Pedagogical Coordinators: reflections and practices for beginning teacher onboarding and support

Abstract

This study is part of an inter-institutional research program focused on induction processes for beginning teachers in basic education, and aimed at analyzing the results of training a group of pedagogical coordinators of the regional education board (DRE) of the municipal school system of São Paulo. Four in-person training meetings were held, which were recorded and transcribed, having a duration of four hours and the attendance of approximately forty coordinators. The collected data were systematized and organized into four dimensions of analysis that cover the feelings experienced by coordinators as beginning teachers, their challenges in supporting and supervising the beginning teacher in the school context, and the onboarding and follow-up actions carried out, as well as the considerations and practices mobilized during the training. The data suggest that the issue of professional insertion and teacher induction may be invisible in many schools, but in others it is a sensitive topic that has led to beneficial actions and practices for beginning teachers. The activities proposed in the meetings not only stimulated discussions about the various elements, both objective and subjective, involved in the professional insertion of teachers, but more importantly, they helped to highlight initiatives considered as contributing factors to professional insertion in the literature, with the potential to establish an induction program.