Can changes in mathematics instruction extend to other subjects, and even spur changes in the overall school culture? Indeed they can as authors Chris Confer and Marco Ramirez (Small Steps, Big Changes) can attest. We’ve just posted a video podcast in which the authors explain how math is uniquely suited to spurring professional growth:
Add comment April 4th, 2012
Does progress toward high-quality mathematics instruction in your school or district proceed in fits and starts or lack a coordinated and sustained effort? Read about how principal Marco Ramirez and instructional coach Chris Confer broke out of old habits to create a successful model that produced lasting change in student achievement at their high-poverty school and schools across the country.
Small Steps, Big Changes tells the story of teachers who gradually shift their beliefs, build confidence, collaborate, troubleshoot problems, and enhance positive attitudes about math. Chris and Marco challenge teachers and administrators to become problem solvers and researchers as they build communities of mathematical excellence. And they distill “what it takes” for all students to be successful in mathematics and to sustain that success:
Print copies of Small Steps, Big Changes are now shipping, and we’ve just posted the full text of the book for preview online.
Add comment March 28th, 2012
Teacher educator Maureen Barbieri recently conducted an informal survey on her Facebook page, asking teacher friends what keeps them going in these confusing, difficult times for teachers. She shares the results in this essay. We would love to hear from you: what keeps you going as a teacher?
In her poem “Tribute to Teaching,” Shelley Harwayne poses the question, “What gets you up in the morning?” In other words, why do teachers keep coming to work? Lately this question has been on my mind, given all the forces that seem to be stacked against teachers these days: the media obsession with school reform, which tends to give teachers short shrift; commercial curriculum chosen with little teacher input and little room for teacher autonomy; high-stakes testing for younger and younger children; and a widespread distrust of public spending and public servants of any kind. Faced with all of this, what keeps teachers coming to work?
Pondering this question and aware of the challenges teachers face, I’ve been doing an informal survey on Facebook of friends and former students who are teaching right now. “What sustains you as a teacher?” I ask. Their reflections fall into three general categories: (1) they love working with kids, (2) they respect and appreciate their colleagues, and (3) they embrace the intellectual rigor and creativity that their work demands.
Diana, who’s been teaching middle school for many years, says laughter keeps her going. She says, “Surely somewhere it has been written, ‘Teachers, love the children more than you love the personal money you spend on hand sanitizer, tissues, paperbacks, writers’ notebooks, and writing utensils for them; teachers, love the children more than you love a clean house, a free weeknight, a calm Sunday afternoon, and a leisurely lunch; teachers, love the children more than you hate wasteful meetings, mindless paperwork, and pointless bureaucracy; teachers love the children more than you dread the faltering economy, the angry taxpayer, and personal bankruptcy. Perhaps I exaggerate.” Perhaps she doesn’t.
But still, she hangs in there. “The best days for me are the ones where I can say, ‘I made ‘em laugh today!’ I relish finding new ways to bring the wonder of language (and human nature) to my students in a way that makes them THINK, LEARN, and SMILE. . . .”
Of course, it is about the kids—for Diana, for every teacher who responded to my question, and for countless others who press on in the face of discouraging circumstances. These are extraordinary people who consider it their vocation to build relationships with young people, to share their own passion for learning, and to entice students into exploring the life of the mind.
“When I think of teaching, I don’t refer to it as ‘work.’ I say ‘school’ because for me, I am learning from the children. They drive my instruction, and they bring out my energy,” writes Eileen, a Brooklyn early childhood educator and mother of two young sons.
Ashley, a former University of New Hampshire student, is now teaching first grade in Harlem. She says, “The statistics vary, but many read that only 40 percent of NYC students graduate high school. I wake up in the morning, think of that statistic and realize I can change it (or at least I can try to).”
This determination comes up, again and again, as I read teachers’ postings. They are listening carefully, finding energy in the needs, the honesty, and the efforts of their students. They see their work as meaningful, and they want to make a difference.
“It’s the kids,” writes John, who teaches middle school in Brooklyn. “Even when the reality that we as adults bring with us intrudes, the kids are always curious (not always about the things we want them to be curious about, but curious just the same), genuine (in a way we are not), and filled with possibility. . . . Not only do they change and grow constantly, but they force me to figure out a way to change and grow with them.”
Jason, who’s been teaching for fifteen years, reminds me that teaching is, and always will be, inherently political. “What sustains me? Some days it’s the little moments . . . working with a student at lunch, a random incidental teaching moment or conversation. Some days it’s the grand successes . . . the student I got into the Stella Adler Acting Studio, the student who turned in the best writing of her academic career in the form of her college admissions essay. Some days it’s the joy of the craft of teaching . . . the lesson itself that works out exactly as intended. Some days it’s the creativity . . . coming up with a new way of doing things that puts the focus on the students. But at the heart of each and every one of these experiences beats the core value of student agency. I got into teaching because I saw how adolescents were being devalued, how their incredible insights were dismissed, how their voices were stifled by adults in the community who viewed them as human becomings rather than human beings. And each day, I do all I can to provide a safe, productive, critical space for my students to engage in that sense of voice, to realize they have power in the world and in our school. Whether they’re questioning a text, questioning me and my ‘authority,’ or questioning school policy and advocating for change, their drive sustains me. . . . The mini-revolution that happens once my classroom door closes is more than enough to get me through.”
Teachers also speak with gratitude about being able to work with dedicated, like-minded colleagues and administrators who trust them to make their own decisions in the classroom. Natalia explains, “The adults around me are motivated and passionate and make it their intention to nurture. Being an eternal student myself, what I have learned is to embrace the rewards and challenges of teaching by choosing to be graceful in everything I do instead of ‘perfect.’”
Melissa also knows that colleagues can make all the difference. “So often it is said that teaching can be a solitary profession, but I wholeheartedly disagree. I get through the difficult days with the support and guidance of my sage colleagues. They inspire me with their intelligence and empathy and also provide a healthy dose of humor for those moments when you feel stuck in a French absurdist play.”
Meredith says, “My colleagues are an essential part of my longevity in the classroom. . . . And by extension, things like this [Facebook] page sustain me—along with books, magazines, and blogs about teaching—it all reminds me that I am part of a much larger community of educators with heart.”
Finally, they’re grateful that the work is challenging. They do not shrink from difficulties, embracing instead the chance to be flexible, compassionate, and courageous. Don Murray used to say, “I’m apprenticed to two crafts I will never master, writing and teaching.” It’s often the need to do it better that keeps us in the game. Every day is another chance, and teaching, like writing, is all about revision. These smart teachers appreciate meaningful professional development. They do research, attend conferences, and take courses during the summer months.
Kerry, a French teacher in Maine, goes to a workshop every year where she is able to learn more about progressive methods of teaching language through storytelling. She also presents her own work, a challenge she welcomes. “I look forward to it all year,” she says. “And I always come away more inspired and eager to teach.”
“What sustains me changes daily,” says Meredith. “And THAT is what sustains me over time—the richness of this profession. Two snippets/quotes float into my head when I’m at school (or just thinking about it). One is the title of a Calvin and Hobbes collection, ‘All the World in a Day.’ In our lives as teachers, each day holds so much: we make thousands of small but loaded decisions, we act as parents/psychologists/nurses/mediators/scientists, and we interact with the wide world in all its complexity through our students’ needs, backgrounds, personalities, and actions. By 3:00, I often feel like I’ve participated in a seven-hour reenactment of human history.
“The other words that often come to mind are from Marge Piercy’s poem, ‘To Be of Use’: ‘The pitcher cries for water to carry / and a person for work that is real.’ For me that line connects especially to teaching because teachers have to truly ‘submerge in the task.’ Teaching has forced me to learn how to be much more present, to work in the realm of the real rather than in the realm of my own projections, fears, and assumptions.”
Shelley wrote a poem that ends with these lines:
I’m up now, really up
Eager to go to work,
Eager to see the honest faces of children,
Eager to lose myself in the important work at hand—
Teaching children to make a better world.
The teachers who were kind enough to send me their notes from the field are immersed in “the important work at hand,” and I’m hoping they’ll stick with it for a long, long time.
Works Cited
Harwayne, Shelley. 1999. “Tribute to Teaching,” in Going Public: Priorities and Practice at the Manhattan New School. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Piercy, Marge. 1973. “To Be of Use,” in Circles on the Water. New York: Knopf.
3 comments November 7th, 2011
As promised in an earlier post, here is an in-depth conversation between Stenhouse author Donna Niday (Mentoring Across Boundaries and Mentoring Beginning Teachers) and National Teacher of the Year Sarah Brown Wessling. Sarah is one of Donna’s former students and the two discuss the role mentoring played in Sarah’s teaching career.
Add comment June 3rd, 2010
In his recent book Leading and Learning, Fred Brill draws on more than 240 interviews with new and experiences school administrators to examine common concerns, successes, and failures. In this edition of Questions & Authors, Fred talks about the importance of Professional Learning Communities for new school leaders and the role regular reflection on practice plays in professional growth and development for these leaders as they navigate their wide-ranging responsibilities every day.
Novice administrators regularly talk of being overwhelmed by the relentlessness of their work; they express uneasiness with the ambiguity of the roles they are expected to play. They struggle to find meaning and to create coherence and clarity in their work. Being new to a leadership position, being new to a school site, or being unclear of roles, responsibilities, and expectations can be highly stress inducing. It takes time and experience to comfortably assume the identity of a school leader. Before we explore how reflective storytelling might be used as a tool for professional growth and development, it is important to understand why the role of the school leader is so important to a school’s success.
Although successful school leaders spend significant time at the intersection of teaching and learning, they are also responsible for the operational management of the school, community relations, and culture building. At one moment, they may be putting a Band-Aid on a child’s knee; the next moment, they might be working with an angry parent whose child was suspended for fighting. One day, they are facilitating the professional development on rubric development for teachers; the next day, they are convening a school site council to determine the best use of Title I funds. Educational leaders are charged with setting the tone, crafting the vision, and making good decisions to create a clean, safe, and healthy learning environment for every member of the school community.
Indeed, the principalship is one of the most exciting and rewarding roles in the world of education. It is the position at the epicenter of school reform and site-level decision making. A strong principal cultivates an effective learning community for students, teachers, and parents, and is able to develop strong relationships with individuals across stakeholder groups. The effective principal is the conduit, the connection, the spark, the stick, the carrot, the architect, and the builder responsible for ensuring that effective teaching and learning is taking place for every student in every classroom throughout the school. But can school leaders really meet the needs, expectations, and mandates of all stakeholders?
“Although the job of school leader is not for everyone, it is clear that-with the proper training and support-administrators can become more effective, resilient, reflective, deliberate, principle-based leaders.”
The position of school principal requires an ability to recognize and understand the root causes of the challenges emerging in the field. It necessitates continual reprioritization and alignment of scarce resources. In addition, the work must be done beneath the stage lights, where any decisions and actions, signs of tentativeness, and missteps or miscommunications are witnessed and judged by a wide swath of stakeholders. Indeed, impeccable judgment is expected at most every turn. Ours has become an extremely litigious culture, and the principal is expected to serve thoughtfully without ever breaking a sweat, decide without showing any sign of angst or uncertainty, and resolve so that all parties feel listened to and validated. Unfortunately, like any baseball manager who does not get immediate and favorable outcomes, the school leader is subject to replacement at the end of the season.
The responsibilities, conflicting expectations, time demands, stressors, and challenges associated with administrative positions often make such jobs highly undesirable. One school leader described the sense of being overwhelmed by the competing demands: “And then I get to my office this afternoon, and I have papers all over the place. You can always tell what kind of state my work life is in because when it’s really, really busy, there’s just papers falling off the desk and under the desk. And you know, I keep putting things into my in-basket; my in-basket now is like this [holds hands about three feet apart]. And I just felt so frazzled because I knew I had to get here by five, and I’ve usually been staying until eight o’clock every night, so I was like, “Crap, I don’t have time.” (Gretchen C., September 2002)
In a typical workday, few school leaders are afforded the opportunity to reflect on their practice, the decisions they make, or the actions they take. Yet, regular reflection on practice is imperative for professional growth and development. School leaders are calling for structured opportunities to serve as co-researchers and co-learners who base their learning on actual challenges confronted in the field. Although the job of school leader is not for everyone, it is clear that-with the proper training and support-administrators can become more effective, resilient, reflective, deliberate, principle-based leaders. New leaders can learn to choose where they allocate their time and other precious resources, and how they might work more effectively to make decisions and improve student learning.
Adult learning theory suggests that professionals learn not only from their own practice, which is a trial-and-error type of learning, but also from interactions-formal and informal conversations-with other professionals. When systems and protocols are embedded within a professional learning community, there are more likely to be higher levels of achievement, more positive relationships, and psychologically healthier group members than might be found in individual learning situations
One fact is clear from looking at the research on professional development: learning and reflection do not happen readily in isolation. Learning is a social activity, and it comes largely from our participation in daily life. Communities of practice are everywhere; they emerge in social and professional settings, and they fill an inherent need for struggling individuals to make sense of their challenges. One new school leader explained: “We’ve got to learn from each other’s mistakes. I’m not going to live long enough to make them all myself” (Sally B., October 2003).
“One of the most damaging myths that aspiring school administrators often learn is that the change process, if managed well, will proceed smoothly. That myth amounts to little more than a cruel hoax, an illusion that encourages educators to view problems and conflict as evidence of mistakes or mis-managed process rather than as the inevitable byproducts of serious reform” (DuFour and Eaker 1998, 49).
Indeed, the school leader must manage dissension and opposition, setbacks, and unintended consequences. Although it is sometimes excruciatingly challenging, school leaders also must maintain an unshakable belief that all human beings, including adults, can continually learn and grow.
New school leaders are expected to burst forth from the cloistered phone booth of an administrative credentialing program, take to the air, and effectively meet the needs of all students, teachers, parents, and higher-level administrators. Unfortunately, leadership development programs are not generally structured or organized in such a way that prospective leaders are prepared to address the challenges they will face and the various roles they will be expected to play in the school setting. Classroom learning for professionals is inclined toward the theoretical rather than the practical.
It is tragic that schools become environments in which teachers engage in a form of parallel play. Child psychologists describe this behavior in preschoolers as when similar activities take place in different corners of a sandbox, with nary a word of interaction flowing between the children. In school environments, those who have participated in committees to improve one area of the school or another typically have not met with much success in making a difference or even having their voices heard. One new leader offered his favorite quote when the subject of professional collaboration was being discussed: “A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.” Clearly, a lot of work needs to be done to get educators to learn, understand, and experience the value of participating in a professional learning community.
In the world of education, professional learning communities have become all the rage. Workshops are held around the country to promote the creation of collaborative structures focused on the improvement of student learning. DuFour and Eaker (1998) describe the critical components of a professional learning community: participants develop a shared mission, vision, and values; they engage in collective inquiry, which includes public reflection and the building of a shared meaning; they maintain an action orientation, promoting experimentation and a focus on continual improvement; and, finally, they maintain a strong outcomes orientation that places a high value on results rather than intentions. The four guiding questions that are intended to frame the work of a professional learning community (Dufour, Eaker, and DuFour 2005, 15) are:
It is no wonder that PLCs are gaining traction in public and private organizations. Professional learning communities can meet so many basic human needs: the need for a sense of belonging and acceptance, the need for esteem based on learning and growth, the need to serve a higher moral purpose, and the need for meaning in our work and our lives. If this sounds vaguely familiar, it is because it calls to mind Maslow (1943) and his hierarchy of needs. The lower level of Maslow’s pyramid contains our basic human needs (physiological requirements such as oxygen, food, and water). The next levels are safety; love, acceptance, and belonging; and esteem in the community. The apex of the pyramid, the highest form of human development, is the need for self-actualization. Maslow argued that the only reason individuals would not move toward self-actualization is because of hindrances placed in their way by society. Sadly, educational organizations often fit neatly into this category.
“A primary mission for all educators is to help students understand that their education is not about their parents or their teachers or their principal-rather, it is for their own benefit.”
What is the role of the school leader in cultivating professional learning communities? Where and how do school leaders get to reflect on their own craft? If PLCs are primarily about teachers collaboratively engaging in the improvement of the teaching and learning activities that take place in their classrooms, what is the role of the school leader in this process?
Regardless of administrative intentions, desires, suggestions, or expectations, it can be very challenging to influence teacher practice. School leaders are not direct service providers. Rather, the teachers are responsible for student learning, and a classroom with a closed door has proven to be a safe haven for students and teachers to do what they have always done and to resist the latest school reform effort. For school leaders to achieve a desired outcome of improved student learning, they first must figure out how to influence teacher actions in the classroom. At the same time, they must efficiently tend to the various operational responsibilities and institutional expections that are part of the position.
Building on the four guiding questions asked by DuFour, Eaker, and DuFour (2005), I propose four questions that must be continually addressed within a professional learning community of school leaders:
School administrators cannot improve a school and increase student learning on their own. A primary mission for all educators is to help students understand that their education is not about their parents or their teachers or their principal-rather, it is for their own benefit. It is intended to increase their opportunities for success in college or the workplace. Likewise, a primary charge of the school leader is to help teachers understand that collaborative processes and active engagement in a professional learning community are not about the principal, the district, the state, or the federal government. These are simply the best ways we know to do business. Over time, as these practices become systemic, the principal becomes less visible and works behind the scenes to ensure that teachers have the necessary support and resources to participate fully and deeply in a professional learning community; the notion of distributed leadership becomes a reality rather than a buzzword. Professional learning communities can provide the structures to engage in collaborative inquiry for the purpose of improving instructional practice and determining the necessary actions that must be taken to ensure that all students are learning.
The role of the school principal is one of the loneliest and most challenging positions in the field of education. School leaders must seek out or create their own PLCs, so that they-like students and teachers-continually engage in reflective practices with colleagues who are interested in growing and improving their practice. Professional learning communities are all about translating theory into practice, learning into action.
Add comment May 5th, 2010
Parent/teacher conferences can be stressful for both parties, but even more stressful to new teachers who are navigating this delicate relationship for the first time. In this week’s Quick Tip, the authors of Mentoring Beginning Teachers: Guiding, Reflecting, Coaching, offer some advice for veteran teachers on how to support new educators as they prepare for their first parents/teacher conference.
Newsletters, websites, and surveys are helpful, but face-to-face meetings serve as perhaps the most important communication venues. These might take the form of open houses, back-to –school nights, or parent/teacher conferences. Many schools host an open house for parents/guardians during the first weeks of school.
Jim Burke (2007) recommends preparing a handout, displaying student work, wearing professional attire, greeting parents upon their entrance, and emphasizing teacher availability for future conferences or email exchanges. He also gives parents index cards with questions similar to the survey questions suggested earlier. Mentors can help prepare beginning teachers for these occasions by describing the general procedures: who greets parents upon entering the building, how long parents usually stay in the classroom, whether teachers are expected to talk to the parents as a group or individually, what displays are usually provided, how many parents to expect, and where refreshments or other information (book fairs, etc.) are located. Beginning teachers will often feel more comfortable with a routine: greeting parents, introducing themselves, saying something positive about the student, giving a handout or index card, and inviting parents to circulate around the room. Mentors might role play situations with beginning teachers to help them feel more comfortable in this new situation.
Middle schools and high schools sometimes sponsor a back-to-school night in which parents adopt their child’s schedule and move from classroom to classroom, hearing a summary of each class for ten to fifteen minutes. Mentors and beginning teachers can jointly rehearse their own description of the course. Beginning teachers, who are often technologically adept, may wish to present a PowerPoint presentation, keeping the presentation organized and allowing the parents’ eyes to be directed to the screen rather than directly to the speaker. Since the session usually concludes with a question-and-answer time, mentors can help prepare beginning teachers with typical parental questions.
Of course, the most common encounter with parents is the parent/teacher conference. While beginning teachers are often acquainted with various school procedures in their past observational role as a student, they probably have not directly experienced parent/teacher conferences unless they themselves have children. Ellen Moir states, “Parent conferences require new teachers to be highly organized, articulate, tactful, and prepared to confer with parents about each student’s progress. This type of communication with parents can be awkward and difficult for beginning teachers. New teachers generally begin with the idea that parents are partners in the learning process, and they are not prepared for parents’ concerns or criticisms.” (1999, 21)
To assist new teachers in preparing for conferences, mentors can discuss the procedures and rehearse various encounters. Some teachers prepare folders with student work and use the time to explain the curriculum and show the student’s strengths and weaknesses (or “areas to work toward”) in the particular subject area. Other teachers create note cards with specific comments tailored to each student, allowing them to use the sandwich technique: saying something positive, presenting the student’s difficulties or challenges with the work, and concluding with ways the parents and teacher can work together for positive results. Yet others like to begin on a conversational note of talking about the student’s interests prior to talking about the student’s academic work.
Mentors working with student teachers might model the first conferences, then invite the student teacher to give added comments, and gradually move toward having the student teacher takes a leadership role in the conference. In a middle school or high school situation in which the student teacher is teaching various classes and the cooperating teacher has not yet turned over other classes, the student teacher can take a leadership role in the conferences with the parents of the students she is currently teaching. Th is initial experience will help the beginner feel more confident in future parent/teacher conferences.
Mentors can help make beginning teachers aware of the concerns that parents bring with them. Sidney Trubowitz and Maureen Picard Robins refer to “parents who themselves experienced schools as places of failure, parents whose family life is in disarray, parents with unrealistic expectations for their children, and parents whose cultural values are out of sync with those of the school” (2003, 80). Other parents may seem quiet-natured and remain silent during the conference, may be non-English speakers who require a translator, or may have little or no control over their children and frankly admit their deficiencies. For instance, a beginning teacher may be excited to see a parent at a parent/teacher conference in which a student has earned an A– in class, thinking that this will be an easy conference to negotiate, only to discover that the parent is angry that the student doesn’t have an A on the report card.
Veteran teachers will often remark that each conference time often contains a new surprise, so mentors might prepare beginning teachers that occasionally a parent may cry, become angry, or seem apathetic. Sometimes a parent takes a negative comment personally, presuming that if a child is not doing well, it must be the parent’s fault. Mentors can show how to reassure parents by discussing or role playing possible encounters, illustrating how to defuse a problematic situation. While this might make some beginning teachers even more nervous, usually new teachers prefer to feel prepared, even for unlikely events.
Mentors need to emphasize that just as classes need to be learner centered, so, too, parent/teacher conferences should be parent centered. Teachers can encourage parents to describe their child’s interests and goals, to ask questions, and to share their concerns. Questions such as “What would you like me to know about your son?” or “What questions would you like to ask about your daughter’s work?” might lead to fruitful conversations. Most important, though, is for teachers to ask, “What ideas do you have for how we can help your child improve as a student? How can we work toward this goal together?” To create a true parent/teacher partnership, the conference needs to conclude with a two-way action plan: for instance, with the parent providing a work space and specified time for homework and the teacher agreeing to inform the parent of progress or problems with homework completion.
Mentors can help beginning teachers realize that what they say during a conference is often less important than what they ask and how well they listen. Many schools have moved toward a student-led parent/teacher conference, which may not have been the beginning teacher’s experience in his own school years, his practicum, or his student teaching. In this instance, it’s helpful for mentors to explain the procedure and to prepare students to become leaders in the conference. If these conferences are interdisciplinary, the beginning teacher may not see some of the parents of her own students, so she may want to set up individual conferences at another time for parents of struggling students.
In the following conversation, interdisciplinary team members describe to their new colleague how they prepare for parent/teacher conferences:
Amanda: Since parent-teacher conferences are scheduled for next week, let’s talk about what we can do to prepare. For instance, Kevin, since you’re a new teacher, you might have questions for us.
Kevin: Well I’d like to hear you describe a typical conference and what I should do to prepare.
Betty: What were you planning to do to prepare?
Kevin: Frankly, I hadn’t thought about it. I just figured I’d answer the parents’ questions.
Betty: Well, the most common question is, “How is my son or daughter doing in your class?” How can you prepare for that question?
Kevin: I guess I should have my grade book with me so I can look up the grades and assignment
completions.
Sam: That’s helpful. Sometimes I make a note card for each student with one positive comment and one goal for improvement.
Kevin: Um, I could try that.
Amanda: Would you like to see us role play some conferences?
Kevin: That would be great!
Amanda: If we each role played being the teacher, Kevin could see our different conference styles, and then he could decide which way suits him.
Kevin: Super! Could you role play a typical conference and then some difficult ones, such as a student not doing the work or a student who is the class clown? Then maybe I could role play the teacher’s role and get in some practice.
Amanda: OK, let’s try it.
Sam: Let’s go for it!
Helping beginning teachers know what to expect during conferences will assist them in feeling more prepared and confident as they initiate parent/teacher partnerships.
1 comment February 9th, 2010
How do you create a sense of community for new teachers in your school? How do you support new teachers’ instructional decisions? What are some successful ways of looking at literacy assessment with new teachers and with the entire school staff?
These are just some of the questions teachers and administrators grapple with during the discussion of Jennifer Allen’s book, A Sense of Belonging. Join the discussion today and read what your colleagues have to say about creating a sense of belonging in their schools.
For example, Dayle Timmons, a literacy coach in Florida, shared her school’s practice of bringing together teachers who don’t usually work together. Dayle writes: “Every other Wednesday our children leave an hour and half early so for 4 consecutive Wednesdays we have teachers meet in study groups around a text. Well before the starting date we give teachers an overview of each of the titles that we have selected. Then teachers have a week to sign up for one of the groups. The Principal puchases all of the books….This has been a particular favorite of our teachers although we aren’t quite as structured as Jennifer’s Study Groups.”
Jill Dillard, another participant in the discussion, shared her experiences as a new coach in her school: “I like Janet’s idea of letting her teachers observe her so I’ve been trying that. In other classrooms I’ve just joined in the lesson…sometimes on a wing and a prayer…but so far so good. I’ve been at this job for three weeks since I was hired part-time after the fulltime coach quit. Perhaps word is spreading that I’m okay. I’m using a ’soft’ approach, eating lunch with a different grade level each day I’m there and trying my best to learn and understand the conversation here.”
Now it’s your turn: sign up for our Ning community and join our book study group! Jennifer’s book is now available, so order your copy today!
1 comment October 1st, 2009
If we invest in beginning teachers up front and provide them with more support in the beginning of their teaching career, then we will reap the payoff in the long run—skilled, thoughtful, reflective, and energized educators who are essential members within our collaborative learning community and committed to student learning and achievement.
In her new book, A Sense of Belonging: Sustaining and Retaining New Teachers, Jennifer Allen offers research-based, practical ideas on how to support new teachers while honoring and celebrating the innovation, idealism, and enthusiasm they bring to the classroom.
Join fellow teachers, literacy coaches, mentors, and principals in our online book discussion group as you read A Sense of Belonging, and discuss your thoughts and insights on how schools can offer sustained support for new teachers. Share what worked in your school, or for you personally, and what didn’t work.
The discussion will be moderated by Janice Driscoll, principal of Midlakes Intermediate School in Clifton Springs, New York, and starts on Thursday, September 17. Janice will guide the discussion, ask questions, and respond to comments. To participate in this free group:
Order the book by Thursday, September 3 for guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, September 15 (see free shipping offer below). You can preview the entire text on our Web site.
Visit the discussion group’s home page on the social networking site Ning.
Click the Sign Up link in the upper right part of the page to become a member of Stenhouse on Ning. After completing the form, you’ll be redirected back to the group’s home page, which should now display +Join Book discussion: A Sense of Belonging near the top. Click that link to join the group.
In the Discussion Forum window, click on a topic or thread that you would like to read or respond to. The moderated discussion will begin on September 17.
*Free shipping offer extended*
We’ve extended free shipping on A Sense of Belonging to Thursday, September 3. Just enter the discount code NLQ at the bottom of the “Summary” checkout screen at stenhouse.com. Orders placed by September 3 will be shipped for delivery on or before September 15.
Add comment August 28th, 2009
Students taught by educators certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards make bigger gains on standardized tests than students taught by other teachers, finds a National Research Council report out Wednesday.
The study, reported recently in USAToday, wasn’t clear on whether the process of getting certified by the national board makes teachers better or if those who get certified were already top performers.
Read the full article in USAToday
Add comment June 18th, 2008