Mentor’s guide: Pre- and debriefing check-ins
What is this practice? Pre-briefing and debriefing check-ins refer to short discussions you have with the teacher candidate before and after a teaching episode, an encounter with a student, or an interaction with a parent. These can be episodes where either the mentor or the TC takes the lead in enacting something that is worth observing and reflecting upon. Why is it important? Pre-briefing check-ins help you identify what is worth observing in the upcoming enactment (enactment = what you or your TC will be doing). A pre-briefing check-in focuses the perception of the person doing the observations, so that they can attend to the most relevant aspects of the situation and give the person doing the enactment useful feedback. Similarly, debriefing is important because structured reflection enables TCs to make sense of what happened. Download PDF > Pre- and debriefing...
Mentor’s guide: Making your thinking explicit
Making your thinking explicit involves describing the reasoning behind the instructional decisions you make, or the ways you respond to professional situations. You can think of it as pulling back the curtain—allowing the teacher candidate to see your internal, otherwise invisible thought processes at work. Being explicit is also a way of communicating with the TC during all the other practices—modeling the work of teaching, co-planning, coteaching, debriefing, analyzing student work. All of these are occasions for you and the TC to reason out loud together. TCs get plenty of chances to observe what is happening in your classroom and around the school. They’ll see you make moves with students or how you organize activities, and they can learn from that, but the learning opportunity is limited if you don’t share your reasoning about the choices you make. For example, if they see you re-arranging student groups, they have no way of knowing if someone was misbehaving or if an English Language Learner was being paired up with a slightly more advanced ELL who speaks the same home language. If your mind is a black box, the TC will lose out on making sense of your decision—they need to hear what professional reasoning sounds like, even when it is hard to articulate. Download PDF > Making your thinking explicit...
Tool: Observation protocol for mentor or TC
This is a tool that will help you and your TC discuss: What specific moves or routines will the teacher (mentor or TC) use? What should the observer focus on or watch for? It includes a T-chart to document your observations, and then suggests 2-3 points to discuss after the observation. Download PDF > Observation tool for mentor OR TC Download Word version > Observation tool for mentor OR TC...
Tool: Mentor pocket guide for making thinking explicit
This one-pager provides quick suggestions about how a mentor might make their thinking explicit, and about what kinds of ideas. Download PDF > Mentor's pocket guide for making your thinking explicit Download Word version > Mentor's pocket guide for making your thinking explicit ...
Mentor’s guide: Mentoring practices overview
Effective mentor teachers combine specific practices to help their teacher candidate (TC) learn throughout their clinical experience. These include: Making your thinking explicit, Modeling the work of teaching, Pre-briefing and debriefing, Co-planning with feedback, Co-teaching, and Analyzing student work together. These six practices form the “core” of the work you’ll do. While there are other valuable types of opportunities that support candidates’ professional learning, the practices described here allow TCs to see and hear what goes into good instruction. Read more > Download PDF > Mentoring practices overview...
Mentor’s guide: Modeling the work of teaching
What is this practice? Modeling the work of teaching refers to demonstrating some part of the work of teaching under authentic circumstances for a specific purpose. We usually think of mentors modeling instruction by standing in front of the class while the teacher candidate observes. But “the work of teaching” involves a lot more. You can also model how to interact with other teachers, interact with parents (face-to-face, on the phone, via e-mail), interact with students outside of instructional time, deal with management issues, and inquire into your own practice. Why is it important? Modeling parts of teaching provides TCs with opportunities to experience and better envision how instructional strategies and interactions play out in practice, without simultaneously being responsible for figuring out how to respond to what happens. These are prime opportunities for TCs to notice, wonder, and draw connections between student learning/participation and instruction. Download PDF > Modeling the work of teaching...
Mentor’s guide: Co-teaching
What is this practice? Co-teaching refers to intentionally sharing teaching responsibilities with your TC, where you both play active roles in instruction during the same lesson. There are several possible arrangements that we discuss below. Over the course of the year, mentors can use co-teaching to help TCs take on more and different responsibilities for face-to-face instruction. Why is it important? Co-teaching can support TC learning over a period of months. It enables the TC to start experimenting with different teaching roles without yet having the full responsibility for teaching. This practice is good for young learners too—two adults working together in the classroom can keep students more engaged and meet the needs of more students by offering support for lesson activities and more individualized teacher attention. Download PDF > Co-teaching...
Mentor’s guide: Co-planning with feedback
What is this practice? Co-planning with feedback involves you and the teacher candidate working together to design or modify aspects of instruction, explicitly discussing 1) goals for student learning, 2) possible choices you could make and their pros/cons, and 3) ways of supporting specific learners in your classes. Co-planning may take different forms over the course of the year, with the TC playing a more peripheral role early on (e.g., modifying an activity, suggesting a reading for students). As TCs gain more experience, they can take the lead in designing increasingly larger chunks of instruction. Your role at that time becomes more advisory, probing their thinking and providing feedback on plans. Why is it important? Planning and modifying instruction is a pivotal part of the work of teaching. As an experienced teacher, you have planned and modified your instruction over many years, and much of your planning may nowadays play out “in your head.” For the TC, on the other hand, it is imperative to experience how planning and modifying lessons is done as an explicit and regular practice, and the kinds of considerations that go into designing cohesive instruction. Download PDF > Co-planning with feedback...
Mentor’s guide: Analyzing student work together
What is this practice? Analyzing student work together involves you and your teacher candidate systematically looking at artifacts from students to unpack patterns in students’ understandings or experiences, and determine how to respond instructionally. There are many kinds of work youmight examine together, including but not limited to written explanations or problem sets, responses to test questions, exit slips where students comment on their learning or participation, and others. Why is it important? By regularly engaging in this kind of formative assessment— examining and acting on insights from student artifacts— instruction becomes more meaningful and tailored to the understandings and experiences of your specific students. Further, engaging in formative assessment with TCs can help them develop their own professional vision of what to look for in student work and varied possibilities for responding instructionally. _____________________________________________ Download PDF > Analyzing student work together...
Resource: Formative Assessment
There are legitimate concerns about the way tests are being misused, and those need to be addressed. But let’s not be distracted from the big picture: The wise and effective use of assessments is essential to solving inequities within and among our schools. Used well, assessments help teachers improve learning in real time, keep educators and students focused on where they are within a coherent K-12 curriculum, and shift the daily instructional conversation to results. Used well, assessments foster a growth mindset, generate helpful data displays, and get students to take responsibility for their own learning. Used well, assessments are the key to effective teacher collaboration, allow principals to supervise with a constant eye on student learning, and fuel a process of continuous improvement. More...