A Multiple-Day Institute or Workshop Series
Educators are entering our profession through different pathways and at different point in their careers. These variables create a need to rethink how novice educators, second-career educators, alternatively certified educators, and even new-to-the-district educators are inducted into our profession. Add to this the incredibly high attrition rate of new teachers and it is no wonder that we are seeking ways to develop support systems to ensure that we have a fully qualified and fully satisfied teacher in each classroom. This workshop series is designed to assist mentors with this important initiative.
Focus Questions
- What do we need to know and be able to do to help new teachers meet district performance standards in a way that promotes student learning?
- What are the conditions we need to create to promote retention of novice teachers?
Areas of Focus of the Institute/Workshop Series
- Best practice in mentoring
- Roles and responsibilities in induction programs
- Stages of new teacher development
- Working with adult learners
- Information processing styles
- Generational differences
- Peer observation and feedback options
- Best practice in standards-based teaching and learning (Using the Common Core or not)
Resources
- The 21st Century Mentor’s Handbook by Paula Rutherford addresses the areas of focus listed above and provides tools for needs assessments, goal setting, reflection, and instructional design. There are pointers about best practice in a standards-based classroom including what to note, suggestions to make, and reflective questions to ask. Also included is a wide array of intervention strategies for the challenges and concerns faced by new teachers. This text provides guidelines for using Why Didn’t I Learn This in College? with new teachers.
- Why Didn’t I Learn This in College? by Paula Rutherford pulls together everything a new teacher needs to know in one source. It is based on the constructs that the best management program is a good instructional program and that if student learning is our goal, we want to shift our focus from control and compliance to creating positive and productive learning-centered environments.
- Mentoring in the 21st Century® Participant’s Manual
