The Implementation of a New Curriculum Through a Curricular Mentoring System. The Profile of the Most Competent Mentors

ABSTRACT Based on a macro‐project on institutional training promoted by the Education Department of the Government of Catalonia with the goal of introducing the psycho‐educational foundations and disciplinary contents of a new curricular framework for all non‐university stages in the educational system, we initiated a training and education process of a new professional profile, the curricular mentor, senior teachers with training and advisement experience who would be in charge of carrying out this task. The novelty of the experience and the need to inquire into to what extent the people chosen had profiles that matched our conceptions and theoretical expectations, associated with the collaborative self‐development approach, led us to conduct this research. The population chosen was the first group of 152 education professionals who volunteered to serve as mentors. With the goal of identifying their mentor profiles, we started with an ad‐hoc questionnaire based on the variables highlighted in the specialised literature: conceptions of teaching and learning, experience and knowledge of education and the curriculum, conceptions on curricular mentoring, beliefs about curricular implementation at school and feelings about curricular implementation. The results showed three clearly defined mentor profiles: experts, critical practitioners and constructive mentors. The third group seems to better reflect the mentorship model sought; consequently, this conclusion may have important implications when recruiting and training new teams of curricular mentors.