Directors Message

Dr. Leontine Butler and I were invited and planned to attend a professional conference last January in San Francisco on the topic of New Teacher Induction. I was honored to be personally contacted by a participant. She was hoping to plan a trip to Broward during the summer for a first-hand look at our work. Five administrators, Melani Mouse, Cory Boggs, Melanie Pealor, and Paula Dyer, from Putnam City Schools in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma visited the NTA at Stranahan High School and Instructional Coach Professional Development at Northeast High School during the week of July 23 - 27, 2007. The word is getting out that our NESS Liaisons are building some of the most successful New Educator Induction programs in the country. Celebrate this sign of success. If we build a High Quality Induction Program they will come....

Linda S. Whitehead
Director, Teacher Development/HRD

Collaboration is Key

According to Rick DuFour, “A principal’s most significant contribution to developing others is creating an appropriate context for adult learning.” The structures, procedures, beliefs, expectations, and habits that exist in a school, rather than the quality of the training, determine the impact of professional development. Emphasis needs to shift from finding programs and trainers to building a collaborative culture in which colleagues challenge and learn from one another.

DuFour offers the following suggestions for developing professional learning communities.
1. Provide time for collaboration in the school day and school year.
2. Identify critical questions to guide the work of collaborative teams.
3. Ask teams to create products as a result of their collaboration.
4. Insist that teams identify and pursue specific achievement goals.
5. Provide teams with relevant data and information.

Teachers need to know that they have colleagues they can turn to as they address the ever-changing needs of their students. They flourish in cultures that support collaborative efforts and continuous professional growth.

Source: Rick DuFour, “Collaboration is the key to unlocking potential,” The Learning Principal, November 2006.

Six Steps to Induction – Steps 1 & 2

Phillip Schlecty defines Induction as All social processes associated with ensuring that members are aware of and embrace the norms and values of the group or organization and that they possess the skills, attitudes and habits of mind necessary to fulfill the roles they are assigned in the group or organization.

Over the course of the year, this column will delineate six steps to move a school toward systems-based Induction. Steps 1 & 2 will help you get started.

Step 1: Identify your Induction Team. Membership may include anyone on your staff interested in his/her own professional growth and the professional growth of colleagues, particularly new educators. Consider including your NESS School Liaison, interested Instructional Coaches, and National Board Certified Teachers and candidates, as well as any other teachers and administrators who want to “see the possibilities”.

Step 2: Self-Assess. Arrange a block of time for your Induction Team to meet and critically analyze the current state of Induction at your site. Provide the team with HRD’s Induction Rubric to determine strengths and gaps related to each of the three Induction components, Orientation, Collaboration and Support, and Accountability and Assessment.

Available Resources:
➢ Your NESS School Liaison
➢ HRD Program Facilitators, Mary Beckwith, Kathleen Chapman, Randee Deich, Dr. Sheila Lewis, Dr. Doug Miller, Joy Rabin, Dr. Amy Tsukuda
➢ What is Induction enhanced podcast
➢ Induction Rubric
➢ Induction Guiding Questions

Source: Randall Deich and Joy Rabin, HRD Program Facilitator

Resources recommended by Liaisons

MaryBeth Strautz, NESS Liaison for Dillard High, recommends Your First Year As a High School Teacher, by Rominger & Laughrea to all of her New Educators. She explains that it is the one book that specifically addresses the reality and needs of new high school teachers.

Letitia Ingram-Phillips, Liaison at Rock Island Elementary, provides each of her New Educators with a set of You Can Handle Them All: Quick Action Card Deck by Robert DeBruyn. Each card in the deck describes strategies for dealing with a specific set of classroom behaviors – what works and what doesn’t.

Jeanne Kraus, Margate Elementary’s NESS Liaison, enthusiastically recommends Ten Traits of Highly Effective Teachers by Elaine McKewan to all the potential Instructional Coaches she trained in the summer. There is no doubt that in time their copies will be as dog-eared and worn as her own.

Source: Joy Rabin, HRD Program Facilitator

Question of the Month

Does an educator new to Broward County but who taught in Florida need a NESS coach?
Response: There is no district policy/mandate that requires a New Educator to receive support. This decision is "owned" by the school. If the New Educator is a Level Three (more than 2 years of public/private school teaching experience in the USA), he/she is eligible to receive Instructional Coach support if requested by your Principal.

The “Level of Support” document details the support to all educators new to the district.

Source: Randall Deich, HRD Program Facilitator

Support Group Meeting

Prior to the next NESS Support Group Meeting, download two or three grade level appropriate lesson plans from BEEP and a brief description of the top three Nine High Yield Strategies (HYS): Similarities and Differences, Summarizing and Note Taking, and Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition. Make copies of the lesson plans and the top 3 HYS and bring them to the meeting.

Procedures for activity:
1. With the whole group, brainstorm a list of the components of an effective standard-based lesson plan. Record on chart paper.
2. Next, if you have a large-group divide the group into teams of four to five ICs and NEs.
3. Next distribute the lesson plans and a copy of the 3 HYS.
4. Using the BEEP Lesson plans, direct the teams to identify the components of an effective lesson they listed earlier and identify any of the top 3 HYS that were incorporated in the lesson plan.
5. If there is no evidence of the 3 HYS, add one in the appropriate part to increase the effectiveness of the lesson plan?
6. Share out team discussion.
7. Debrief with this question: How do discussions like this add value to a teacher’s practice?

This support group activity is only a suggestion always use activities that meet your clients needs.

Source: Dr. Doug Miller, HRD Program Facilitator

The Administrator’s Observation

During the first semester administrators will be conducting Classroom Walk-Throughs and Formative FPMS Screening observations on the New Educators. The beginning of the school year is an excellent time to share these instruments with your New Educator. One reason for sharing these instruments is to let your New Educator know what is expected when an administrator observes his/her classroom. The other is that the items contained in the observation instruments are research-based descriptions of the behaviors exhibited by effective teachers. Our goal as coaches is to support the New Educator and help them successfully transition into the profession. Taking a few minutes reviewing these instruments will reduce the New Educators anxiety and help them focus on developing effective teacher behaviors.

Source: Dr. Doug Miller, HRD Program Facilitator

Planning with the New Educator

Planning with the New Educator provides the ultimate “teachable Moment,” says Paula Rutherford. Planning with the New Educator can be held when there is no intention of following up with an observation. The sole purpose, in this instance, can be simply to plan a lesson, unit, or map out a semester or course.

When planning with a New Educator prior to an observation it is important to ask the following questions.
• What are the students suppose to know and be able to do?
• How are the objectives related to the State Standards.
• How will student progress be measured?
• What will the New Educator do?
• What will the students do?
• How will the data be used to adjust the lesson or re-teach the lesson?

Contributed by: Dr. Doug Miller, source The 21st Century Mentor’s Handbook by Paula Rutherford

KASAB

KASAB is an acronym for Knowledge, Aspirations, Skills, Attitudes and Behaviors. Over the next five issues we will identify descriptors for each of these concepts related to coaching and mentoring a New Educator.

Knowledge is facts and information acquired by a person through experience or training. What knowledge does a coach need to effectively mentor a new educator? The following list is not all-inclusive but provides a general idea of the knowledge that effective coaches need to mentor their clients.
1. Schools policies and procedures
2. Lesson design, delivery, follow-up and assessment
3. Who’s who for getting help or resources
4. Tenets of the Effective Schools Program
5. Traits of an effective coach
6. Collecting and disaggregating data
7. Classroom Management Strategies
8. Conferencing with Parents
9. Using the Continuous Improvement Process
10. Using technology and technology resources.

What would you add to the list? Next month coaches will share descriptors for the concept Aspirations.

Source: Dr. Doug Miller, HRD Program Facilitator

What are Student Objectives?

Student Objectives deal with detailed statements that specify various actions that students will be able to do successfully after they have completed the learning process of a particular lesson/course.

Key aspects in writing good Student Objectives

Student Objectives need to be:
• Observable
• Measureable

Student Objectives contain four parts:
1. A for audience – Who? Who are your learners? The students will be able to…

2. B for behaviors – What? What do you expect your students to be able to do? This must be observable or measurable behavior. If you can’t measure it with one of the five senses - seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, or smelling how can you be sure your audience really learned it.

3. C for condition – How? Under what circumstances or context will the learning occur? What will the student be given to accomplish the learning?

4. D for degree – How much? How is mastery measured? How well will the behavior need to be performed? What is the student suppose to accomplish at the end of the lesson? What knowledge, skills, or behaviors should the student be able to demonstrate? The objective always contains an active verb (e.g., list, describe, report, compare, analyze, evaluate, judge…).
Student Objectives serve as guidelines for assessment and selection of content and instructional strategies.

The following are examples of effective student centered objectives.
Comprehension Level
(C) Given the Declaration of Independence,
(A) the students will be able to
(B) identify 5 reasons why the American Colonies separated from England
(D) by the end of the period

Application Level
(C) Given a foreign language sentence written in the past tense,
(A) the students will be able to
(B) rewrite sentences in future tense
(D) with no grammatical errors

Synthesis Level
(C) Given a current events topic and a scoring rubric
(A) the students will be able to
(B) write an opinion essay
(D) at the proficient level on the essay rubric

Generally when teachers write student objectives on the board they put the behavior (B) and the degree of mastery (D). The audience (A) is always all the students and the condition (C) is usually addressed in the lesson.

Example:
• Add two digit numbers with no errors.
• Lay out a foundation of a 600 square foot house with less than a .1% error in the last corner.

Source: http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/research/Write_Objectives.shtml from Dr. Doug Miller

Planning

There is no one right way for planning lessons. However, the goal should be to provide opportunities for students to learn in ways that meet their needs. This is an important part of No Child Left Behind. Here are some questions to consider when planning a lesson.
• What are the objectives of the lesson?
• How will I measure student mastery of the objectives?
• What instructional strategies will I use?
• How will I remediate students who do not master the objectives?
• What enrichment activities will I provide for students who do master the objectives?
• How will I maintain student mastery of the objectives?

Source: Dr. Doug Miller, HRD Program Facilitator

Bingo

“I always start at the beginning of the year with First Day Bingo. I create general knowledge cards for my grade level. I also include current events from the summer. Another fun Bingo idea is to hand students a blank bingo card and have them travel the room to get the signature of every student in the class. Then I pull the names of the students from the bingo hat. I usually use homework passes as prizes. Students really enjoy this activity."

Source: Heidi Riche: Grade 6 Teacher

Lighter Side- Robo Teacher

A schoolteacher injured his back and had to wear a plaster cast around the upper part of his body. It fit under his shirt and was not noticeable at all. On the first day of the term, still with the cast under his shirt, he found himself assigned to the toughest students in school.

Walking confidently into the rowdy classroom, he opened the window as wide as possible and then busied himself with deskwork. When a strong breeze made his tie flap, he took the desk stapler and stapled the tie to his chest. He had no trouble with discipline that term.