-Recruitment grant and the New Jersey Department of Education Online Mentoring Pilot grant, faculty and staff from the Center for Mathematics, Science, Technology and Pre-Engineering and the Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education are studying ways to implement a comprehensive e-mentoring system.  While new teachers routinely receive face-to-face mentoring from experienced teachers and professors, this initiative connects mentors and mentees on-line.  

        Mentors are resources who provide practical and course related activities to broaden teachers’ experiences and develop a variety of skills that they need.  “One major goal of the project is to provide e-mentoring support in mathematics and science content and pedagogy for pre-service teachers,” explained Rita Patel Eng, who is the project manager.  “Through this initiative we are able to connect pre-service teachers with experts in mathematics and science.”  Over 100 elementary and early childhood education student volunteers participated in the study this year.

        Content-focused e-mentoring is designed to promote professional learning by having a mentor and a novice or pre-teacher work jointly in an electronic environment.  “As they plan and teach math and science lessons, e-mentors review mentees lesson plans and provide feedback.  The mentee can then incorporate the feedback into the lesson,” explained Ken Maskell, project director. 

        “The literature addresses mentoring as an effort to increase teacher retention, raise grade point average, and achieve academic success.  We are examining several factors in the mentor/mentee relationship,” said Sharon Sherman, principal investigator.  “Using valid and reliable instruments we assess science and math lessons of pre-service teachers for treatment and control groups.  We’ve developed an instrument to assess the quality of lesson plans for both groups.” 

          According to Sherman, this project has implications for state policy.  Other states have used e-mentoring successfully for many years.  Illinois, for example, uses a mixed model of occasional face to face meetings along with frequent e-mentoring. 

           “Teacher education programs often cost more to operate than other programs due to the number of field placements with individualized attention and the cost of supervision associated with these experiences.  E-mentoring may be a way to increase teacher quality while reducing cost,” she said.  

           Education professors working on the project include Stuart Carroll, Anthony Conte, Tabitha Dell Angelo, Harlene Galen, Arti Joshi, Alex Pan, Karen Prince, and their students.  There are 30 experts in mathematics and science teaching acting as e-mentors from Ewing, West Windsor, Flemington, and Hunterdon.

For more information contact:

Dr. Sharon Sherman, Principal Investigator at 609-771-2964 or shermans@tcnj.edu
Ken Maskell, Project Director at 609-771-3332 or maskell@tcnj.edu
Rita Patel Eng, Project Manager at 609-771-3384 or patel@tcnj.edu