2.1 Providing appropriate challenge

As was seen in Week 2, whether taking a mentoring or a coaching stance, there is a need to strike a balance between support and challenge.

Providing appropriate challenge is considered to play ‘a crucial role in supporting the student teachers’ learning’ (Mutton, Burn and Hagger, 2008, p. 78). As you aim to provide appropriate challenge, research shows that effective practice should include:

• the development of knowledge and expertise in a progressive and systematic way (da Cunha, Batista and Graca, 2018)
• ensuring that guidance and support is provided (Lofthouse and Thomas, 2017)
• taking a collaborative and co-enquiry approach.

Within these practices, professional dialogue and effective use of questioning are considered to be key elements (Cheliotes and Reilly, 2010; Fletcher, 2012).