E-MENTORING SYSTEM APPLICATION IN THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF VILLAGE TEACHERS: AN ACTION RESEARCH

Abstract

E-mentoring offers a functional support process that helps gather individuals who aspire to benefit from the knowledge and experience of mentors on the same platform. Although the newly-recruited village teachers face a great number of shortcomings, it is known that they need the help of people who are more experienced in terms of position. This action research is designed to contribute to the development of village teachers with e- mentoring practices based on qualitative data. In this context, an e-mentoring application lasting 10 weeks was carried out with 4 mentors, 4 mentor support team members, and 20 village teachers. At the end of the study, it was concluded that village teachers made progress in professional (n:56), academic development (n:23) and personal(n:11) wanted to continue as mentors in the later stages of their professional life (n:26) along with studies related to mentoring and that their participation in graduate education increased. For future studies in this field, it is recommended that the e-mentoring process should be meticulously planned, a purposive model should be followed while selecting mentors/mentees, and communication with mentees should not be interrupted during the process.