Project title: E-mentorship for (E)quality in Early Childhood Education

Duration: 31.12.2022 - 30.06.2025

Project number: 2022-1-TR01-KA220-SCH-000086684

Programme: Erasmus +

Key Action: Cooperation partnerships in school education

Coordinator: Adiyaman University Turkey  www.adiyaman.edu.tr

Website: under construction 

Facebook: under construction 

Keywords: early childhood education

 

 

 

OVERWIEV

 

The e-mentorship program can help achieve the aims of the host country and EU’s educational targets through directly supporting early years teachers and indirectly very young children. First of all, considering all of Turkey's 2023 education vision targets, target 1 regarding the development and management of human resources, and early childhood targets 1, 2, and 3: Restructuring the professional development of teachers and school managers, disseminating early childhood education services, creating an integrated system for early childhood education services, and increasing the quality of education in groups with unfavorable conditions can be seen as goals. Consistent with this vision, the Turkish Ministry of Education launched a new policy to increase the number of independent preschool institutions or pre-school classes within the boundaries of elementary schools or even high schools during the academic year of 2022 and 2023, aiming to reach out to all preschool-aged children. This means that there will be more and more pre-school teachers who will be working in recently established schools in rural and disadvantaged urban areas. The e-mentorship program which will bring experienced and novice teachers together will support children’s early childhood experience and it can help to reduce the achievement gap.

Offered e-mentorship program here is, therefore, in concordance with the actions of “The Establishment of the European Education Area and the Council Resolution on the Strategic Framework for European Cooperation in Education and Training for the next period (2021-2030)” adopted on February 18, 2021, to increase quality, equity, inclusion and success in education for all learners, and to increase the competencies and motivation in the teaching profession. Specific attention is given to promoting “the implementation of the EU quality framework for early childhood education and care attached to the 2019 Council Recommendation on high-quality early childhood education and care”. Also, while the preschool enrollment rate is expected to increase, the need for quality education of children should be taken into consideration, not only in terms of quantity but also in terms of quality. Under the leadership of the EU Cooperation in Education and Training (2021-2030) for the Establishment of a EU Education Area, the Open Method of Coordination is applied in order to achieve common goals and to bring national policies closer. Among these goals is to create an environment where everyone can access highquality education, regardless of their SES. The e-mentorship program is directly related to the EU's goal to “provide support for initial professional development of staff involved in providing childhood education and care.” The e-mentorship program, therefore, aims to support teachers’ development and offer solutions to the problems they face during their first years, to create an equal and quality environment for both novice teachers and children. 

 

PROJECT AIMS

The purpose of the present project is to develop an effective one-to-one e-mentorship program for novice preschool

teachers who have been assigned to schools filled predominantly with disadvantaged students in order to facilitate their adaptation into the teaching profession and to help improve their teaching quality. The duties of a mentor include advising about instructional practices and content, observing teaching and providing feedback, demonstrating effective teaching, providing consultation for lesson plans and objectives, advising about the school and community context including school resources, parental involvement, student needs. The benefits of the e-mentorship program are:

 

For the novices teachers:

• engaging onsite professional learning to improve their teaching practices;
• receiving emotional support to better adapt to the new school environment;
• receiving specific advice from the mentor to better respond to the need of students and parents;
• developing an understanding of school culture, the community as well as students;
• increasing developing self-esteem, selfconfidence, competence, job satisfaction, commitment, and professionalism; decreasing frustration, burnout, and stress

 

For the mentors:

• developing better problem solving and communications skills;
• increasing motivation to learn new teaching practices and approaches;
• transfering their learning to novice teachers;
• learning fresh theories about teaching from a novice teacher who has just completed their undergrad education, increasing self-esteem and job satisfaction

 

For schools:

• providing one-to-one and easy-to-access professional development at the school for beginning teachers;
• helping the beginning teachers to be assimilated into the expectations, missions, and work environment of the school;
• helping the school to reduce between teacher gap in terms of instructional quality

 

For children:

• creating a classroom environment that helps them discover and use their optimal potential;
• increasing the quality of instruction they receive so that they get better prepared for elementary school education.

 

PROJECT RESULTS

 

The possible results of the mentorship program are:

 

Web portal: a place where all mentors and mentees can share their experiences, challenges, and effective methods to overcome, upload their teaching videos, get immediate feedback, provide rich-content resources, allowing to track participants’ progress.

 

Mentorship handbook: a complimentary resource for educators, policymakers, and stakeholders; a free book to access all teachers who needed, a guideline to build on

 

Mentorship learning modules: Training modules for mentor candidates

 

An elective mentorship course for the faculty of education: A tentative, practiced, and developed course outline, costeffective, a preventive way to overcome challenges which can lead to developing a mentorship certificate program at the university in collaboration

 

Mentorship seminars: dissemination of understanding and knowledge.

 

PROJECT PARTNERS

• Be – Creative association Sweden 
• INTERNATIONALE ARBEIDSVERENIG ING Netherlands 
• WYZSZA SZKOLA BIZNESU I NAUK O ZDROWIU Poland 
• CENTRO INTERNAZIONALE PER LA PROMOZIONE DELL'EDUCAZION E E LO SVILUPPO ASSOCIAZIONE Italy 

 

How to contact us?

Contact to the institutional coordinator: j.komorek@wsbinoz.pl