Choice Lit Topic: New Teacher Mentors
Universities put far more energy into the initial certification of teachers than they do into ongoing support for teachers in the crucial first five years. This “sink or swim” mentality has led to 50% of new teachers leaving the profession in these early years. Glub glub glub – the sound of many of the freshest faces and voices in teaching abandoning schools in discouragement.
The development of systematic, thoughtful support programs for new teachers isn’t optional; it’s essential for the future vitality of schools. We share advice and insight from master teachers as they mentor teachers who are in their first years leading classrooms.
Results
The Language of Coaching Part II: The Leading Edge
Peter Johnston has written an entire book about the subtleties of our communications. In Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning (Stenhouse, 2004), Johnston explores the places where work is partially...
Books That Touch the Heart
A recent coaches' networking meeting was derailed by an experience shared by one of the coaches. Sandy was helping a group of sixth-grade teachers put together a text set on...
Learning from the Shadows
This past month I decided to try something a little different. I asked Jeni, a teacher in her third year to shadow me for a full day. New teachers have...
New Teacher Conversations: Breaking Through Roadblocks and Sustaining Support
At our final New Teacher Conversations meeting, we wanted to celebrate with the first-year teachers as well as look ahead to their second year. Knowing this was the last scheduled...
Mentor Interviews — A Protocol of Questions
Fall is a time when many novice and seasoned teachers begin mentoring relationships. But what do the mentors expect from this partnership? And how might their expectations differ from those...
Preparing Walls for Displays
In this four-minute video, The Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) help a new teacher "frame up" an area of the room for future displays of student work, in a...
Reorganizing the Classroom Library
In this time-lapse video, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser help Carrie, a second-year teacher, begin to organize her classroom library according to themes and traffic patterns in the classroom.
Assessment and Curriculum Mapping
In this video from a new teacher study group for grades 3-5 teachers, Jennifer Allen demonstrates how teachers can use assessment data to develop instructional plans for individual students and...
Teacher Study Group: Writing Focus
In this video of a teacher study group, Jennifer Allen leads a group of grades 3-5 teachers as they launch their monthly meeting in October. Jen follows her own guidelines...
The Sisters Redesign a New Teacher’s Storage Area
The Sisters help a new teacher, Amy, sort through junk she inherited from previous occupants of her classroom. They use the "piles" method to sort through materials, separating books and...
Word Choice Lesson: A Collaborative Coaching Session with a New Teacher
When I work with a new teacher in his or her classroom, it's a collaborative experience. We design and teach together over time, sharing what works and what doesn't. In...
Planning a New Teachers’ Professional Development Program
It's the beginning of July and I am already sketching out plans for the first day of Charting the Course, the monthly professional development group for new teachers in our school....
Night Terrors: Let the Coaching Begin!
It's mid-July and I received an email from Jessica, one of our newly hired 4th grade teachers. I can sense her energy through the cable line. Jess has just finished...
Reflective Observation: Helping Teachers Observe, Analyze, and Guide (TEMPLATE)
Our new teacher support group includes monthly observations of peers, with time scheduled following the observations for group discussion and analysis of what everyone saw. I wanted to develop some...
Collaborative Teaching: Finding Common Ground First
The questions on this checklist are designed to be used by teachers, coaches, or mentors working as partners in co-teaching or demonstration teaching situations. Ideally, the partners should get together...
Opinion Exchange: A Workshop Activity for Study Groups
What do new teachers need to keep them going that difficult first year? In our first session with new teachers in October, our room was filled with the stories of...
Keeping It Simple: Reflections on the December New Teachers Study Group
Written on a sticky note stuck to the edge of my laptop are three phrases: Listen first; teach by example; be patient. These are three things I've learned as a...
Idealism Fades to Reality: Thinking Back to My Days as a New Teacher
I still remember picking up the phone in my kitchen and hearing the words, "We would like to offer you a third grade position." Fifteen years have passed, yet the...
Layered Support: Meeting the Needs of Beginning Teachers
The new teachers who reported feeling the most supported described their schools as having what we called "integrated professional cultures." There, new teachers could expect frequent and meaningful interaction among...
Coaching Moment: Reorganizing a Classroom Library
It may sound like such a minor coaching experience, and yet it was so powerful. I was asked by a second-grade teacher to help reorganize her classroom library, so it...
