Abstract
The
purpose of this action research study was to enhance the pedagogical skills of
novice teachers through implementing intensive mentoring model in a learning
resource high school of Gilgit-Baltistan. Four novice teachers were selected as
research participants on the basis of the criteria; having no more than one
year teaching experience, they had not gone through a professional development
course of an appropriate period of time. My analysis of relevant documents and subsequent
classroom observations revealed that the novice teachers face problems in lesson
planning and implementing them engaging students in learning activities.
Therefore I applied intensive mentoring as a strategy to support novice
teachers to develop their pedagogical skills. Orientation on lesson planning,
co-planning/teaching and independent planning/teaching were the major
interventions I carried out in my context. Pre and post observation conferences
were conducted to provide feedback on professional practices of novice
teachers. Observation through a lesson observation checklist, transcripts from
reflective dialogues and daily written reflections were used as data collection
tools. The focused areas needed to improve in this research were; understanding
the nature of a lesson plan, skills to plan a lesson and its implementation in
real classrooms. The novice teachers improved the skills of selecting and
organizing learning activities, sequencing their lessons, use of resources,
carrying out an interactive teaching in classrooms.Broadening Horizons