Listen, learn, rest.
Reflections of a Mentor Teacher During a Time of Crisis
As I write this I am toggling between my Twitter updates and the news updates and this blog post. My world has become consumed with the civil outrage and protests in the Black Lives Matter movement.
As a teacher, my heart aches for each person that has been and is continued to be treated unfairly. I have been living in my “golden rule” world, thinking that people will, for the most part, just treat others as they would like to be treated. And, I think that most people do, or at least they think they do. But, the systems in our society are not set up to honor the golden rule. The systems are broken.
Questions that swirl in my head, specifically as a teacher and a mentor are: What can I do? What should I do? How are my students doing? How are my fellow teachers doing? How is the teacher I am mentoring doing? How can we change the education system to justly support students of color (and teachers of color, and people of color in general)? How will I approach this topic with my student teacher next year? What questions will they have, and how will I tell them I don’t know the answer?
I commit to listening, and learning all I can to be part of a positive change.
Finally, as I read the title of this blog, I realize that maybe I should change it? We are currently in a crisis, but this crisis did not just start last week. It has been continually living in our society, and our schools, with our teachers leading the classrooms, need to change.
How Principles From The Opposable Mind Can be Applied to Teaching
The Opposable Mind was written on the premise that it is not enough to study leaders and innovators on what they did, but also how their thinking influenced their decisions and behaviors (Martin, 2009). To describe the intangible process of integrative thinking Martin (2009) used the more tangible term “opposable mind” to describe the process of integrating two or more competing ideas into a new and possibly better idea. Martin said, “integrative thinking shows us a way past the binary limits of either-or. It shows us that there’s a way to integrate the advantages of one solution without canceling out the advantages of an alternative solution” (2005, p. 9). As contrasted to either-or thinking, integrative thinking allow us, “‘the choice not between, but of’” (Stevens, as cited in Martin, 2009, p. 9).
In his studies of leaders that were found to use integrative thinking, Martin (2009) was able to describe six key features integrative thinkers utilized. These key features can also be used to navigate the current educational situation of forced distance learning in many schools.
Key Feature of Integrated Thinking 1
Integrative thinkers realize that the existing models represented in the problem are not reality. Instead, there are many perspectives of a situation and no one perspective has to be the correct one.
How To Apply to Current Education Situation
There is no one right way to do distance/hybrid learning. There may be many possible ways of doing it that work.
Key Feature of Integrated Thinking 2
Knowing there is no one reality, the integrative thinkers look at current models and compare and contrast the effectiveness, benefits, and costs of each.
How To Apply to Current Education Situation
We should look at what we have done in the past two months, evaluate the effectiveness of each and the cost/benefits. For example,, how is synchronous and asynchronous learning working and what are the benefits of each model.
Key Feature of Integrated Thinking 3
The integrative thinker realizes that there could possibly be a model that is better than those that exist.
How To Apply to Current Education Situation
Maybe there is a model we have not yet found that could work better than what we are doing now! Maybe there is something even better than exclusive face-to-face classes or online learning.
Key Feature of Integrated Thinking 4
The innovative thinker believes in their personal creativity and analysis and believes they can find a better model.
How To Apply to Current Education Situation
We need to believe there is a better model, one we haven’t found, yet.
Key Feature of Integrated Thinking 5
The innovative thinker works through and with the complexity of the situation. Martin (2009) advises against oversimplifying the issue as the prospect of eliminating possible solutions can be of consequence. Instead, integrative thinkers embraced the complexity, and if needed sought advice from others with more insight or a different perspective.
How To Apply to Current Education Situation
Our current distance learning situation is very, very, very complex. There are many factors that influence it including student access to resources, teacher fluency in distance learning, hardware and software availability, the security of student information, and the different social and emotional challenges of being away from a classroom.
Key Feature of Integrated Thinking 6
Integrative thinkers allow themselves the time and space to create solutions, integrative thinkers feel that, “with hard thinking and patience, they can find a better outcome” (Martin, 2009, p. 113).
How To Apply to Current Education Situation
The answers are not going to be figured out today, or even tomorrow. Thinking takes time, and although we all want a solution now, we will need to practice patience.
In addition to the process of innovative thinkers, Martin (2009) cited the strategy of leaders developing a team to wade through and develop creative resolutions to messy problems. A team made up of specialists, or members with specific talents can support integrative thinking and give insight to the multiple facets of problems. Martin described the combination of members with specific talents as a “renaissance team”, and described how integrative thinkers rely on these teams, “to broaden salience, maintain sophisticated causality, and create holistic architecture in their drive for creating resolution” (Martin, 2009, p. 82). We should make use of education experts with experience in many aspects of education from classroom teachers, technology experts, and higher-level education policy leaders to create solutions.
The use of integrative thinking, and specifically the six key features and creating teams, can allow synthesis of what appears to be competing ideas in education. With time, and lots of thinking we can find many solutions that will work better than what we have now.
Reference
Martin, R. L. (2009). The opposable mind: winning through integrative thinking. Boston, MA:
Harvard Business School Press.
Teacher Mentoring During Distance Learning
A good teacher mentoring relationship is built on trust made through regular connection between the mentor and mentee. With the current state of the world, and specifically in schools, maintaining a strong mentorship relationship is especially important. Mentor and mentee relationships can weather the COVID-19 storm by staying connected, staying consistent, being flexible, and working together.
Ways to stay connected
Your typical routine for connecting, maybe on a prep period or in the school hallway, has most likely been disrupted. Find new ways to connect that work for both of you, such as email or another messaging medium. If you feel comfortable, follow each other on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Even a quick text message can help you stay connected. If possible, subscribe to each other’s classroom information streams or other digital classroom resources. You can see what your mentor/mentee is up to in their classroom and this can give you ideas and spark conversations.
Stay consistent
Now more than ever it is important to carve out time to connect. At school, you may be able to catch each other in the staff lounge, or at a staff meeting, but with distance learning and remote working you won’t have those casual moments of connection. Some of your communication can be done through email or other messaging apps. However you decide to stay connected, set aside time each week to check in with each other. Find a time that you are both able to do a telephone or virtual chat. Even a few minutes of conversation can help you stay connected.
Be flexible with what the mentoring topics are
These are some wild times in education right now. It seems that every few days there is an update to our fluid school situation. Mentoring will not be business as usual, just as school is not business as usual. Mentors and mentees will most likely spend most of their time navigating these new waters. For example, if the mentee teacher was working on engaging students in lessons, that will look a lot different online than it did in the classroom. Some of the topics you were working on together may get set to the backburner while more pressing issues, such as how to do distance learning, are brought forward.
Learn from each other!
This is the first time in anyone’s lifetime that they have taught through a situation like this. Mentors have never navigated this before and won’t have answers or suggestions for all of their mentee’s needs. Mentees are brand new to teaching and many have taken some online classes or had online components of their teaching credential program. Use ideas from other online courses to guide what you do with your own students. Share with each other what is working and what is not. Your relationship may change from mentor/mentee to more like two colleagues collaborating. If it does, then you are doing this right!
However your mentorship relationship is playing out during this global pandemic, try to not put too much pressure on yourself and your mentor or mentee. Stay in regular contact with each other and focus your work on immediate needs. You will both come out on the other side stronger teachers.
Setting Up a Student Teacher for Success
I received a request to host a student teacher next school year! To me student teachers are gifts, and not because it means I get to teach less (although by the end of the year I usually do a little less classroom teaching), but because I get to learn the latest tips and techniques from someone in a credential program exploring all the latest educational theories. This will be my fifth student teacher, and I am brainstorming what I want to do and gather before I meet my student teacher. Here’s my list so far:
A year-long overview of the course we will be teaching
A copy of the latest course policy/syllabus used for the course we will be teaching
A detailed plan for the first unit (including assessments) - I will be teaching this, and the student-teacher will be observing, but I want them to see what goes on behind the scenes
A teacher binder of info including:
Campus map
School bell schedule
School calendar
General school policies
A student roster (if I have it before I meet my student teacher)
A set of friXion pens (erasable pens...come in lots of colors)
A set of flair pens
I also hope to get back in my classroom and set up a work station for my student teacher - a place they can store their things and do their planning.
I won’t find out who this person is until the end of June! I can’t wait!
A Mentor Teacher's Mentor Teacher
One of the most powerful ways to support new teachers is through mentoring. When thinking of mentor teachers I can’t not think about the special relationship that my mentor teacher and I have.
I started teaching as an intern teacher. The summer before I started teaching I had some basic pre-service courses and then dove into teaching full time as the teacher of record. About a month before the start of the school year I met my mentor teacher in the school office. She handed me a binder with all the school information (schedules, maps, phone numbers, most important school policies) and showed me my classroom.
The enrollment at the school was high, and many teachers shared classrooms. As the newest member of the department, I was the roving teacher. I spent three periods using my mentor teacher’s room (while she floated out as the student activities director) and used two other teacher’s classrooms.
I would come in each morning and my mentor would be teaching (she taught a class during “zero periods” - before the first class of the day). I would settle in and then get ready for the day. I also took the time to watch her teach. In the first period, we both had “prep”, so we had time to talk. I would ask her all sorts of questions about teaching...ask her advice and get her feedback. I also had a place I could just vent. Looking back I wonder how she was so patient with me! I’m sure she had things to be doing, grading, or making copies, but she would always take however much time I needed to talk.
She was my guide. She helped me navigate the school layout, teaching, and school politics. She helped take care of the nuts and bolts, showing me where to get supplies, how to enter grades, and other office tasks so I could focus on learning to teach.
It’s twenty years later, and we are still friends. Without her, I’m not sure I would have made it through my first year or have had such a great blueprint for mentoring others. I still turn to her to ask an occasional question, or to get her input. I hope I have half the amount of patience for my mentees that my mentor had for me.
When Student Teachers Struggle
Teaching isn’t easy, and teaching a new teacher really isn’t easy…so, what do you do as a mentor teacher when your student teacher is struggling? Whether they are struggling with classroom management, lesson planning, lesson delivery, or some other aspect of teaching, there are a few techniques you can try to strengthen their skills.
When I work with student teachers I try to always begin with few scaffolds and then add as needed. I don’t want to set a teacher up to struggle, but I also don’t want to limit them or impose too much of myself and my style on a fresh educator – I want them to find themselves. Depending on their credential program through their university or other higher education institution there may be supports in place, but as a mentor teacher here are a few things you can try yourself.
Coteach!
Coteaching is one of my favorite strategies to use with teachers in training. Plan a lesson with your student teacher and then teach the lesson together. I have found the best bang for my coteaching buck is the “tag out” method. Similar to team wrestling, each teacher takes a segment of the lesson to present, then tags out to the other. When not the central teacher, the other teacher can monitor student behavior and check for student understanding. When you are both in the lesson debriefing becomes something you can both learn from.
Send them out to observe!
Observing other teachers is one of the most important things a new (or experienced) teacher can do to add techniques to their toolkit. When a student-teacher works alongside their mentor teacher, they get to see one model of teaching. Sending the student-teacher out to observe other teachers can give a different perspective. Even observing a teacher of a different grade level or subject matter can spark ideas. The bonus to this is that the student-teacher can share with you what they saw, and you can both get a new perspective.
Have Your Student-Teacher Do a Detailed Observation of You!
Often times student teachers are required to be observed by supervisors and evaluated using a rubric or some other assessment tool. Ask your student teacher to be your observer/evaluator. They can give you feedback on particulars of your lesson, script what they see teachers doing and students doing (with timestamps), or they can complete a formal evaluation using the assessment tool that is used by their observers. Make sure to do a debrief of the observation, and listen to what your student teacher notices. You might learn something, too!
Being a mentor teacher to someone new to the field comes with a lot of responsibility. You help create the lasting impressions that will stick with your mentee throughout their career (and the idea is to support them so they flourish and STAY in teaching). Whichever strategy you try to guide your student teacher in the right direction, do it with positivity and intention. You may learn something new, too!