The Core of Mentoring

Table of Contents

  1. The Core of Mentoring in Knox Countypages 4-17
  2. “Planting the Seed”- Organizing Your Teampages 18-40
  3. Getting Started
  4. Qualities of an Effective Mentor
  5. Levels of Support
  6. Building Relationships and Coaching
  7. Criteria for Pairing Mentors with New Teachers
  8. Personality Profiles
  9. Roles within the Mentoring Program
  10. Mentoring the Experienced Teacher in a New Setting
  11. Guidelines for Conducting Meetings
  12. Planning Calendar
  13. Checklist for Mentors
  14. Suggestions for a New Teachers Handbook
  1. “Germinating the Seedling” - Orienting the New Teacher pages 41-51
  2. Whom to Call
  3. Organizing Your Room
  4. Supplies Checklist
  5. Establishing Routines
  6. Preparing for a Parent Conference
  7. Checklist for Parent-Teacher Conferences
  1. “Grafting for Results” – Collaborating with Your Teampages 52-84
  2. Assessment Strategies
  3. Evaluation Process
  4. Community Mapping
  5. Sharing Critical Incidents
  6. Phases of First-Year Teaching
  7. Getting Acquainted with Marzano’s Essential Nine
  8. Classroom Observations

1. Evidence vs. Opinion

2. Focused Observation Guide

  1. “Developing New Growth” – Encouraging Reflection pages 85-95
  2. Self-Efficacy Quiz
  3. 3-2-1 Reflection
  4. Reflecting on What We Do
  5. Reflecting on Collaborative Discussion
  6. Shaping Your Reflection
  1. “Enjoying the Harvest” – Celebrating Accomplishmentspages 96-100
  2. Goodies for New Teachers
  3. Making Certificates
  1. Sample Handbookpages 101-126
  2. Web Resources and FAQ’spages 127-135
  3. Forms and CMT Documentationpages 136-154
  4. CMT Commitment Form
  5. CMT Mentor and Protégé Form
  6. New Teacher Pre-assessment Form
  7. Mentor Needs Assessment Form
  8. Novice Needs Assessment Form
  9. Results of Assessment Form
  10. Midyear Evaluation for Mentor
  11. Midyear Evaluation for Novice
  12. Summative Evaluation for Mentor
  13. Summative Evaluation for Novice
  14. Mentor Documentation for Payment Form
  15. Mentor Fund Account Balance Sheet
  1. Notes and Agendaspage 155

“The Core of Mentoring in Knox County Schools”

Our guiding principles

Knox County Schools’

Knox County Schools’

New Teacher Mentor & Induction Program

Knox County Schools’ has established New Teacher Mentoring and Induction programs for the explicit purpose of supporting beginning teachers. The program was initiated in 1999 with sixhigh need urban schools through a Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant, URBAN IMPACT, which established a partnership between Knox County Schools; The University of TN College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences (CEHHS); and the TN State Department of Education. The program is structured to provide school-based and one-on-one support to novice teachers. Each year the number of schools has expanded to include all urban elementary, middle and high schools.

The New Teacher Mentor & Induction Program is a county-wide and school-based effort to support the induction of first and second year beginning teachers who are learning to teach in our school system. Every school has identified a team of educators who, along with an administrator, form their school’s Mentor Core Team (MCT). The teachers serve as mentors to their teaching colleagues, while the administrator and the MCT coordinator in some schools serve as liaisons to the school’s Leadership Team. Each team member is a certified mentor having actively participated in The Raising the Bar Mentor Workshop sponsored by the Tennessee Academy for School Leaders (TASL) and Knox County Schools. Each team has identified research-based strategies to implement and sustain effective new teacher mentoring and induction throughout the school year. Many strategies, such as the use of pre-assessments and post-assessments, are implemented at all schools. At the same time, each Mentor Core Team is encouraged to tailor strategies and activities to their school’s unique environments and the specific needs of their novice teachers. Knox County Schools’ New Teacher Mentor & Induction Program is the model recommended by the State Department of Education and TASL as the program for teacher mentoring in Tennessee.

Current research strongly recommends that all school systems establish and build induction programs specifically designed to meet the challenges of their context and to enable their sustainability over time. Knox County Schools’ New Teacher Mentor & Induction Program is being implemented in ways that will assure the benefits and positive outcomes achieved by others. Mentoring novice teachers has been shown to make a significant contribution to important outcomes including beginning teachers who remain in the profession, report higher satisfaction with their career choice, and improve their teaching throughout the induction period. In addition, mentors report improved teaching practices for themselves and increased achievement outcomes for their students. Mentors and novices alike see positive results from a structure that provides ongoing support and clear focus on significant issues related to teaching and learning. In effect, the ultimate intended outcome for the program at the system level is to create, build, and sustain professional learning communities in every school. Mentoring and induction has been found to be a researched-based strategy to overcome a major obstacle in sustaining school improvement--the transience of faculty members.

Teacher Mentoring and Induction

Goals

  1. to help novice teachers gain competencies, confidence, realistic values, experience, etc.;
  2. to grow into a fully-functioning, autonomous, and competent professional;
  3. to encourage self-reliance;
  4. to remain in the profession;
  5. “to promote the realization of a dream.”

Guiding Assumptions for KCS

  1. The underlying goal of mentoring and induction is to increase expectations for teacher performance that will, in turn, result in increased student achievement. Productive mentoring expectations for increased teacher performance can be communicated, modeled, fostered, and monitored thus ensuring increased student achievement and more positive attitudes towards learning—in all schools, but especially in high need schools.
  1. Mentoring can be an effective means to induct novices into the profession. In many schools, mentoring has always been in place, but more than likely on an informal and limited basis. Research supports the development of more formalized, long-term, and comprehensive programs involving more veteran teachers than the few who have typically been involved.
  1. Mentoring is one form of professional development all novice teachers should experience in the most positive ways. Mentoring is a significant form of professional development—one that has lasting impact. Research shows that the ways teachers learn to teach in their first years sets the pattern for how they will continue to learn throughout their entire careers.
  1. Mentoring should be embedded in the work of teaching and learning—as is the case with all effective professional development. Mentoring activities should be purposeful, timely, comprehensive, and based on the novice’s needs. Mentoring must also incorporate current research to ensure that it will enhance the capacity to learn for all individuals within the school community and will increase their feeling of satisfaction.
  1. Mentoring should occur at the school site. Each school is a unique setting with particular strengths in terms of the environment, opportunities, programs, resources, and people. Our schools represent all demographics—large, medium, small; urban, suburban, rural; affluent, struggling. Whatever the demographics, there are strengths and positives. Mentoring, structured as school-based teams, is one way to capitalize on the positives while strengthening other areas. The school context does play a significant role in the teaching and learning process—and mentoring can enrich it.
  1. Mentoring should occur within an environment where lifelong learning is pervasive. No matter how high performing a school is (or the educators are)—improvement and learning are essential qualities for educator growth and development.
  1. The Mentor Program is integral to school improvement efforts. Improved student achievement is the bottom line, but improvement efforts are challenged because of high teacher turnover and the influx of novice teachers. Mentoring can help to minimize disruptive influences and be another major avenue for achieving the school’s vision. Every child deserves to experience the highest quality instruction. When novice teachers are mentored in effective ways, their instruction can more quickly become high quality experiences for the students they teach.
  1. Mentoring can be an important way for teachers to develop their leadership capacity. Veteran teachers become more confident in their effectiveness and more secure in their leadership ability outside the classroom. There is also an obvious two-way benefit to mentoring. Many novice teachers bring innovative teaching strategies, technology and other skills, not to overlook their enthusiasm and energy.
  1. Mentoring should occur within a learning community--an environment where all educators willingly contribute to the development of the novice. The concept of mentoring as a pervasive activity in a school is an idea borrowed from effective Professional Development Schools where everyone is encouraged to find opportunities to support and contribute to the growth and well-being of novice teachers.
  1. Mentoring is most productive when it is multidimensional and comprehensive—attending to all important factors that can positively impact the novices’ capacity to learn to teach. To effect maximum growth in novice teachers, mentors need to assist them in negotiating their new environment and in acquiring knowledge and skills about each of the factors that impact their capacity to learn.
  1. For school-based mentoring and induction to reach its full potential, commitment from central office leadership is essential. Every school system should have an appropriate number of Lead Mentors, exemplary educators designated to nurture, sustain, and grow effective mentor teams as well as promote the development of effective one-on-one teacher mentors.

Based upon these assumptions, Mentor Core Teams in Knox County Schools have identified county-wide and individual school-based strategies and activities that will promote educator growth and learning in significant areas. The activities of the program are intended to develop or capitalize on opportunities within individual schools in ways that novice (and veteran) teachers will experience and benefit from the uniqueness (people, programs, traditions, events, etc.) within our their school community. For novice teachers, learning to teach extends into many realms beyond the walls of the classroom. Ideally, mentoring can enhance the capacity to learn for all individuals (students, teachers, staff administrators, parents, and community members) within the community and increase their feeling of satisfaction with schooling in general.

Knox County Schools’

New Teacher Mentor & Induction Program

The New Teacher Mentor & Induction Program is a comprehensive set of planned activities with well designed guidelines and procedures intended to promote productive induction of every novice teacher and to ensure high-quality teaching and learning. The program acts as a catalyst for teachers to share their everyday instructional challenges, experiences, and potential solutions, enabling them to grow professionally and thus improve the education for students throughout the district.

Mentoring is

  1. A coaching process
  2. A process to improve teaching
  3. An avenue for transmitting the culture of the school
  4. A mutually beneficial relationship
  5. Two-way communication
  6. Analytic, reflective, and a search for immediate and long-term solutions
  7. A respectful, interactive process
  8. A way to build a learning community within the school and system

Mentoring isn’t

  1. An evaluation process
  2. A cloning process
  3. A new teacher orientation
  4. A buddy program
  5. A cure-all
  6. All give and not get

Benefits of Mentoring to Mentors

  1. Rejuvenation
  2. High-quality professional development
  3. Expanded career role of teacher leader
  4. Visibility
  5. Heightened prestige
  6. A means of professional sharing
  7. Leaving a legacy

Benefits of Mentoring to Students & Schools

  1. Increased academic performance and motivation to learn

With the support and assistance of the Induction Team and Mentors, novices will more quickly become effective and efficient facilitators of learning incorporating research-based instructional, management and assessment strategies. In addition, studies show that mentors also improve their instructional effectiveness and sense of efficacy.

  1. Reduced teacher turnover and higher levels of satisfaction with the profession

Induction Team and Mentors assist novices in successfully negotiating the numerous perils experienced by many beginning teachers which lead to novices’ increased feelings of satisfaction in their current teaching assignment and to a stronger sense of belonging and commitment to teaching and student development.

  1. Increased sharing in a school culture that values and supports professional learning communities.

Mentoring is a way to expand everyone’s awareness of other grade level and school expectations, strengths and needs. Shared responsibility for achieving priority outcomes increases in a supportive culture.

Components of KCS

New Teacher Mentor & Induction Program

  1. Strong administrative support

Building level administrators should be involved in mentoring to the extent they desire or are able. At a minimum, commitment to productive mentoring must be evident. Experience has shown that having overt and continued support from building-level leadership is critical to making mentoring programs successful. Central Office administrative support is also critical to sustaining the program.

  1. Designated Induction Coordinator and New Teacher Induction Mentors

Educators who are seen as knowledgeable and skilled leaders in the school and who have an interest in and a commitment to mentoring are likely candidates for induction coordinators. Induction mentors should be selected according to the criteria identified in this document. The individuals must be willing to devote the time and energy necessary to making mentoring experiences positive for everyone involved.

  1. Input from others in designing the mentoring program

It is advised that Induction Coordinators form an advisory group of experienced educators (2nd or 3rd year teachers as well as veterans) to provide guidance in designing the details of the program. Decisions need to be made about: mentor selection (criteria, application, selection process); roles and responsibilities (of mentors and novices); pairing of mentor with novice; training or professional development opportunities (customize materials and agenda, set dates, etc. for mentor and novice training); and procedures (assignments, matching, oversight, monitoring).

  1. Defined roles, responsibilities, guidelines, and procedures

Clarity of roles, responsibilities, and expectations is critical to maximizing the positive impact of mentoring. Thoughtful planning and decision making prior to beginning mentoring is intended to minimize or eliminate unnecessary problems from occurring. It is equally important to develop workable procedures so relationships and learning can progress smoothly.

  1. Appropriate, timely professional development opportunities

The content of mentoring and the activities involved are highly complex. Even many experienced teachers have not thought about teaching and learning from the different perspective mentoring requires. In addition, one primary goal of mentoring is to promote the highest quality instructional experiences for all students--those in novice teachers’ classes and well as those in experienced teachers’ classes. Also educators who serve as mentors may not be accustomed to working with other adults in the variety of roles they need to play or may not feel that they possess the depth of knowledge and skills necessary to induct novices into the profession.

  1. Opportunities for active involvement of other experienced teachers

Some productive experiences for novice teachers can be provided by qualified, experienced teachers other than the assigned mentors or members of the Induction Team. Engaging others in appropriate ways can stimulate increased performance expectations for all teachers. Having a broad base of shared responsibility among the school faculty and staff can only increase the likelihood that novice teachers will have a successful experience.

  1. Formative and summative evaluations

To maintain a high quality program, it is important to conduct both formative evaluations during the year as the program is going on and summative evaluations at the end of the year. It would be ideal to have the formative evaluations occur through brief face-to-face interviews at appropriate points during the year. If individualized contact is not an option, forms could be distributed at designated times. Formative evaluations give timely information so that decisions about adjustments or changes could then be made. Near the end of the year, summative, evaluations can be conducted as a brief interview or in a short written form. As with all evaluations, the information collected must be kept in strictest confidence and reported anonymously--without identifying any individuals. Sample formative and summative evaluation forms are provided as a guide to be revised as desired.

In addition to program improvement, disillusionment or dissatisfaction with the mentoring experience can occur on either side--the mentor or the novice. In order to keep the mentoring program on track and functioning well, it is important that there is an identified course of action and some individual or group designated to serve as “quality control” or “oversight” for the mentoring program. The Induction Coordinator or administrator is a logical choice as the one responsible, but it might be helpful to also have others involved. Although a great deal of planning and effort goes into making mentoring a success, there are always some unpredictable problems that occur which have the potential to undermine the program. Many problems of incompatibility or minor irritation can be dealt with satisfactorily by the coordinator or administrator, but some unforeseen circumstances may require additional advice and counsel.