The document discusses using e-mentoring as a tool for professional teacher development. It conducted research to identify the needs of English language teachers regarding formative assessment practices and the effectiveness of an online collaborative e-mentoring platform. The study found that e-mentoring helped break down barriers, improved formative assessment strategies, and was an effective supplemental tool for professional development. However, challenges included difficulties coordinating schedules and broader implications for development. The study concluded that e-mentoring has potential to support teachers' professional growth if used to incorporate new developments into English language teaching in a practical way.

1. E-mentoring as a
Professional
Teacher
Development tool
Muzaffer ÇETİN
English Language Instructor -
International Antalya
University
muzaffercetin77@gmail.com

2. Problem Statement
 The teachers at state schools need
immediate responses for their instant
challenges.
 Overcoming difficulties of EFL teachers
with supplemental support apart from
their ongoing professional development
activities in their areas.

3.  Can e-mentoring be used as a
developmental tool to complete the gap
via supporting teachers online?

4. Purpose of the study
 The aim of the research is mainly two-folds.
The first aim is to identify the needs of English
language teachers considering their
professional development related to FA
practices.
 The second one deals with the effectiveness
of collaborative e-mentoring platform as a
supplemental tool for professional teacher
development.

5. Method and Research
Instruments
 At the first phase, data was collected
from an online questionnaire identifies
Formative Assessment needs. The first
section of the survey consisted of
demographic information and details
about school they work, during their pre-
service or in-service training whether they
have learned something about FA (Theory
or Practice)

6.  . The second section of the survey was
adapted from the book “Exploring
Formative Assessment. The Professional
Learning Community Series” by Brookhart
published in 2009. The aim was to
understand the overall needs of the
participants related to FA.

7. The second phase was the
implementation process

8.  An action research mode was applied.
For an e-mentoring project like this, Single
and Single’s e-mentoring model could be
adapted (Single and Single, 2005).

9.  Single&Single model of e-mentoring
including three phases:
planning, program structure, and
assessment. Implementation process
focuses on how to provide EFL teachers
with an online collaborative program for
the use of FA.

10. The participants’ written and oral
documents through various instruments: e-
mails, interviews, Skype audio records, chat
records and records from the platform:
Mentor-mentee one to one records and all
accessible records, reflection reports.
*reflective journal where the e-mentoring
process and results were reported.

11. Findings and results

12.  As the first step of our action plan, we
determined the topics for the modules to
be used in our e-mentoring program.

13.  Our personal contacts with Laura
Greenstein and Dylan Wiliam and the
book “Exploring Formative Assessment:
The Professional Learning Community
Series” by Brookhart (2009) helped us
prepare the titles and the contents of the
modules.

14. Modules
 Using formative assessment in my regular
classroom practice
 Setting and sharing goals for students’ learning
 Eliciting/listening to students
 Asking questions to encourage students to think
 Providing effective feedback on student work
 Encouraging students to use self-assessment and
peer assessment
 Using formative assessment information in
instructional planning
 Role of digital technologies for FA

15.  We decided to use the modules that
would meet the participants’ needs.
Subsequently, we implemented the
modules, and collected and analyzed the
data that we received from various
sources within the process of our action
research.

16. We based our analysis on two basic
themes:
* “what were the challenges and why? ”
* “what worked”.

17. What were the challenges and why?
 This part is dedicated to analyze the main
challenges that were met during the
study. They are expected to light the way
for further studies on online teacher
professional development.

18. Three main sub-groups
 challenging factors about the structure
and organization of the study
 challenging internal factors of
participants’ active participation,
 challenging external factors of
participants’ active participation.

19. What worked?
 Nearly all of the teachers stated that they
were satisfied with the study in varying
levels.

20. Three areas (worked well)
 awareness of the content knowledge,
 application,
 virtual sharing.

21. Conclusions & recommendations
 the study revealed that most of the
teachers believed in the importance of
having professional development support
through e-mentoring

22. Conclusion
 It could break down the locational
barriers between teachers from various
schools by using an effective tool for
teacher development support.
 EFL teachers who voluntarily work in
collaboration with other teachers have
improved their FA strategies through e-
mentoring support.

23. Recommendations
 the inability of teachers to meet
simultaneously or to arrange their
schedule to work consistently- it still has
implications for broader expressions for
professional development.
 e-mentoring may not be difficult to be
accepted and practiced in Turkey
context

24. In order to incorporate new developments
into EFL in a more practical and feasible
way, the need for online teacher
development e-mentoring platforms arises.
It is crucial to increase the variety of in-
service training programs that may keep
language teachers on track of
development in their field.

25. Thanks for listening to me.
Muzaffer Çetin
For further questions and
cooperation
muzaffercetin77@gmail.com
Skype: smilingodessa