Mentoring New Teachers

1
Mentoring New Teachers

• Increasing Teacher Retention
• Supporting Student Achievement

2
Introduction

• Course Outcomes
• Mentoring Overview
• Mentoring Audience
• Need for and Impact of Effective Mentoring
• Challenges of Novice Teachers
• Our Assumptions about Mentoring

3
Course Outcomes

• Build awareness of critical issues related to
  teacher retention
• Build capacity in mentors to support beginning
  teachers
• Increased teacher retention and student
  achievement
• Define and explore the role of the mentor
• Apply the Georgia Framework for Teaching
• Introduce instruments, procedures, and strategies
  for teacher development
• Develop teacher, school and district leadership

4
Mentoring Overview

• Definition and Background of Mentoring
• Before leaving for the Trojan War in The Odyssey,
  Odysseus leaves his son, Telemachus, under the
  care of Mentor. Mentor takes care of and teaches
  Telemachus to become a great leader.
• In contemporary times the word mentor has evolved
  to mean trusted advisor, friend, teacher and wise
  person.

5
The Mentoring Audience

• The National Education Association Nationally
  200,000 new teachers hired each year for the next
  10 years.
• Other sources report that 2.5 million new
  teachers will be hired in the next decade.
• According to the Professional Standards
  Commission 11,377 new teachers hired in FY06, a
  14.3 increase from FY05.

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The Need for and Impact of Effective Mentoring

• Large concentration of new teachers in high
  poverty/minority schools
• Same expectation and evaluation for new as
  experienced teachers
• Literature support the claims for new teachers to
  be effectively inducted into the profession
• New teachers underestimate the difficulty of
  teaching
• 50 of teachers quit after the first 5 years of
  teaching
• New teachers are reluctant to ask for help
• Veteran teachers hesitate to help.

7
Challenges of Novice Teachers

• Managing the classroom
• Acquiring information about the school system
• Obtaining instructional resources and materials
• Planning, organizing and managing instruction
• Assessing students and evaluating student
  progress
• Motivating students
• Using effective teaching method
• Students needs, interests, abilities and
  problems
• Communicating with colleagues, including
  administrators, supervisors, and other teachers
• Communication with parents
• Adjusting to the teaching environment
• Receiving emotional support

8
Our Assumptions About Mentoring

• Induction is an Investment
• Retention
• Integration
• Continual Growth
• Emotional Safety and Confidentiality for Growth
• Safety for verbal and nonverbal communication
• Balance support and challenges Support without
  challenge does not result in growth

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Assumptions cont.

• Reciprocal Growth Between Mentor and Protégé
• Mentoring conversations result in
• Thinking out loud
• Problem solving
• Researching
• Sharing information
• Creating innovative approaches to working with
  students.
• The result is growth for the beginning teacher
  and renewal for the mentor.

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Assumptions cont.

• Central Goal - Student Achievement
• Instruction
• Student achievement
• Data driven
• Integration with District Initiative
• Should support other district initiatives
• Mentoring in isolation defeats the purpose of
  mentoring

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Unit 1

• Effects of Skilled Mentoring on Teachers
• The Role of the Mentor
• Kinds of Support
• Timeline of Mentoring Activities

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Effect of Skilled Mentoring on Teachers

• Teachers who receive skilled mentoring are more
  likely to
• Increase efficacy, problem solving and decision
  making
• Increase collaborative exchange
• Remain in profession

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Role of the Mentor

• Offer Support
• Create Challenge
• Facilitate Professional Vision

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Offer Support

• Emotional Get to know them celebrate the
  little things
• Physical Classroom supplies, materials
• Instructional Standards, Pacing Guides, etc
• Institutional District initiatives

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Create Challenges

• Analysis of Practice
• Setting Goals
• Analysis of Student Work
• Problem Soling and Decision Making
• Supporting Choices
• Connecting Theory to Practice
• Engaging in Reflective Practice

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Facilitating Professional Vision

• To achieve professional vision
• High, yet achievable standards must be set
• Learning outcomes for students must be
  established
• Content must be integrated
• Clearly define and develop an action plan to
  achieve goals
• Engage in collaboration between mentor and
  teacher
• Model professionalism

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Timeline of Mentoring Activities

• Review the handout Timeline of Mentoring
  Activities.

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Unit 2

• Providing a Focus for Learning
• The Continuum
• Georgia Framework for Teaching

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Providing a Focus for Learning

• Effective mentors attend to the protégé's
• Intonation
• Gestures
• Facial expressions
• Posture
• Muscle tension
• Breathing
• Voice tone

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The Continuum

• Consultant
• Collaborator
• Coach
• See handout Continuum Prompts.

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Consultant

• Mentors consult when they
• Share information about the district policies,
  procedures and goals
• Special Education requirements
• Establishing classroom routines
• Share instructional strategies
• Implementation of curriculum
• Share field trip procedures

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Strategies to Consult

• Think Aloud I think it is really important to
  include.
• Offer a menu of things you have done and give
  protégé opportunity to make a choice
• Offer an Idea Bank A collection of pre-made
  ideas. Allow protégé to ask for idea bank before
  offering it.
• Conduct a model lesson
• Review tapes of effective teaching
• Observe an exemplary veteran teacher for the area
  of growth
• Reference current research

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Collaborator

• Mentors collaborate when they
• Frame problems and solve them with the protégé
• Analyze data with the protégé
• Jointly make decisions with the protégé
• Use inclusive pronouns we, our or us
• Team teach a lesson together
• Plan an upcoming unit/lesson together

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Strategies to Collaborate

• Brainstorm reasons, ideas, solutions
• Co-Plan
• Co-Teach
• Study together Research together a topic of
  mutual interest e. g. singe sex academies,
  giftedness in poverty, gender bias in mathematics
• Conduct action research
• Explore case studies

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Coach

• Mentors coach when they
• Facilitate the internal thinking of the protégé
• Paraphrase
• Clarify
• Pause
• Probe
• Access the internal resources of the protégé
• Maintain a non-judgmental interaction
• Ask about the success of the protégé

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Strategies to Coaching

• Remain Non-judgmental
• Inquire Successes and Challenges
• Reflect on Goals

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Georgia Framework for Teaching

• See the handout Georgia Framework for Teaching
• Select one standard and complete a
  self-assessment on the elements of the standard
  using a scale of 1-4, 1 being lowest level of
  competency and 4 being the highest level of
  competency.

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Unit 3

• Time Management
• Focus Attention on Teacher
• Structured Conversations
• Verbal Tools
• Quick Forms
• When You Cant Meet Face-to-Face

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Time Management

• The greatest challenge to mentoring is the time
  for the protégé and the mentor to do the work.
• Twenty minutes of purpose driven, focused work is
  more valuable than sixty minutes without purpose.

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Focus Attention on the Teacher

• Strategies to focus attention
• Physical alignment
• Vocal Alignment
• Breathing depth, duration and rate
• Sit next to, never across from the teacher

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Structured Conversations

• Possible conversation focus
• Planning a lesson or unit
• Reflecting on teaching
• Pre-Observation
• Problem solving
• Self-Assessment
• Setting professional goals

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Verbal Tools

• Pausing
• Paraphrasing
• Inquiring
• Probing
• Extending

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Pausing

• Use this verbal tool
• After asking a question
• After receiving a response
• While you frame your own language

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Paraphrasing

• Acknowledge/Clarify
• Summarize/Organize
• Shift Level of Abstraction Raise thing to a
  conceptual level

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Inquiring

• Ask without judgments
• Use an approachable intonation and syntax that
  invites multiple responses
• Focus on cognition that supports and enhances
  making-meaning

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Probing

• Questions to use when probing
• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• How

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Extending

• Giving information
• Framing expectations
• Providing resources

38
Quick Forms

• 3-2-1
• When planning for differentiation 3 options to
  meet students needs, 2 ways to evaluate the
  learning and 1 challenge the teacher expects to
  encounter
• Stem Completion
• This form is great us use for reflection
• One thing I wish I knew earlier
• A democratic classroom can be supported by..
• Strength/Weakness/Action Plan
• Three columns with each title and guide a
  conversation about a difficult issue. It is
  important to first begin with the teachers
  strength as new teachers offer think they are
  doing nothing right.
• See Quick Forms file.

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Non Face-to-Face

• Interactive Journal The teacher writes on one
  side and the mentor on the other side of a
  journal page
• Email concerns
• Weekly phone calls
• Notes in boxes

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Unit 4

• The Expert Teacher
• Stages of Teacher Development
• Success Tips for Mentoring

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Expert Teacher

• Acquires, stores and appropriately applies
  knowledge and skills in various situations.
• Has clear objectives and manage students,
  content, equipment and materials simultaneously
• Apply great skill and expertise in analyzing and
  understanding their students and the complex
  problems they encounter.

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Stages of Teacher Development

• Novice
• Advance Beginning
• Competent
• Proficient
• Expert
• See handout States of Development and discuss
  your journey with protégé.

43
Success Tips

• Examine the handout Mentor Success Tips.
  Identify which tips may support your work with
  mentoring new teachers into the profession.

44
Mentor Commitment

• What are you going to do with your new teacher to
  make a difference in teacher retention and
  student achievement?