Collaboration and virtual mentoring: building relationships between pre-service and in-service special education teachers

Abstract This study explored the benefits and limitations of mentoring through the Internet in two special education preparation programs in the United States. Nicenet Internet Classroom Assistant was used to facilitate this virtual mentoring process. Seventeen undergraduate and 13 graduate students from two universities participated. The graduate students were mentors to undergraduates who were in the beginning of their senior year of their special education program. Pre- and post-surveys, Internet interactions, and video conferencing were used to gather participants' perceptions of their skill development in teaching, mentoring and collaboration and the effectiveness of virtual mentoring. Content analyses and descriptive statistics were employed to evaluate their responses. Results revealed that participants agreed that virtual mentoring was a positive experience, it supported their intervention and teaming skills and had some positive effects on their communication and teaching skills. However, virtual mentoring did not appear to impact every characteristic or dimension of communication and teaching investigated by this study. Although the results from this study indicated that virtual mentoring is a viable process which benefits both pre-service and inservice special education teachers, it is apparent from this study that further research is required to gain a better understanding of the technology of virtual mentoring and its usefulness to other areas of education.