Its not surprising that veteran teachers reach out to educators who are
just beginning their teaching journey. Few of us will forget the feeling
of being overwhelmed with a job that was much bigger than we had ever anticipated.
Fueled by AlexisDucat's' question, experienced and inexperienced educators
joined together to explore ways to join forces with each other.
How do we support new teachers? I'd like to start a New Teacher Academy--not
with retired teachers, but teachers who would like to share their thoughts
about the real world. Is this feasible? Many new teachers coming into the
education profession, are drowning because they don't know the right questions
to even ask. How we can support and nurture their growth?
-Alexis
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Rick shared how his school district supports their new teachers:
I am a facilitator for a Standards and Curriculum Academy for the middle
school teachers in my district. We offer one specifically for new teachers
during the summer to teach them about the curriculum standards and the process
and theory behind the creation of standards based lessons. It has been a
valuable Academy for the new teachers.
Rick Selby
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Robbyn believes meeting to discuss classroom happenings would be a win/win
for both new and experienced teachers:
I can't speak from experience, because there was nothing in place when I
began teaching; but, I would have loved the opportunity to meet on a regular
basis with other new teachers and discuss what was happening in our classes.
I recently became a counselor and we had several training sessions on ECE
Paperwork. These meetings quickly became a great source of support. We were
able to ask questions, get feedback from others in our same situation and
also hear from a specialist when we did not have the answers. I still enjoy
it when we get together for these meetings and feel very comfortable discussing
problems or ideas with this group of fellow counselors. I think regular
support meetings would be a great asset to your program.
Robbyn LaFollette
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John encouraged teachers from Long Beach, CA to share information about
the district's "New Teacher" program. He also shared this web
link where you will find more information about the program:
http://www.lbusd.k12.ca.us/curriculum/BTSA/new_teacher_btsa.htm
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Charles Norman and Satinder Hawkins, both Long Beach teachers, wrote
back.
Charles went first:
I am involved with and have been cycled through the district's program
for new teachers. For Middle School, new teachers are generally registered
for the New Teacher Institute, which lasts for three days prior to the start
of the new school year. The Institute begins on the first day with all
of the teachers en masse for a group welcome and a preview of the Harry
Wong Video. We were given a copy of the book, "The
First Days of School" by Harry Wong, and after introductions to
a variety of district level administrators, we moved into breakout groups,
depending upon our content area. The rest of the Institute was spent in
these cohorts with quick overviews of content standards, curriculum objectives
and lesson design.
Each site has a BTSA (new teacher) coach so once the school year begins,
we are required to attend monthly meetings where different topics are presented
( ex: how to fill out attendance sheets, Back to School Night, as well as
discussions on how to manage difficult students and other problems that
might happen). In addition, each new teacher is linked to a mentor within
the department who evaluates the growth of the teacher throughout the year.
The mentor assists with preparation for observations, planning, and student
progress. The new teacher program through BTSA lasts for the first two years,
and then in the third year, a PAR coach is available for troubleshooting
as things come up.
At our school, we are also engaged in an intense professional development
philosophy for all teachers, and are encouraged to participate in regular
professional development offerings which are available through our site
and through the district throughout the year. Since our site is the home
of the Annenberg Professional Development Center, an organization which
is attempting to create seamless transitions through our feeder schools,
the professional development is aligned with the goals of the Annenberg
family of schools in our district. One such program is a course on child-development
and management, another is a program for looking at student work.
The management workshop was miserable because it didn't marry the issues
of managing people, materials, and instruction, something that I've found
to be the core of all of my management problems. If things have backfired
it's because I didn't do the appropriate thing relative to one of those
three.
Our management workshop was primarily a discussion about things one can
do to "control" your students -- "Okay, rascals, heads down!"
but did very little to address other concerns like, "They have too
many handouts and are confused about which one you're talking about,"
or "Write the agenda on the board so that the kids don't have anxiety
attacks trying to figure our what you're doing." What do you do when
Edgar Ortiz loses his folder that contains an entire quarter's worth of
work and grades are due?
For me, the most valuable of all of the professional development workshops
we have had was a series called Essential Elements of Effective Instruction,
originally created and developed by a woman named Pat Lawrence.
I was one of the fortunate ones who actually had Pat as a trainer. The workshops
consisted of an in-depth view of the Madeline Hunter model, information
that for me had never been given life before the way she presented it. After
the first workshop, I could actually say, "Oh, they're behaving like
this because I didn't set an appropriate or clear objective." Or,
"Why are they not getting this? How come they are being so squirrelly?"
This particular series worked for me.
There were a number of new teachers who absolutely hated it. For me, this
was information that I never got at the university. I remember how I would
spend hours developing lessons for my own grades in college, presenting
them, and now looking back, no matter how creative and fabulous I found
them to be at the time, seeing that they never would have flown because
the methodology was so bad and I never had that pointed out.
The district is now requiring participation in EEEI given by a variety of
mentor teachers at the new teacher institute and various sites (I think
each site's BTSA administrator is responsible for making this available.),
but I know that not all of the mentors presenting it are as effective as
the trainer I got. She was a pisces. She always made me feel good.
-Charles.
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Then Satinder wrote:
Alexis:
I teach in Long Beach Unified and we have a wonderful new teacher support
program. It is funded by the state, so I imagine all districts in California
have access to the funds. Basically, every new teacher is provided with
a coach (on site, if possible) for two years. During that two years the
coach is to meet with the new teacher at least once a week. Additionally,
the coach observes the new teacher a few times over the year, and using
a really cool district rubric, rates the teacher. The two then sit down
and target areas for growth.
The coach gets paid $1500 for each new teacher s/he works with. Also, the
district wants coaches to have no more than two new teachers that they work
with unless absolutely necessary. The schools also get funding for someone
to coordinate the program on site. At my school, I'm the coordinator.
At my school, I have found the program to be very helpful. New teachers
get support for two full years. The coaches enjoy a confidential relationship
with their assigned new teachers. In other words, they're not to serve as
a "spy" for the administration.
-Satinder
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Juli, a Long Beach teacher/coach, observed:
Having worked in numerous new teacher programs for a number of years, the
one thing I find consistently lacking is a way to assist new teachers in
improving the achievement of their students in their first years of teaching.
There is currently such pressure to "raise test scores" that new
teachers hardly have a chance to get started in their content areas before
they are asked to begin the push for improving student achievement.
I am wondering if a new teacher program that focused on developing good
classroom management and looked at student work might help beginning teachers
manage their steep learning curve. I often hear that new teachers are so
overwhelmed they need time to be able to process standards, etc. Can a
new teacher, especially one who has had few if any methods classes and no
student teaching and is working on an emergency credential, be expected
to raise student achievement?
The current situation means that they must but is that realistic?
-Juli
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John posted the following site as an example of how new teachers can
receive on-line coaching:
http://www.teachnet.org/docs/ntol/
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Then Ellen wrote: "I'm really curious about what programs your
schools and/or districts have to support newer teachers. Although we all
traditionally think of the first year as being the most difficult year,
the next few are not walks in the park either."
Nancy responded:
Our school district co-sponsors a program with AFT, which pairs teachers
needing help (new or not) with a Master Teacher. They meet periodically
to go over areas like lesson and unit planning, discipline, goal-setting,
etc.
Our Region Service Center (is that just a Texas thing?) has a mentorship
program for new teachers, and our local university has an induction-year
program which is a 3-hour graduate credit course. Teachers meet twice a
week and share strategies, war stories, and generally act as a support group
for each other (HEY! Isn't that what we are doing on this listserv?? Neat!)
The professor also visits the new teacher-students' classrooms once or twice
during the semester for observation and feedback. This program has been
highly successful. FMI, contact Vicki Moon Merchant at Texas A&M-Corpus
Christi University.
Nancy Long
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A suggestion that study groups may be helpful to both new and experienced
teachers prompted the following response form Rick:
I like the idea that someone mentioned of collaborating with and observing
teachers from other school districts, but understand that time and money
constraints would likely keep that from happening.
But I started thinking about our last district-wide staff development day
in October and how many good ideas we shared when groups of us who taught
a common grade level and subject area visited informally. I would like the
opportunity to use more staff development time to meet by grade level and
department, possibly in vertical teams, and discuss student work, long range
plans and standards into practice. We've had our "Surfing the Standards"
staff development in which teachers described products and processes workshop-style,
but I am thinking more along the lines of a relatively small cooperative
group in which "best practices" could be shared and ideas could
be generated and discussed.
In our district, middle level principals have study groups and there are
new teacher study groups, but I would like to see study groups implemented
in the way described for my own professional growth. Is anyone out there
working collaboratively with other schools in your district along these
lines? What about the possibility of days or half-days allocated for observations
and collaboration among teachers within a district rather than traveling
to other districts to do the same thing?
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John points readers towards a Washington Post article "New Teachers
Rarely Learn Classroom Management" at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23017-2000Dec18.html
and asks readers for feedback.
Several listserv members responded:
John -- without reading the article I agree with the headline. Schools do
not show undergraduates how to manage a classroom.We as teachers learn by
OTJ training. It would be great if the New teacher had some background on
discipline.
-Ralph
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I think a key point in this article is that new teachers are "talked
to" about classroom management, but out of context, without a real
classroom to apply it to, some of the strategies get lost. I think that
first year is critical to help new teachers get their classrooms under control.
I know I could have used it and still need it with some classes. (!)
-Amy
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I think that good classroom management (setting up routines, expectations,
and structures as well as organizing materials and your room) should be
taught in the colleges. Building rules/expectations of how teachers handle
discipline problems is only ONE small aspect of classroom management. Perhaps
discipline should be taught at the district or building level, but classroom
management (a much larger fish indeed) needs to be an entire course in and
of itself (with Wong as required reading!) I also think teacher candidates
should take a class examining many different discipline philosophies--cooperative
discipline, assertive discipline, positive discipline, etc.--in a course.
In my mind it would be a class where teachers could create models of how
it might work in their classrooms, even spend some time examining the pros
and cons of each philosophy. They could even debate the merits of each program.
I just think it's unconscionable to throw new teachers into the classroom
with little or no exposure to classroom management and discipline philosophies.
Unless districts are willing to spend full summers before their teachers
start (and my district rarely hires anyone until August...I was hired in
October) inservicing them on the above, then universities need to step up
and do it. Yes, they talk about all the wonderful research behind some of
them (behavioral management), but all that research does no good if the
candidate doesn't understand what it looks like in practice.
Imagine how much farther along our new teachers would be and the benefits
of better preparation for their students. Not only are our teachers being
treated like lab rats, but so are the students in their classes. If you
believe as Harry Wong does that there is no learning without good classroom
management, then just what, exactly, is happening to our students as our
new teachers are trying to figure all of that out?
-Ellen Berg
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A.Hacker, a self-proclaimed "old teacher" and Stacy, a "new
teacher" sum up the spirit of this "new teacher" discussion
with the following reflections:
Just a thought, but I -- as an "old" teacher -- would love
to sit down with a "new" teacher to learn from them! Sometimes
a fresh perspective opens up opportunities, and there just may be a few
new tricks for this "old dog."
-A.Hacker
I wish that I could observe you and everybody also who has given me great
information on classroom management. Seeing these techniques done by the
individuals who implement them correctly and/or with ease would be an amazing
experience for a new teacher.
-Stacy