Strength-based mentoring in pre-service teacher education: a literature review

In order to better prepare pre-service teachers for potential challenges in their first year of teaching, it is critical for both teacher educators and supervising teachers to provide strategies to strengthen pre-service teachers' beliefs and maintain their motivation. In this article, strengths-based theories are reviewed to provide a discussion on teacher mentoring approaches that offer an alternative to the more common problem-based models. A strength-based mentoring model in teacher education is presented, and measures and strategies developed from different strength-based theories are applied to the six elements of this model.