1. Facilitator Prep and materials
I encourage you to check the notes on each slide out as you prepare.

2. Invitational Questions
Engage a cognitive process
Address content that is internal or external to the person
Approachable voice
Plural forms
What are your reasons for….
Exploratory/ tentative language
What might be your thoughts about…?
Positive presuppositions
As you examine the data what are some of the similarities and differences that seem to be emerging?
Open ended
Input
Recall, define, describe, identify, name, list,
Process
Compare, infer, analyse, sequence, synthesize, summarize, select, prioritise
Output
Predict, evaluate, speculate, imagine, envision, hypothesise, conclude, generalise, apply
Internal
Thoughts
Beliefs
Feelings
Assumptions
External
Materials
Facilities
Students
Workshop activities
This slide is for facilitator use only. Just a review in a different format. You might also review the section on questioning in MM. The last column on the table could be improved by adding items like assessments, test results, curriculum.
From

3. Planting Seeds
Last month we brainstormed “seeds” to plant - ideas re: what new teachers might do this spring.
With an elbow partner, discuss:
the seeds you have been able to plant
how the conversations went
other seeds you want to plant
This is the entry task.
Put up at least 10 minutes before starting time. Entry tasks get their minds in the room and thinking about the mentoring work. Entry tasks are also especially helpful for new people joining an established group. It gives them something to talk about – a way to break the ice.

4. OSPI Mentor Roundtable Professional Development for those who support the growth of NOVICE Educators
April 2017
Mike Esping
Insert your name as facilitator and date

5. Today: Reflection Stage Using effective questions
Setting goals for our growth
I had these be intentionally vague because I want mentors to think about mentees first in the context of reflection before thinking about themselves.

6. Roundtable purposes: to connect to learn to refine
to give and receive coaching
to improve through reflection
This slide and the next are used for ALL roundtable presentations because they:
reinforce the value and purpose of roundtables
orient/remind new and infrequent participants to our goals
outline the general structure of our sessions
If you are getting a lot of folks who are new and have not attended the academy, this is a place to let them know about the academies and encourage them to get that training.
to connect with others in our region who do similar work
to learn about instructional mentoring & induction
to refine and develop our mentoring tools & skills
to give and receive coaching around our work
to improve through reflection

7. Logistics for Learning
Advocate for your own learning.
Tend to your needs.
Be fully present.
Be ready to move often.
Give yourself permission to learn. It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time.
- Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way
Periodically it is important to remind groups of these.
Cut and paste this slide as needed.
Technology reminder is a key one. Please discourage computer or phone use during roundtables. We want to model behaviors we want mentors to use with mentees. Being present is key.

8. Developmental Stages
Individually jot down your responses to questions below.
What stage do you think your novice teacher(s) are in now?
What indicators do you have of their stage(s)?
Discuss your responses w/an elbow partner.
It is helpful to remind folks as you give directions of the importance of silence. Use positive presuppositions that they will show support for each other’s thinking by remaining quiet AND give themselves the opportunity to TRULY reflect and focus on the topic fully.

9. Reflecting on your mentoring year.
Reflecting on your mentoring year
Transition slide
Today’s topic is reflection.
This picture is a good image because it captures the idea of seeing what is clearly.

10. Reflection Stage Focus today is the reflection stage.
Some mentors will have identified their mentees as being in reflection and others won’t be there, yet.
Whether mentees are there or not, our work today is to think about and prepare for when they are.
Reflection stage is not a one time or one month event. Reflection typically starts around April and goes into the summer.
Teachers will go in and out of it – some days initiating reflection and others avoiding it and focused on details of the day.

11. Reflection Stage
Is a time to reflect on the whole year (rather than single events) and assess instructional effectiveness. Teachers will shift in and out of reflection for several months. Effective reflection that changes practice focuses on student learning and uses data to inform the reflection. From this reflection emerges a vision of what the next year might look like and changes to achieve this vision. Some will avoid reflection for fear of what they will see. Some will want to use only their memories of what happened.

12. Reflection Stage Effective reflection needs to include ALL of these:
Assessment of student learning using data
Assessment of whether what students learned met the desired outcome, is of import, and at appropriate level(s)
Consideration of what teacher actions contributed to the learning (what helped and what hindered learning)
A description of a vision for the future
A self-assessment of what skills and tools the teacher needs to learn or develop to achieve their vision.
This is from counseling work/practice. It is not enough to think about what has transpired but we also must analyze our role in this – looking at contributions to successes and failures. Often, the failures do more to inform our next steps than the successes.

13. Mentor Support during Reflection
As mentors we can help novice teachers reflect to assess their impact and consider possible changes for the following year.
To do so, we need to:
Be prepared to coach and have some ideas for possible questions when new teachers are being introspective – like a “teachable moment” but for reflection.
2) Prompt reflection for those teachers who may be avoiding it and afraid to face the results of their year.

14. Mentor Support during Reflection
With a standing partner, discuss the reflection stage and your ideas regarding mentor’s role in supporting reflection.
Listen in on conversations. Surface ideas or address questions that would be of benefit for the whole group.

15. “I still don’t have all the answers,
but I’m beginning to ask the right questions.”
Lee Lorenz
New Yorker Cartoon
Published February 27, 1989
I realize that we had questioning down last month : )
As facilitators it is tempting to skim over these as we are very familiar with the tool of questioning.
Keep in mind that some mentors will get very infrequent opportunities to use these tools in coaching conversations.
And new mentors may have been primarily focused on paraphrasing this year.
Also, we need several interactions with material for our brain to store it to long-term memory : )
These slides on questioning are designed to:
Remind mentors of key ideas re: questioning
Have mentors select concrete areas to work around questioning
Give mentors an opportunity to hear others craft questions
Consider what questions might serve them well in prompting mentee reflection

16. Reminder: Questions to promote thinking
Real – You don’t know the answer
Honest – Not advice hiding as a question
Open-ended – Require more than a yes/no reply
Use plural forms – some, ideas, options, reasons
Use what, how – eliminate “why?”
Suggest possibilities – might, hunch
Use positive presuppositions – “As you think…”
Prompt higher level thinking– Ex. “What structures...causes…influences…connections…etc.”
On a sticky note jot down one or two areas above that you want to work w/regard to questioning.
Real - If you already know the answer to the question you’re asking, it’s a quiz, not a question. Don’t ask it.
Honest questions don’t have advice dressed up to be a question.
Open-ended – beyond the one word response
Prompts for thinking– Retelling events are the lowest level of cognition. There has a place for them and they can be used to establish a shared understanding of events. However, it is not necessary for mentors to understand events and the situation fully. We rely on the novice as expert around their experiences.
Prompts for thinking cue higher levels of cognition. Notice the difference between “How’d it go today?” which opens the door to a long telling of facts and “What did you notice about student learning today?” Both provide a wide range of places a teacher can go, but the 2nd offers a prompt to help select relevant details.

17. Questioning goals
With a standing partner, discuss the questioning skills you wrote on your sticky note.
Discuss your reasons for choosing these.
How might practicing these specific skills positively impact your mentoring work?
Note re: partnering participants
The shift from elbow partner to standing partner to table group is intentional. The goals are to:
-facilitate mentors meeting others outside their district or group
-get people moving to maintain blood flow to their brains (spreading out when this happens)
-keep them engaged
-provide for a mix of partners (it can be frustrating to be with someone for the whole meeting who isn’t a good match)

18. Questioning to promote reflection
In table groups of 3-4, write a list of questions you might use to prompt novice teacher reflection on the following:
What students are learning
Evidence of student learning
Achievement towards required standards
Level of achievement in relationship to expectations
Relevance and meaning of what was learned
What the teacher did to accomplish this.
What the teacher might do in the future to raise achievement
The items on the slide are intentionally not listed as questions so participants will engage w/the topic of questioning & the reminders.
Facilitator: Remind participants that with paraphrasing we find it useful to have one or two “go to” sentence starters that we can quickly use when needed. The same is true for questions. Generating questions here helps our mind be prepared for coaching conversations.
Facilitator - Listen in on groups. Prompt and support as needed. Encourage mentors to find questions that fit their individual “style” (This doesn’t mean rejecting the parameters on slide 16 rather finding ways within the parameters to be congruent with who you are.)
Debrief: I suggest you EITHER highlight questions as you circulate and ask participants to share for the whole group to debrief OR gather the lists and highlight a few that work well RATHER than calling on groups to share. This avoids presenting questions for the whole group that don’t work well. OR if you are comfortable with this, use the criteria on reminder slide for questions and have the group critique questions as they are shared.
Some ideas for possible questions:
As you reflect on the learning that happened in your classroom this year, what are some successes that your students experienced?
How are students doing towards meeting the required standards?
What are students learning in ___ area? What evidence indicates that?
Are the achievement levels at or above what is expected by me? By the school team? By the district? By the state?
What learning was meaningful and relevant for students? What could be more relevant? What might be left out?
What did I do to accomplish this?
What might I do in the future to raise achievement?

19. Mentor Support during Reflection Stage
Individually, reflect on the ideas about mentor support for novices in the reflection stage.
What ideas resonated with you?
What skills might you want to learn or refine?
What do you want to remember as you work with new teachers in April, May, and June?
Encourage plenty of silence and time for all to reflect. We have a tendency to answer quickly in a few sentences and think we are done.
When we remain silent and think longer, often some of the best answers come during that silence.

20. Form Triads Find two new partners from other tables.
Come to the front if you need help forming a triad.
Determine who is A, who is B, and who is C
IMPORTANT – we are using triads because we want to shift mentors from “thinking” they are doing well (or not) to knowing how they are doing based on data and feedback. To do this effectively, mentors need feedback and triads provide that.
NOTE the move to triads can interrupt train of thought and flow. So, the shift is made here before content about mentors reflecting is started. There will be a prompt later for them to move to a coaching configuration. For now, they just sit together at tables.

21. Reflecting on your mentoring year.
Reflecting on your mentoring year
Transition slide from Novice Reflection to Mentor Reflection
Even though Ellen Moir’s work around stages was with beginning teachers, these often apply to anyone doing something new – mentors for example – and even veteran teachers say this cycle of the year seems accurate for them.

22. Mentor Reflection
Mentoring requires a different set of skills and dispositions than teaching.
Reflection is an important to our development as mentors. It is a tool for developing and refining mentoring skills.
Also, if we want our next generation of teachers to value reflection and take the time to do so, then we need to model taking the time to reflect NO matter how busy we feel.
Mentors can become discouraged when faced with learning a whole new mentoring skill set after being highly effective teachers.
Many come into this work thinking that their teaching skills are enough for success as a mentor.
It is important that we reinforce the idea that these are a separate set of skills AND that the skills can be learned and require intentional practice. Encourage participants to stretch themselves and truly use these roundtables to get out of their comfort zone.

23. Learning-Focused Conversation Practice
The focus for today’s conversation reflecting on our mentoring work this year.

24. Learning-Focused Conversation Preparation
Take 3 minutes for ALL three triad members to individually:
Create an opening question that might promote reflection for the mentor you are going to coach.
Review paraphrase stems (see Mentoring Matters). Consider other questions you might use. Remember paraphrase first and then question only if needed.
Create a T chart to use when you are the observer. The chart is for scripting the interaction observed. At minimum try to capture paraphrase stems, questions, and beginning of the mentee’s responses.
If we want mentors to help new teachers reflect, it is important that they also take the time to do so. This reflection can help them refocus on what they can change (themselves) and think about ways to continue to grow as mentors.
This slide is also preparation for the coaching conversation. There are no prompts for coaches during the conversations. This is because starting the conversation is an important skill. We want mentors to have experience thinking about and doing this. Explain this to participants.
Coach
Person being coached

25. B = Person being coached C = Observer
Coaching roles 1
A = Coach
B = Person being coached
C = Observer
Partners A and B sit side-by-side, knee-to-knee
Partner C sit behind A & B so you can observe and hear without distracting.
Remind coach to start w/their question.
Suggest that the speaker relax and be open to the coach’s prompt.
Remind the observer that the chart will go to the coach.

26. Debrief and Preparation – 3 minutes
Observer
Give T-chart data to the coach.
Take time to prepare for being the coach (review your questions).
Person who was coached
Jot down ideas you got while being coached.
Coach
Review the T-chart data. What do you notice?
Jot down a couple possible goals for future practice.
Stick with at LEAST 3 minutes. This will help the person being coached to capture their ideas and for all to prepare and shift roles.
Feel free to ADD time.

27. A =Person being coached B =Observer C = Coach
Coaching roles 2
A =Person being coached
B =Observer
C = Coach
Partners C and A sit side-by-side, knee-to-knee
Partner B sit so you can observe and hear without being a distraction.

28. Debrief and Preparation – 3 minutes
Observer
Give T-chart data to the coach.
Take time to prepare for being the coach (review your questions).
Person who was coached
Jot down ideas you got while being coached.
Coach
Review the T-chart data. What do you notice?
Jot down a couple possible goals for future practice.

29. C = Person being coached
Coaching roles 3
A =Observer
B = Coach
C = Person being coached
Partners B and C sit side-by-side, knee-to-knee
Partner A sit so you can observe and hear without distracting.

30. Debrief – 3 minutes Observer Give T-chart data to the coach.
Use this time to reflect on what you observed.
Person who was coached
Jot down ideas you got while being coached.
Coach
Review the T-chart data. What do you notice?
Jot down a couple possible goals for future practice.

31. Whole Group Debrief
As table groups discuss what you noticed and learned.
Be prepared to share one or two items w/the whole group.
Facilitate a discussion if it is beneficial for the group. Otherwise, eliminate this slide.

32. Mentor Reflection
Individually reflect on your mentoring work this year. Here are some possible questions to consider as you write: What have you accomplished? What have you learned? What has been challenging? What evidence do you have of new teacher growth? What did you do to contribute to this growth?
The intent of this slide is give mentors time for reflection. Give at LEAST 3 minutes and if they are writing extend to 5.

33. P.S.
Go around your table group and each person shares EITHER a principle or a skill they are attending to in the coming weeks. Principle—A big idea you are thinking about from today’s conversations. Skill—Something specific you will use as a tool for your work and intend to learn or practice in the coming weeks.

34. Clock Hours for Mentoring
This screen shot is hard to see and the website can be a challenge to navigate. Remind mentors of the opportunity for them to earn clock hours AND the templates that are on the mentoring page. THANKS.