Topics to Mentor New Teachers

Contributed by:

Jonathan James Mon, Jan 10, 2022 06:53 PM UTC

It includes:
1. Course Outcomes
2. Mentoring Overview
3. Mentoring Audience
4. Need for and Impact of Effective Mentoring
5. Challenges of Novice Teachers
6. Our Assumptions about Mentoring

1. Mentoring New Teachers
Increasing Teacher
Retention
Supporting Student
Achievement

2.  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.

6. The Need for and Impact of Effective
 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
1. Induction is an Investment
 Retention
 Integration
 Continual Growth
2. Emotional Safety and Confidentiality for Growth
 Safety for verbal and nonverbal communication
 Balance support and challenges – Support without
challenge does not result in growth

9. Assumptions cont.
3. 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.

10. Assumptions cont.
4. Central Goal - Student Achievement
 Instruction
 Student achievement
 Data driven
5. Integration with District Initiative
 Should support other district initiatives
 Mentoring in isolation defeats the purpose
of mentoring

11. Unit 1
 Effectsof Skilled Mentoring on Teachers
 The Role of the Mentor
 Kinds of Support
 Timeline of Mentoring Activities

12. Effect of Skilled Mentoring on
Teachers who receive skilled mentoring are
more likely to:
 Increase efficacy, problem solving and
decision making
 Increase collaborative exchange
 Remain in profession

13. Role of the Mentor
 Offer Support
 Create Challenge
 Facilitate Professional Vision

14. Offer Support
 Emotional – Get to know them & celebrate
the little things
 Physical – Classroom supplies, materials
 Instructional – Standards, Pacing Guides, etc
 Institutional – District initiatives

15. 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

16. 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

17. Timeline of Mentoring Activities
 Review the handout Timeline of Mentoring
Activities.

18. Unit 2
 Providinga Focus for Learning
 The Continuum
 Georgia Framework for Teaching

19. Providing a Focus for Learning
Effective mentors attend to the protégé's:
 Intonation
 Gestures
 Facial expressions
 Posture
 Muscle tension
 Breathing
 Voice tone

20. The Continuum
 Consultant
 Collaborator
 Coach
See handout Continuum Prompts.

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. Strategies to Coaching
 Remain Non-judgmental
 Inquire: Successes and Challenges
 Reflect on Goals

27. 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.

28. Unit 3
 Time Management
 Focus Attention on Teacher
 Structured Conversations
 Verbal Tools
 Quick Forms
 When You Can’t Meet Face-to-Face

29. Time Management
 Thegreatest 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.

30. 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

31. Structured Conversations
Possible conversation focus:
 Planning a lesson or unit
 Reflecting on teaching
 Pre-Observation
 Problem solving
 Self-Assessment
 Setting professional goals

32. Verbal Tools
 Pausing
 Paraphrasing
 Inquiring
 Probing
 Extending

33. Use this verbal tool:
 After asking a question
 After receiving a response
 While you frame your own language

34.  Acknowledge/Clarify
 Summarize/Organize
 Shift
Level of Abstraction: Raise thing to a
conceptual level

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

36. Questions to use when probing:
 Who
 What
 When
 Where
 How

37.  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.

39. Non Face-to-Face
 InteractiveJournal: 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

40. Unit 4
 The Expert Teacher
 Stages of Teacher Development
 Success Tips for Mentoring

41. 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.

42. 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?

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