gage stadents in a textualized learning through social interaction—in this case a on personal experiences with one another to generate and use sensory to enrich their writing.
I feel like writing can be one of the hardest things to teach but involving students' lived experiences and using sensory details and vocabulary is very memorable and meaningful for them.
Coaching for equity, like teaching for equity, means being an advocate for students in the margins,
I believe that with the co-teaching my mentee and I do in and out of the library, we are able to have this culturally responsive equity focus at top of mind.
Coaches and mentors can tailor their support to the specific needs of the teacher they’re assigned to help and to the culture of that teacher’s classroom.
I definitely agree that there is no one slze fits all mentoring and feedback. Every mentor/mentee relationship is unique and so are the dynamics and needs of each classroom.
ndirect teaching 1s characterized by 3. Guided practice. Allow students to practice using the new information under the teacher’s direc- A . tions tion; ask many questions that give students abundant opportunities to correctly repeat or explain the 1, asking ques . i procedure or concept that has just been taught. Student participation should be active until all stu- . > Ss. « 2. accepting students feeling dents are able to respond correctly. 4. Correction and feedback. During guided practice, give students a great deal of feedback. When : tudents answer incorrectly, reteach the lesson if necessary. When students answer correctly, ex- i d
In our school environment especially, these are imperative indirect teaching characteristics.
istens to students’ questions and m
I belive that this, along with the first trait of giving students respect and having patience, is the most important trait a teacher can have. When students feel heard, respected and valued, they will feel a part of the classroom community and want to participate (do their work) instead of being made to and not having any buy-in.
School and classroom communities are built on an ethic of : + : ‘ g cari ng, offering suppor ts for social/emo tior ial de V elo pment, tr us tin, \ } | . ‘ i 1 7 : : actices to create su. dent learning.
We work very hard in my school to build these relationships and have these restorative practices. Sometimes, if feels like just putting out constant fires all day though instead of being able to have meaningful, intentional conversations to make those connections.
Learning is con- nected to students’ experiences and is based on a deep understanding of these contexts for development as well as ongoing communication and connection with parents, caregivers, communities, and the world beyond school.
Although we all know this to be true, with the current use of strict boxed curriculum and minute by minute scheduling of the teacher's day, there are fewer opportunities to gain this understanding of our students' backgrounds and make meaningful connections to their learning. Building this into morning meetings and student discourse opportunities within the curriculum are what come to mind as the best opportunities.
The challenge for mentors is that this communication is interactive—driven by the responses of the protégé— and not a predetermined script.
I definitely find myself having to stop and provide wait time for my mentee to describe her needs for me or respond to something we are talking about. In the beginning, there is so much overwhelm and she sometimes does not even know how to express her needs.
During planning, the coach serves as both an instructional and curriculum specialist before serving as a classroom supporter. Second, the coach and teacher work together’ to complete the selected option. Finally, regardless of which option they choose, the teacher is an active participant rather than passive observer.
One of our major school goals this year and part of our UIP includes co-planning and co-teaching. In our PD's, two major points stuck out to me which connect to this article. 1. There is no co-teaching without co-planning 2. Courage over comfort...regarding feedback and support. Speaking and listening with and open mind and being courageous to speak up about feedback that can help your co-teacher/mentee.
For example, mentors might start with lesson segments involving routine events, as these lay the foundation for an orderly, predictable class- room environment.
This strategy of having strong rituals and routines is vital in our school environment. We have students who come from very unstable home situations and school is their safe place but they do not readily trust adults and processes until they are well established. Consistency is key and students thrive on routine. My mentee is having to re-establish this after coming in a month after the school year starts but she is doing a great job!
en minutes of our complete and focused attention is worth much more, in terms of maintaining a relationship and supporting learning, than thirty minutes with distractions.
Agreed! My mentee and I both talked about this in our first meeting that we want to maximize our time together so we start with what is going well and then go into how she can feel more supported. We end with action steps and try to end on time so she can use her planning time to work smarter, not harder.
Giving ; new teachers a chance to relate to these j phases can help them feel
Absolutely! When you are new at anything and overwhelmed, you feel like you might be on an island by yourself and everyone else is handling it smoothly while you are completely freaking out. Allowing them a listening and understanding ear can hopefully help ground them and validate their feelings.
Send encouraging messages. e Enlist support from other staff members. e¢ Celebrate success.
These ideas are great and I have tried to provide this type of support to my mentees. I am always considering balance of overdoing it when it comes to support. She has so many adults coming in and out of her room throughout the day for a variety of reasons and going in when I can to check on her would just be a distraction to the students and another thing. I am going to send her positive texts and emails to celebrate her successes instead of going in so often.
The most important function for mentors is to embrace a growth orientation, understanding that the work is to increase their colleague’s effectiveness as professional problem-solvers and decision-makers.
As mentors, we can guide our mentees into becoming professional problem-solvers by asking the right questions to guide their thinking on challenging curriculum or behavior issues. Getting creative with their decision making and growing their confidence in their own skills to problem-solve.
s mentioned previously, mentors also benefit by learning alongside their mentees.
I have tried inviting my mentee to a variety of ed tech learning opportunities so that we can learn new teaching tools together.
The counselor structures the mers ton in a way that communicates the counselor nswers.” This includes the question-answer trap of asking many clo sed-ende i the client. d questions
I have definitely had "mentors" that have had this approach and this top down strategy is not at all helpful for me. I know that as a mentor I do not have all of the answers but that I am there to support and help my mentee figure out the answers together and provide resources they may not have yet.
creating a school that mirrors the democratic society that we desire.
From the top down, when staff and students are given choice and feel like they are a part of a democratic society in their school, they will have more buy-in to want to show up, belong and feel that they matter. This directly affects their academic performance and their social-emotional well being.
hey know how to assess teachers’ needs and concerns, match support with teachers’ expressed needs and concerns, and respond to needs with versatility and flexibility by moving into and out of other roles such as classroom supporter, curriculum specialist, or instructional specialist.
I have been cautious about not overwhelming my new mentee with too much support. She also has a new para, the Instructional Coach, and admin supporting her so I make sure she knows that I am there. She has only been there two weeks now so there is still a lot to learn.
Another aspect of a mentor’s work is mak- ing sure that new teachers have the tools and equipment to do their work and know the pro- cedures and policies that guide teacher expecta- tions.
In my role as the DTL, I am the go to gal for every staff member's technology equipment. Thankfully, my new mentee came from Jeffco as a para and knows a lot of the Jeffco processes. Although she has to go through all of the new teacher onboarding as if she was a new employee. I have tried to help ease her cognitive load by using her various tech in ways to work smarter, not harder.
It is about how the way in which we think leads to the changes that we want.
That is the biggest take away so far from these classes, the teacher leader summit and these readings is that we need to be one of the change agents in our school to change the way "we" think as a school. Positive thinking = Positive results
everyone in the school needs to collaborate to ensure that the daily teaching and learning practices are the focus of the school, and all are responsible for its success.
As other stated, this sounds amazing in theory, but in practice, there are really amazing teachers out there who are just NOT team players. They want to be on their own island, doing what has worked for them for many years and do not want to collaborate with others and seem like they do not want anyone to support them or rock their boats. Even if admin encourages collaboration and group/school success, if certain teachers have students who perform well and do not have behavior issues that need admin support, they are usually left alone to do their own thing, on their island.
ssertion 4: The schools that are highly effective produce results that almost entirely overcome the effects of student background.
This I truly believe and...we need students AT SCHOOL to learn and if attendance is a consistent issue, these student measures of success are not truly showing the effectiveness of the instruction. We are always working on this in our building but I do not know if the "bigger picture" looks at this when factoring student equity and achievement statistics.
my point is the average teacher makes 1,500 educational decisions every school day. In an average six-hour day in front of students, teachers make more than four educational decisions per minute (Busy Teacher.org, n.d.), and that is exhausting.
no wonder we're all running on Red Bull and love ;) This is just another reminder of why taking good care of ourselves mentally and physcally is so important if we want to be effective and regulated educators!
hen teachers examine student work, whether it is from a daily checking for understanding task or a common formative assessment tool, they can use that information to plan instruction and intervention.
I realize that we should be analyzing student work and assessments to chart our course of instruction as well as follow the rigor of the lesson schedule. I think that fitting all of this in every day is the biggest challenge with these newer time intensive math and literacy curriculums. I feel like it takes many years to get comfortable enough with all of the components and timing of these curriculums and then they change so frequently.
id the lesson ‘invite’ students to participate, engage, and progress? Were there sufficient starting points, given the various phases of prior achievement and learning of the students? Were there any unintended consequences of your teaching? How many students gained the criteria of success — and for those that did not, what is now needed to assist them to meet the criteria? U
These are all such powerful questions to ask during and after our lessons. I am trying to think about how I would incorporate these more into our library lessons since they are often only 30 min. including a read aloud and checkout.
summative.
I always remember this analogy when trying to remember which is which type of assessment. "Tasting the soup" throughout our lessons gives us the data to know how to move forward thoughtfully with our delivery and what we need to rework.
hey are exciting, rea eso between what we now know and what we could know; they are signs of opp etwe learn and they are to be embraced.
YES! I think if we talk about feedback opportunistically, it will be received more more positively by students.
most feedback given by teachers is to the whole class and most of this is not received by any student — because no single student believes that it pertains to him or her!
I agree that whole class feedback is not as powerful as individual feedback. I love that many digital tools make giving individual feedback easier like Book Creator and Adobe Express. Students can read teacher feeback and revise their work and reply to any feedback comments. As a DTL, this is helpful when working with all classes in the school.
Building clarity and shared language between and among students, fami- lies, and educators mobilizes commitment and action to develop the com- petencies that allow all students to flourish.
I feel like this is a forever goal of public education to communicate and build this clarity and shared language between students, families and educators. I feel like in our very transient, multi-lingual, Title-1 school environment where students enroll and unenroll every week, it is hard to maintain communication and build classroom & school community but we are always trying our best.
xperts p SSESS kn g' > y bine the owle €. OSSe: owled e that is ore integrated in that the com introduction of new subj : current lesson new subject Know!etee with students’ prior knowledge; they can rel uniquely their own by changin r su jects in the curriculum; and they make le elate students’ needs and their 0 — © combining and adding to the lessons according t “heb As a consequence of the oa eac ing goal
This is precisely why it is imperative that we have highly trained teachers in our classrooms so they have the expertise to make this instructional decisions and know how to change, combine and add to the lessons according to their students' needs and teaching goals. I think it is extremely difficult to be a natural at this just walking in from a different profession and trying to learn on the job.
But this three-phase model omits a truly vital component: stu- dents learning through collaboration with their peers—the you do it together phase.
My mentee is a STEM teacher this year and this phase of collaboration with peers is exceptionally vital and corresponds well with the engineering design process of researching, brainstorming, trial and error and improving results.
Humor comes in several forms and students will respond to it. They will enjoy coming to your class because they love to laugh and learn.
This is SUPER important to me and I naturally love incorporating humor and fun into my lessons. Students are so much more engaged and want to be around you when you can also laugh at yourself.
It is equally critical that students see that you follow through when boundaries are overstepped.
This is one of THE most important areas to focus on throughout the year but especially at the beginning when you are getting to know your class and they are getting to know you and your expectations. When you are consistent, caring but firm and follow through on the things you say, your students will know that you are true to your word and will follow expections better.
developing solid relationships with your students is paramount in fostering academic success.
I have experienced this for many years and know it to be very true. One of the things I miss most about being a classroom teacher is being able to really get to your your students and their families to build relationships and trust. As a Librarian with 450 students, it is harder to get to know students on that level. As I get to know students throughout the years and remember certain things about them, their behavior definitely improves for me as our relationships grow stronger.