Gosh, I wish some of you would comment or e-mail me about something!!! I am looking at my stats and seeing page views and I'm actually asking some questions because I want some feedback. Yes, I am your work horse. I want to look for information, assignments or anything that can make your life as an educator or parent easier. I am revising my material from years past and modernizing it after looking over business articles, educational articles and anything that could potentially influence the lives of the children you are teaching and make your job easier. I am good at inferring things so your requests don't have to be wordy. Just says things like - more on Core or classroom management stuff - just a few words and I'm good to go.
New teachers - what are "they" doing to prepare you to teach in the manner your school district dictates? When I was still teaching, most districts had something in place that required you to report to a large meeting facility for a pep rally and then break out groups for your grade-level or subject-discipline were scheduled along with diversity training and other special sessions to be sure you understood the laws governing your behavior toward students, parents, co-workers and any other human being with whom you might have contact.
At the building level, you had a handbook and a mentor teacher. The mentor teacher might get re-certification points for guiding you depending on the number of hours spent instructing you in the skill set(s) you needed to be exemplary. There were also some off-site meetings to be sure that the new teachers weren't sinking because research is pretty damning about the loneliness and isolation surrounding inductees and how most leave teaching in the first four years.
I felt all this galloping about was a waste of time. Overcrowded classrooms, multi-levels of student readiness and ELL are just a few of the problems facing all teachers along with the stress of a business-model-style of evaluation that is just not measuring student learning or even if the teacher is truly effective. So what would be a more effective use of time to train new teachers and give experienced teachers some time to work together to develop some effective teaching materials? I'm so glad you asked.
I have a complete version of this, but briefly here it is:
1. New teachers observe master teachers in their base schools in two hour blocks during the first grading period. The final total of observation hours must be ten. This will earn these new teachers ten re-certification points for the renewal of their teaching license. This can be structured for each school district.
2. During the observation, new teachers will use an enhanced evaluation form with a check-list and a small space for note-taking. (The evaluation form will be based on the school district's own evaluation form to help new teachers understand what is expected of them and identify best practices.)
3. Upon completion of the ten hours of observation - the new teachers will get together in teams (I would limit this to 2 people teams) formed by the principal or his/her designee and design a 12-slide Power Point presentation of best practices. (I have a directions for the format of this slide show and used it with my Foundations of Education graduate-level students to replace their 30 hours of writing observation journals.
4. The new teachers present the slide show at a grade-level meeting (or other meeting established by the administration) attended by the principal (or designee) and may be awarded additional re-certification points.
5. The master teachers get re-certification points for being observed.
6. The Power Points may be of sufficient quality to be used by the school district for instructional purposes or awards and bonuses. The ones my grad students produced were simple, effective and 30 hours of observation by 13 class members became 390 hours of shared information showcasing best practices. Yippee!!!!!!
If you want all the bells and whistles - I'm working on revising some of the pieces of it right now - but this will have a price tag. Not sure what it will be, but not much - I never was about money.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For teachers already hard at work - my training program involves training you to use video conferencing to develop your lesson plans in your comfy clothes and with teachers that have the same goals as you do.
This year, I was in class with a teacher who was the only Latin teacher in her high school and because of scheduling issues - she had multiple levels of Latin students in various periods. This meant she might be teaching out of three different levels of texts in one period. She was exhausted and I asked if there was a way for her to share with other Latin teachers across the county? She didn't think so - but I wondered if since they used the same texts and levels what it might have been like for her if other teachers could have cooperatively planned a week's worth of lessons for a level, and then shared them using video conferencing.
Imagine developing outcome-based projects and STEM material with teachers that share your level of enthusiasm. Imagine publishing this material and/or getting re-certification points for it. Teachers need to have a certain level of intellectual property rights or value placed on the original material they develop on time beyond contract hours. I realize budgets are strained, but offering publishing rights and other options might spur competition to produce products of the highest quality.
Now you have the gist of my ideas for productive use of your training time. Time is the one thing we can never get back and it is like gold. We must spend it wisely and well. Teachers need to be in control of their training hours and be sure that what they learn or produce is valuable. Remember, I'm your work horse - if you have a question - ask.
No comments:
Post a Comment