System of Mentoring and Coaching

Research has shown that direct, structured, and ongoing mentoring and coaching are necessary features of building a high quality early childhood workforce with the knowledge, competencies, education and support they need to promote children’s development and learning; and work closely with families as their allies. The terms mentoring, coaching, pedagogical leadership are often used with overlapping definitions and research has shown that these supports are

In order to understand where mentoring and coaching are occurring in early childhood education programs in Hawaii, an environmental scan is being conducted through the ECE3 Project in collaboration with HCYC. This environmental scan will In addition to this scan, two guides will be developed. One guide will be for mentor teachers who provide guidance to our students or teacher candidates in field experiences in a variety of ECE programs. This guide will be designed by a work group made up of potential mentor teachers in early childhood education programs. One guide will be for instructional coaches who are working with new ECE teachers, to support teacher retention and sustain quality teaching practices. This will entail convening and facilitating a working group made of instructional coaches from a variety of ECE programs to develop a guide for instructional coaches in how to effectively coach new teachers. This common set of guidelines for effective mentoring and coaching will incorporate how to use the NAEYC professional standards and competencies, NAEYC’s Advancing Equity position statement, E Malama I Na Keiki, and NAEYCʻs other foundational documents.