Elementary, Secondary, and Informal Education: The MENTOR (Mathematics Education for Novice Teachers: Opportunities for Reflection) Project

在太平洋教育和学习资源（PREL）服务的太平洋地区，缺乏获得四年制学位授予课程的机会，再加上学生人数迅速增长，导致雇用更多缺乏经验和不合格的教师。 MENTOR项目通过为新手教师建立一个指导计划来解决这个问题，该计划旨在培养他们成为有效的数学教师所需的知识，技能和性格，从而减少他们进入教学的时间和创伤，并增加他们对职业的承诺。调查小组会议和新教师的课程研究。 该项目包括两个干部，一组训练有素，有效的新手教师的导师，和其他一组有效的新手教师谁有一个如何实施标准为基础的数学教学的理解，谁表现出强烈的承诺的职业。 这两个小组的合作将产生一系列示范性的基于标准的课程计划，并在三次太平洋教育会议上发表演讲（2003、2004和2005年），并准备出版一套描述新手教师和导师在MENTOR项目中的专业成长的叙述。MENTOR项目对发展文化适应性和适当的导师制做出了重大贡献以语言多样性和地理隔离为特点的新土著文化模式。获得的见解通知尝试建立辅导和其他专业发展计划在跨文化的设置在太平洋和超越。

In the Pacific region served by Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL), lack of access to four-year degree granting programs, coupled with a rapidly growing student population, resulted in the increased hiring of inexperienced and under-qualified teachers. The MENTOR Project addressed this problem by establishing a mentoring program for novice teachers aimed at developing in them the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to be effective teachers of mathematics, thereby decreasing the length and trauma of their induction into teaching and increasing their commitment to the profession.Based on training led by PREL personnel, Project mentors provide summer institutes as well as in-class nentoring, inquiry group sessions, and lesson study for novice teachers. The Project includes two cadres, one a group of well-trained and effective mentors of novice teachers, and the other a group effective novice teachers who have an understanding of how to implement standards-based mathematics instruction and who exhibit a strong commitment to the profession. Working together these two groups will generate a collection of exemplary standards-based lesson plans, make presentations at three Pacific Education Conferences (in 2003, 2004 and 2005), and prepare for publication a set of narratives describing novice teachers' and mentors' professional growth in the MENTOR Project.The MENTOR Project contributes significantly to the development of culturally responsive and appropraite mentoring models for neo-indigenous cultures characterized by linguistic diversity and geographic isolation. The insights gained inform attempts to establish mentoring and other professional development programs in cross-cultural settings in the Pacific and beyond.