Mobile mentoring conversations and the role of participant teachers

The aim of this thesis is to explore the practices in Finn Church Aid’s Mobile Mentoring project by analyzing the teachers’ online conversations. This study seeks to improve the North-South engagements, especially in the context of teacher professional development. The research questions address the development of the online conversations, the positions of participants, mentor-mentee, and the effect on teachers’ professional development. From a theoretical perspective this research is located under the postcolonial paradigm, which is discussed together with the pedagogical postcolonial framework, Learning Through Other Eyes, and Bhabha’s Third Space. Topics regarding mobile learning, teacher’s professional development and mobile mentoring are also discussed. Participating teachers were originally from Uganda, the mentees, and from Finland, the mentor. The twelve weeks conversation was analyzed following a dialogical methodology. The findings of this analysis were divided into two parts: firstly, the four modules showed the development of the conversations and were used a reorientation for the summary of the findings. Secondly, the research questions were directly addressed based on the most representative segments of conversation. The research found that the development of the conversations followed multilateral interactions, however there was a slight change towards multilateral interactions as weeks past. Moreover, the mentees positioned themselves as respondents and the mentor as a guide of the conversations. Nonetheless, there were times when some mentees took the leading role. Finally, the mobile mentoring conversations followed an inquiry based mentoring model which allowed mentees to contextualize their reflections to their own setting. Some alternatives for mobile mentoring in similar contexts are suggested. Further research needs to analyze other elements of mobile mentoring project such as the curriculum or the participant’s perceptions.