Mentoring New Teachers

In Term 3 Marc (Literacy Leader) and I decided to put in place a Literacy Action Plan for the school. It was obvious from the asTTle and PAT results and the excel spreadsheets on NCEA data/credits that many students were not achieving. An analysis of  NCEA results and NZQA Assessment Reports on each subject that a colleague and I had done in 2008 had proved that literacy - vocabulary, reading, writing, was a factor for students not achieving the NCEA standards across all subjects. I repeated this for 2016 here: NCEA Examiners'comments relating to Literacy Maths 2016 Level 1 some of the technical statistical words relating to interpretation of time series graphs were not fully understood. Candidates also need to ensure that the specific directions in the question are actually addressed, such as: compare, describe, justify, give statistical evidence, comment on showing numerical working. Level 2 The vocabulary of algebra needs to be understood so that candidat...

Teaching as Inquiry is criteria 12 of the Practising Teacher Criteria  which all teachers, including provisionally certificated teachers, need to provide evidence both for appraisal & certification. For this criteria teachers are required to use critical inquiry  to critically examine their own beliefs,  including cultural beliefs, and how they impact on their professional practice and the achievement of ākonga (learners). I found this set of descriptors of good practice for teaching as inquiry in an article "Leading inquiry at teacher level" by Mike Fowler. The inquiry is based on a group of students you teach which could be selected students in one class, a whole class or students from different classes. You look for evidence of what is happening for these student in the classroom by asking these questions: Why are students in my class struggling with....? What are the challenges students are facing in this topic, course? How confident are these students a...

At a recent meeting with PCTs there seemed to be some confusion around evidence for appraisal and evidence for certification. Appraisal Appraisals are about   " improving teacher capability and student outcomes " (ERO). That is why the teacher's goals are linked to the vision and goals of the strategic plan of the school. Often there will be a school goal, a department goal and a personal goal. The appraisal process is  focused on valued outcomes for students, from goal-setting, evidence gathering and analysis, observations and professional discussions to the annual report (ERO). Attention can de directed to priority students and evidence from teachers' inquiries can form the basis of an appraisal discussion. So teachers choose their own goals within the guidelines & parameters set by the school. Originally this process did not include the Registered Teacher Criteria but the Practising Teacher Criteria are now being used in appraisal. There has been confus...

There is a very useful resource here   which gives e-learning links, guides and tools that you can use when working digitally with students. There are examples for each of the 12 PTC including some good stuff on e-learning and teaching as inquiry for Criteria 4 & 12.