Teachers find long-term mentoring support very helpful for implementing environmental education

Meaningful watershed educational experiences are student-centered, inquiry-based experiences that focus on local environmental issues. These scaffolded experiences can be linked to formal learning standards and occur both in and out of the classroom. Through these experiences, students learn about local environmental phenomena and problems, explore local cultures and history, and investigate the natural world. Integrating meaningful watershed educational experiences into school curricula often requires additional planning and resources. Thus, teachers who have access to supports, such as training and mentoring, are more likely to practice environmental education (EE) in their classrooms. While teacher trainings provide educators with foundational environmental knowledge and activity ideas, EE mentoring offers longer-term and more context-specific support. Many studies have examined the effectiveness of EE teacher trainings, but few have explored the impacts of EE mentoring. This is due, in part, to the fact that mentoring is not often used as an EE professional development tool. Thus, this study explored how the Lake Superior Rivers2Lake (R2L) mentoring program impacted teachers who implemented watershed EE in their curricula.

This study took place at the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve in Wisconsin. The R2L program used outdoor and EE methods to teach students about the Lake Superior watershed and about local stewardship. To ensure that teachers were equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to implement R2L in their classrooms, R2L staff offered an intensive 5-day training during the summer and mentoring program throughout the school year. The authors conducted 3 focus groups with 4 teachers in each group. All 12 of the focus group participants (8 female, 4 male) had participated in the 5-day R2L training the previous summer and had worked with an R2L professional mentor while implementing the program for almost an entire school year. The teachers were from a variety of schools (traditional and nontraditional), taught a wide range of grades (pre-K through high school), taught a variety of subjects, and had different levels of teaching experience. As focus group facilitators, the authors asked teachers about (1) their experiences with the R2L program, (2) their perceptions of the mentoring component of the program, (3) the impacts that mentoring had on their ability to implement R2L programming, and (4) their intentions to continue facilitating EE lessons in the future. The authors recorded and transcribed the focus group conversations and then looked for themes that emerged from these discussions.

The authors found that focus group participants were deeply appreciative of the support they received from mentors. They indicated that, while the EE training served to motivate and inspire them, the mentoring component really gave them the tools, confidence, and contextualized support to be able to implement EE in their classrooms. Participants reported that they met with their mentors about twice a month to plan lessons and field trips, brainstorm activity ideas, troubleshoot implementation issues, reflect on past lessons, and determine how and where to access resources for future lessons. Participants and mentors also maintained a regular communication—by email, phone, or face-to-face—beyond the pre-arranged bi-monthly meeting times. Overall, participants appreciated being held accountable for integrating EE into their curricula, and they appreciated the personalized support they received from mentors. Additionally, they indicated that regular mentoring interactions helped them navigate implementation challenges and made them feel more confident, competent, and valued.

In terms of participants' intentions to implement EE lessons into the future (without the support of a mentor), teachers indicated varying degrees of commitment to future implementation. All had the desire to continue integrating EE into their curricula; however, some teachers felt more confident and prepared than others to be able to do this without the support of a mentor. The results indicated that the R2L support structure—intensive, foundational training and individualized, sustained mentorship—was effective.

This study had some limitations. The focus groups were few and small; if more teachers had participated, then the results might have been different. Another study in a different location or with different participants might have produced different results. Additionally, participants might have been hesitant to candidly recount their experiences with R2L in front of other teachers. The authors might have influenced the results by acting as facilitators of the focus groups. This study did not seek to measure the mentoring program effectiveness on EE; rather, it focused on the impacts of mentoring on teachers.

The authors recommend that EE teacher training be paired with long-term mentoring. This structure may make it more likely that teachers will integrate EE into their curricula and facilitate EE lessons throughout the school year. The authors also suggest that encouraging multiple teachers from one school to participate in the training-mentoring pairing may result in professional learning communities. These professional learning communities can ensure long-term sustainability of EE in classrooms and, perhaps, encourage shifts in school culture.