Supporting The Llt And New Teacher Support

By Author: Tracy McGrady
Total Articles: 56
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In sharing this information with the LLT, a history teacher confessed that he had run out of information that he could share during the professional development sessions. In his words, "I don't understand much more than the teachers, but I'm supposed to provide them training. I feel like the blind leading the blind." Most of the members of the LLT agreed that they had reached the end of their comfort zone. We promised to collect video footage from our local schools that they could use during the sessions. We also wrote discussion guides to facilitate discussions about the videos. This modification worked for several months because it allowed teachers to Replica Tag Heuer directly observe examples of the instructional routines their school had selected. The discussion guides provided an opportunity for teachers to consider the ways in which the lesson worked for students as well as the ways in which the lesson could be improved. For example, in a video clip of a science teacher modeling her thinking, she revealed the following discussion prompts.

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... we wanted to provide a teacher-to-teacher approach to professional development, we realized that the level of understanding was limited and that we needed to expand the knowledge base of the members of the LLT. We hypothesized that team members would ask to be replaced if they felt uncomfortable in their role. As such, we requested additional release days for the LLT to meet and work with us. The structure of these quarterly sessions focused on preparing for each of the weekly sessions that the team would lead. We regularly read articles together, talked about implications, and discussed the best way to deepen understanding with the faculty. We also previewed videos and provided members of the team with the backstory for each video such that they could share this information during the sessions.

During one of the sessions with the LLT, we realized we needed some video footage of a teacher modeling connections that were not personal but that were related to the world around us. We didn't have any such video footage with us, and the team really wanted to address this the following day during professional development. Amazingly, within an hour we had a student ready to film and a teacher ready to model his thinking. We stayed after school to edit the video footage with a group of students. The next day, when we showed the video, a teacher in first period cried. Concerned, we asked her about her reaction following the session. Tearing up again, she said, "He's one of us and he can do it. It's not just the people from San Diego. It's a local. I'm so proud of us."

While we needed to provide the LLT with materials they could use during their professional development sessions, filming a local teacher engaged in the work of the literacy plan proved to be a major breakthrough. Over the next several months, the literacy coach visited classrooms with student camera people and sent the footage to us. We edited the footage and sent them short videos that they could use in the professional development sessions. Our edits focused on the behaviors we hoped would become school wide, and it worked. The principal reported a culture shift as someone told her, "If Ms. Ramirez can do it, you better believe I can." Perhaps teachers needed to see their students and their colleagues engaged in content literacy work to believe it's possible.

Upon our return to Western after the summer break, we learned that the school had 36 new, first-year teachers, many of whom were out of the field and teaching on provisional permits. We were depressed when we considered the amount of training and support that had been provided to a group of teachers who would not start the school year with us. The principal, however, was excited. This was the smallest group of new teachers in years, and she attributed the decline in transfers to a sense of possibility that had been created by the work of the LLT. We asked her why she didn't tell us about the number of new teachers, and she was genuinely surprised. She said that there were large numbers of new teachers every year and that it never occurred to her to talk about it; it just was.

As a result of the significant number of new teachers, despite the fact that there were fewer than in the past, we recommended a number of revisions to the professional development plan. The district induction plan was known to be paperwork heavy, and new teachers regularly complained about the demands of teaching, participating in professional development, attending new Tag Heuer Carrera Replica Watches teacher meetings, and keeping up with the paperwork. Our revision created a site-based induction program in which the new teachers at Western would use their weekly preparation periods to observe other teachers, complete the required paperwork, talk with mentors, and be introduced to the school wide literacy intervention.

One of the authors took the primary role in the revision of the induction effort and spent time while on campus with the new teachers. Acknowledging the tension between their early career support needs and the priority for a school wide literacy intervention, the principal said, "We can't have them playing catch-up to the school, but we also want them to stay another year." New teachers received a modified version of the literacy intervention while being mentored into their careers. While this is not ideal and likely impacted student achievement overall, the long-term investment in reducing turnover seemed to outweigh the cost. This demand seems to be exacerbated in urban schools that educate large numbers of students who live in poverty and might explain part of the achievement gap.

The following year, the number of new teachers was reduced almost by half (to 19), and for the first time in recent history, veteran teachers from other schools requested transfers to Western. The site-based induction program continued with support from the administration as part of a grant-funded effort to reduce turnover.