Professor Eva Bjerkholt from the University of Southeast Norway (USN) is visiting the School of Education at the University of Aberdeen this week.
Professor Bjerkholt leads the national Norwegian Network for mentoring newly qualified teachers. This network has participants from all teacher education institutions in Norway. She is also the leader of a Nordic cross-sectorial network on induction and mentoring newly qualified teachers funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers Program NordPlus Horizontal. The Nordic network has participants from teacher educators and teacher unions in the Nordic countries.
Professor Bjerkholt has been collaborating with the School of Education’s Dr Rachel Shanks for many years, presenting research papers at international conferences and writing articles on mentoring and newly qualified teachers. This is Professor Bjerkholt’s first trip to Scotland and she will be studying the Scottish Teacher Induction programme, and discussing perspectives on induction and mentoring new teachers with Jenny Cheyne of Aberdeen City Council and Elaine Napier from the General Teaching Council for Scotland.
On Tuesday 1st of May, Professor Bjerkholt gave a lunchtime seminar at the University entitled ‘Research circles in a Nordic research project on mentoring in teacher education and in the teacher profession’. This week’s visit to the University of Aberdeen is also the start of a closer collaboration between Dr Shanks and Professor Bjerkholt on a five year research project at the University of Southeast Norway on Teacher Educators’ Professional Oral Skills (TEPOS) and how these skills support students’ learning.