The Roles of Mentors in a Collaborative Virtual Learning Environment (CVLE) Project

This paper reports a case study on virtual mentoring and collaboration between the pre-service teachers and in-service teachers from three institutions of higher learning in Malaysia. The objective of the study is to identify the roles of the mentors in the collaborative virtual learning environment (CVLE). There were 48 pre-service teachers and 4 in-service teachers involved in the virtual collaboration via Internet Classroom Assistant (www.nicenet.org). They were placed in groups where the pre-service teachers acted as the e-mentees and the in-service teachers acted as the e-mentors. Each group was required to produce an online newsletter. The data obtained from the online postings and reflective journals of the e -mentors were analyzed using Ambrosetti and Dekkers's [1] table of the mentors’ roles. Findings showed that the e-mentors played the roles of supporters, collaborators, editors, friends, evaluators, teachers, leaders and role models. The study recommends that teachers should involve themselves in collaboration and mentoring via asynchronous mode of CMC regardless of distance and time in order to develop professionally.