Abstract

Learning provision, including professional learning, needs to embrace mobility (of knowledge, cultures and contexts--physical and cerebral) to enable education practitioners to interact locally and globally, engage with new literacies, access rich contexts, and to question, co-construct and collaborate. Virtual mentoring, also known as distance, remote, tele-, cyber- and eMentoring, offers a level of flexibility that enables mentors and mentees to maximise these concepts of mobility. There are Professional Learning and Development (PLD) initiatives that offer contextualised, individualised learning experiences via mentoring partnerships and Communities of Practice (CoPs), but not so many that have focussed on "virtual" mentoring and "online" CoPs. This article describes a Virtual PLD programme that has been offered in Aotearoa New Zealand from 2009 to date and discusses findings from the associated research study, including benefits that can be specifically equated to the virtual nature of the mentoring and access to the online CoP. Also reported are shifts in mentees' self-efficacy and perceptions of changes in professional practice.

Citation

Owen, H.D. (2015). Making the Most of Mobility: Virtual Mentoring and Education Practitioner Professional Development. Research in Learning Technology, 23(1),. Retrieved September 30, 2023 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/175340/.

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Keywords

• case studies
• communities of practice
• computer mediated communication
• distance education
• Documentation
• electronic learning
• Foreign Countries
• Mentors
• Mixed Methods Research
• models
• Online Surveys
• professional development
• Program Effectiveness
• Self Efficacy
• Technology Uses in Education