1. Mentoring New Teachers
Increasing Teacher Retention
Supporting Student Achievement

2. Introduction 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 Mentoring
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
Induction is an Investment
Retention
Integration
Continual Growth
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. 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. Central Goal - Student Achievement Instruction
Data driven
Integration with District Initiative
Should support other district initiatives
Mentoring in isolation defeats the purpose of mentoring

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

12. Effect of Skilled Mentoring on Teachers
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 Providing a 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. Consultant 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. Collaborator 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. Coach 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
The greatest 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. Pausing Use this verbal tool: After asking a question
After receiving a response
While you frame your own language

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

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

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

37. Extending
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
Interactive Journal: The teacher writes on one side and the mentor on the other side of a journal page
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?