School support (mentors)

Their tasks are mainly in the area of school-based support for students. While they explore the professional field of school and teaching and take their first steps in changing roles from the perspective of the student to that of the intern.

It is generally important that...

• the students actively participate in the teaching process and, if possible, are referred to colleagues for observation.
• You support the students, especially in the preparation of their first attempt at teaching and, if possible, continue to provide them with advice and support afterwards. If possible, provide information about the learning groups (social behavior, subject matter, learning status, etc.).
• Introduce the students to everyday school life and involve them in important aspects of school life - also present special features of your school.

To make this possible, mentors should maintain close contact with the university mentors. This includes arranging appointments for the continuation of the internship semester after the block phase, discussions on the students' professional development, exchanges about their learning situation and suitable forms of support during the internship semester.

Mentors in the L1 area observe the first two lesson visits and forward the tabular lesson plan and the texts on the intended skills acquisition to the university mentors.

Please be sure to read the detailed handout for the L1 practical semester.

Mentors in the L2 area provide students with assistance for their own teaching experiments and support them in creating lesson plans. The observations are covered by the university.

Please refer to the detailed handout for the L2 practical semester.

The intermediate discussion takes place between the two practical teaching phases. It serves to reflect on the progress to date and set new impulses for the long phase. Ideally, all three parties (students, school & university) should meet for this purpose. A template for the discussion is available as a guide (see below).

At the end, you as the mentor create this contribution in the form of an online questionnaire-based or formulated assessment, which is also discussed with the students. The primary purpose of this report is to confirm that the student has successfully completed the internship semester. It contains an assessment of the student's suitability for the teaching profession, taking into account the current status and also addresses the current training of practical and (subject-related) didactic skills. The assessment report is also forwarded to the university supervisors.

The Praxis³ project has been in use since the summer semester 2022. For this purpose, the previous format of the appreciation contribution was revised, further developed and linked with already known elements from BASIS and the ePortfolio or internship report. All information is available here.

The last week of the internship is intended for direct assessment and evaluation of the students. Mutual feedback and an advisory discussion for the time after the internship semester should take place here.

• A guideline for the evaluation interview is available for structuring the advisory discussion.

The Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs (HKM) is responsible for the remuneration of the internship semester. If you have supervised students as a mentor during the internship semester, you are entitled to a monthly remuneration of 78.99 euros for a maximum of 6 months per cycle. The remuneration is paid regardless of the number of students supervised.

Payment

The allowance is paid directly as a taxable salary supplement via your pay office; a separate application is not necessary. Instead, the Department for Practical School Studies forwards the list to the HKM.

Experience has shown that the salary supplement is paid out in August/September (winter semester) or January (summer semester).

Unfortunately, the salary supplement is paid on a pro rata basis, i.e. part-time employees do not receive the full amount. To compensate for this, the HKM has promised that the salary supplement will always be paid for 6 months, although mentors usually only work for 5 months (winter semester from September to January or summer semester February to June) in the internship semester.

In order to forward all necessary information to the HKM, we absolutely need the personnel numbers of all mentors. We therefore ask you to send us these by email at the beginning of your mentorship.

Information for mentors at privately-run schools:

As the payment cannot be made directly by the payment office, the University of Kassel will take care of this. For this we need your bank account details, which you can send us by email.