Mentoring has been seen as an ongoing effort to professionalize teaching in teacher education since the 1980s. It is commonly believed that collaborating mentors and student teachers can benefit through the dynamics of school-based mentoring. Reflectivity is said to be one mechanism by which changes occur both in the student teacher and the mentor.
Conventional studies on the reciprocal effects of mentoring on mentors have usually used survey and follow-up interviews, after mentors have completed the mentoring process, as the main methods of data collection. Hence, there is scant literature about how mentors' professional growth develops during mentoring and what factors sustain or hinder such development. The present study aims to investigate the effect of mentoring on mentors' development of expertise in teaching.
Ethnographic research methods incorporating direct observation and interviews were employed in studying four mentors' mentoring practices. These mentors are English and Chinese language teachers who acted as mentors in 2005 for Year 4 students of the Bachelor of Education programme at The University of Hong Kong. An analytical framework developed from the literature is used to interpret and illustrate the effects of mentoring practices on their development of expertise in teaching, in terms of reflection, practical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.
The results indicate that student teachers' practices in learning to teach become an object about which mentors engage in reflection. Reflection through conversations plays a key role in experienced teachers' development of expertise in teaching. Such reflection requires three kinds of capacities: theorizing practical knowledge, pedagogical reasoning and collaborative inquiry.
Relationships that are reflective and collaborative, involving co-inquiry about teaching and learning, have been found to be pivotal in mentors' development of expertise in teaching. This study demonstrates

背景：中層人員在學校管理與日常運作中有關鍵的角色，在教育改革的年代中，不少香港小學校長感到校內中層人員的表現和能力的重要性；有些辦學團體更舉辦了中央性培訓以提昇層下小學的中層人員。為了支援香港小學中層人員的成長，香港初等教育研究學會開展了一個校本教師培訓計劃，為八所小學中層人員提供校本的專業培訓。
目的：基於香港本土和國際的文獻，分析受訓中層人員的回饋與反思，希透過整理這些質性的資料，能結合中層人員專業發展的理論與實踐。
調查對象：八所參與校本教師培訓計劃的小學中層人員，一共有158份有效的回應問卷。
調查方法：此文章除整理中層人員發展及校本培訓的文獻外，再根據中層人員的質性回應，顯示出香港小學中層人員對專業發展的需要，關注和反省。
調查結果：問卷發現受訓中層人員對「中層人員的角色與成長」的培訓滿意度比整體評價為高。他們亦反映出要學習多些與團隊發展有關的知識和技能。同時，有些中層人員十分享受其行動學習計劃，並在分享中顯示出其在計劃過程中的成長。
總結：從八間小學中層人員的培訓個案中，發現讓中層人員對自己角色的反思，掌握發展團隊的技能和實踐行動學習等，皆能有效地促進中層人員的專業成長；而這計劃亦同時豐富了香港小學的校本教師培訓經驗及中層人員培訓的模式。
Background: A middle manager plays an essential role in the school management and daily operation. In the educational reform era, many principals aware the performance and competence of the middle managers is critical for the development of their primary schools in Hong Kong. A few of school sponsoring body provide some central training for the middle managers in their primary schools. In order to support the professional development of middle managers of primary school in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Primary Education Research Association carries out a school-based teacher development project and eight primary schools participate in this project.
Aims: Based on reviewing local and international literatures, this study investigated the feedback and reflection of trained middle manager. After analysis these data, this paper try to link up the theory and practice in the professional development of middle manager.
Sample: Questionnaires were sent to all trained middle managers in these eight primary schools, and a total of 158 questionnaires are filled.
Method: Besides literatures in middle manager professional development and school-based training, qualitative information from middle managers of these schools are used to illustrate their needs, concerns and reflections.
Result: Trained middle managers give a higher responses rate in the session: Role and development of middle managers.