Planning, Implementation and Evaluation of a Short-Term Electronic Mentoring Program to Support the Professional and Psycho-Social Development of Prospective Teachers

The goal of the project; is the planning, implementation and evaluation of a short-term electronic mentoring (e-mentoring) program to contribute to the professional and psychosocial development of novice teachers working in secondary schools. In the six-month project, the Candidate Teacher Electronic Mentoring Program (AÖEMP) was implemented. 23 experienced teachers participated in the PEEMP in the role of mentors and 34 candidate teachers in the role of mentee. It has been determined that novice teachers mostly need mentor support in the subjects of content knowledge (70.58%), teaching methods-techniques and activity development (58.82%), classroom management (58.82%) and technology use (55.82%). . Most of the mentees (94,11%) reported that they have a strong bond with their mentor. 100% of the mentees stated that the program increased their belief in being a good teacher. All of the experienced teachers mentoring in the program; He stated that PEEMP improves their problem solving and interaction skills, enables them to transfer their own experiences to others, improves their sense of self-efficacy, increases their professional motivation, refreshes their knowledge and skills, enables them to socialize during the pandemic process, and makes them happy to help a candidate teacher. When the data obtained from the interviews with the participants regarding the MOODLE learning management system, which was adapted as an e-mentoring interaction platform, were analyzed, it was seen that the opinions were generally positive. The project results reveal that e-mentoring is a model that can be used to support prospective teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such programs, where experienced teachers can mentor novice teachers on vocational and psychosocial issues, can also be implemented after the pandemic. By associating the candidate teacher training program with the e-mentoring model, the Ministry of National Education; It can transfer the entire process to an electronic environment or integrate e-mentoring into the system as a component to support face-to-face counseling. It is thought that such a process will be beneficial in overcoming the inequalities that novice teachers may experience due to different problems (geographical restrictions, lack of teachers from the same branch in the assigned school, time, health...).