Vision for Milton Public Schools Post-induction Mentoring Program
Spring, 2017
SECOND DRAFT
Purpose: This program is intended to provide at least 50 hours of mentoring for novice teachers after their first year, in accordance with Massachusetts DESE regulations. Since teachers enter the profession and the district with diverse extents of experience, training, and education, we aim to make the program flexible and to keep the focus on giving individual teachers the tools and support they need in order to help their students achieve at their highest possible levels. As this program is based on collaborative actions, activities will also provide many artifacts that could be used as evidence for evaluation.
Create: Our goal is to improve student learning by giving new teachers the tools and support they need in order to deliver rigorous, research-based instruction. To that end, we want to encourage novice teachers to
•improve practice strategies
•build on the successes of the first year of teaching in Milton
•acknowledge and address areas of weakness, as identified through evaluation and teacher’s reflection
•encourage collegiality, collaboration, and professionalism
•develop reflective practice
•gain confidence in the classroom
•become teacher leaders
•learn to balance the demands of professional and personal life through mindfulness
Engage: In order to fully support the students and novice teachers in the district, the Milton Public Schools Mentoring Team comprises a wide range of personnel:
•Mary Gormley, Superintendent
•Janet Sheehan, Assistant Superintendent
•Building Principals
•Team Chairs and Department Heads
•A cohort of trained mentors chosen through a rigorous process
•Mentor Leaders:
Prepare: Teachers who have completed their first year in a position will, according to DESE regulations, need to complete an additional 50 hours of mentoring before attaining their Professional License. However, there are a number of paths by which this can be done, and it does not have to be done in a single year. The intent of the requirement is less about the time and more about ongoing development of a professional practitioner. The post-induction year mentoring program will comprise a mixture of both veteran teachers who have been trained as mentors, as well as groups led by novice teachers and self-directed reflective opportunities. Novice teachers can group the following opportunities in a number of different configurations.
•MPS PD strands related to mentoring (up to 14 hours/year)
•Group mentoring programs led by either Mentoring leaders or novice teachers becoming teacher leaders
•graduate level coursework in subject matter or pedagogy (3 credits=50 hours)
•enrolling in a Mentoring in Action on-line course
•EDU 645 Maintaining Balance (full year curriculum, 3 grad credits)
•Independent Reflection (no cost/no credit option of EDU 645)
•Mentoring in Action e-book reflection journal (10 hours/10 PDPs)
•Continued, deeper use of First Years Matter book (document hours on provided log)
•Team/department meetings (document hours on provided log)
•Professional collaboration (document hours on provided log)
•Participation in school/district committees, such as Diversity Committee, PLCs, PD Committee, etc.
DESE also lists the following as possible options:
a.A master's or higher graduate level program in an accredited college or university that is or includes one of the following:
i.Approved program for the Professional license sought.
ii.A master's degree program or other advanced graduate program in the academic discipline appropriate to the license sought in a graduate or professional school other than education.
b.For those who have completed any master's or higher degree or other advanced graduate program, in an accredited college or university, one of the following:
i.Approved, non-degree, 12-credit program of which no fewer than nine credits are in subject matter knowledge or pedagogy based on the subject matter knowledge of the Professional license sought.
ii.12 credits of graduate level courses in subject matter knowledge or pedagogy based on the subject matter knowledge of the Professional license sought; these may include credits earned prior to application for the license.
c.Programs leading to eligibility for master teacher status, such as those sponsored by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and others accepted by the Commissioner.
d.A Department-sponsored Performance Assessment Program, when available.
Support: In order to prepare novice teachers to begin their post-induction mentoring, they first must be identified.
Next, we will need to establish differentiated needs of teachers. This can be done through an on-line survey in which teachers identify their development needs, as determined by evaluations, reflections, and interests; their availability; and their licensure status. It would be best if we were able to start this process before the end of the 2016-17 school year, so we can focus on incoming new teachers during the summer.
Since the post-induction program is more differentiated than the first year program, the number and type of mentoring activities will vary. These activities may include, among others
•group meetings led by one or more Mentoring leaders
•group mentoring led by novice teachers
(these meetings may include discussions on better listening strategies (learning how to be mentored) best practices, discipline, reflections on practice, looking at student work, etc. It would be especially helpful if there were agendas provided before the meetings so participants could prepare by bringing sample lesson plans, examples of student work, or items to be uploaded on evaluation site)
•monthly check-ins, via email, by mentoring leaders (these may include:
•highlighting relevant ACTS or videos in the First Years Matter book,
•topics in the district mentoring checklist,
•other sources
• MPS PD Strands
Measure: In order to evaluate and develop this pilot program, we will need to have thorough measurements in place. These may include
•Activities will recorded on provided logs, to be signed by the appropriate Mentor Leaders
•Regular planning meetings with Mentor Leaders
•Regular meetings with novice teachers, individually and/or in groups
•Beginning and end of year planning meetings with Central Office administration, with other meetings if and as needed
•On-line survey completed annually by all novice teachers
Sustain: One way to grow and sustain the Program, and to ensure that we eventually reach all of our novice teachers, is to inform the community within and beyond our buildings of the continuing support that teachers get. By demonstrating our commitment to helping Milton students succeed, we will be able to reach a wider audience.
Some ways of sharing our successes could include
•presentations to Administration
•presentations at department meetings or PD days
•blog posts
•posts to Superintendent’s E-Blast
•filming/posting model conversations