UFSCar MENTORING PROGRAMS: THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL BASIS, CHARACTERISTICS AND CONTRIBUTIONS

The characteristics of the beginning of teaching, including the challenges faced at this stage, call for the development and implementation of policies and programs focused on teachers and their professional development. For these initiatives to be successful, the importance of informed, forceful, systematic, and continuous training actions is defended in the educational qualification of teachers, in their initial training, and during their careers, especially at the beginning. It recognizes the importance of induction programs as support for these professionals to socialize in the school culture, to do what is expected of them, and to deal with the typical difficulties of this professional activity. This article presents the four mentoring programs developed at UFSCar chronology, their theoretical and methodological bases, characteristics and analyzes some of the contributions of these initiatives. To this end, a subset of theses and dissertations dealing with programs for the professional learning of beginning elementary school and physical education teachers was considered, focusing on learning to teach. Each program has specific features, such as assistance for beginning teachers working at different levels of education, characteristics of the mentors, and use of the Internet and virtual tools. Based on the results, aspects related to the proposal and development of policies to induct novice teachers are problematized.