Mentoring New Teachers

What is collaborative sense-making? I've come to that part of my appraisal where I need to show evidence of my collaborative sense-making this year. It does sound like more of education jargon but at the same time needs to be investigated in order to get it right. It is one of the 6 components of the appraisal cycle put out by the Education Council. Luckily I went to their workshop this year and this was explained as: How you collaborate with others who have different perspectives from yours eg experts, colleagues, mentors etc through conversation to look at different perspectives on a situation. From these conversations you share findings, learning and implications for changes in practice. An example given was to use another person eg have a conversation with the Te Reo teacher to give you feedback on your work with Standard 1 (Treaty) Questions from ERO include: What do we already know about this? What do we need to find out? How might we do this? Catalysts that lead ...

I have just been re-reading the notes I took at the Education Council (EC) workshop on the new standards at the beginning of this year. Provisionally certificated teachers (PCTs) are always worried about having enough evidence and what to record. I currently mentor 7 PCTs, 3 of whom are coming up for certification this year. What the EC has said is that they do not want voluminous portfolios of stuff and that they want to shift the emphasis from the showing of evidence to improvement of practice done through discussion and documentation. Teachers engaging in “learning talk” analyse, critique and challenge their current teaching practices to find and/or create more effective ways of teaching. ( Annan, Lai & Robinson 2003) The current situation is that ERO will audit the documentation for certification of teachers recently certificated. They are looking to see that the school has a robust system well founded in evidence. They will be looking at the level of support and inducti...

I was fortunate to be asked to go on the the 4 day trip to Rawhiti Marae in November. I went with about 20 Māori students from Kata O'Donnell's tutor class and 3 other teachers. The purpose of the trip was to familiarise the students with Māori tikanga in a remote settlement on Māori land which is quite different from what they are accustomed to. Activities were run by WaiNot Tourism and featured a forest walk, snorkelling, fishing with nets, cooking pippis on the beach, swimming and jet ski riding. The students were kept busy from 7.45am until about 10pm at night. It was a great way for them to bond together well away from school and to have new experiences learning new skills. What did I learn from This? I learned more about ways of working with Māori students,the importance of tikanga, eating, sleeping and working together. It was fascinating to be in such a remote untouched environment and to see how the students behaved and related differently fro...

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...

As we are approaching mid-year and some of the PRTs are wanting to apply for full certification at the end of the year it seems timely to look at the Education Council Requirements and ensure that everybody is up to speed. I have also included a note around pay increments as people are mixing this up with registration which is quite separate and linked to appraisal and Professional Standards. (We are paid by the Ministry of Education). INDUCTION AND MENTORING As a provisionally certificated teacher you will have the guidance of a mentor teacher who is an experienced fully certificated colleague, trained to guide and support you and give constructive feedback. The most important features of induction and mentoring include: ·        an emphasis on practice-focused professional learning for the provisionally certificated teachers (PCT) ·        a range of professional development opportunities ·    ...

This year I have been appointed to the role of Specialist Classroom Teacher and Mentor Teacher for Teach First Teachers and Provisionally Certificated Teachers at Tamaki College.I had a vague idea as to what a Teach First Teacher was so I went to this site  http://teachfirstnz.org/  and found stories and videos from the participants themselves. I was pleased to see that Tamaki College is a Manaiakalani school as this will push me further in my digital journey. Already I am having to create a Google site which I haven't done before and as part of my appraisal create a blog which will evidence my learning journey. I dragged my dinosaur colleagues into Blogger last year so this is not new. Last year's blog was a collaboration to investigate the true meaning of collaboration through readings and the practicalities of working together to construct knowledge. This year I will be spending a lot of time in the classroom with the 11 teachers I am supporting.