The majority of school districts in the country have a fragmented personnel system. Most school districts either do not have a formal induction program or have programs that are limited in scope and support. This has lead to high attrition of new teachers and generally poor achievement by students taught by beginning teachers.
The Performance Toolkit Supporting Effective Teachers (SET) in the Classroom provides beginning teachers with five years of training, coaching, and mentoring services. Beginning teachers move through the three transformational stages of teacher development:
1. Role Focused. Individuals, who are new to a practice, spend the greater part of their time developing their role as teacher and acclimating to the new environment.
2. Practice Focused. During this stage, new teachers spend the greatest part of their time enhancing their practice and skill.
3. Learner Focused: Novice teachers realize the impact they have on their students and others with whom they work which leads to addressing more abstract concepts and are more focused on the impact of their teaching. They collaborate with others, reflect, and improve their own performance to impact the learning the students.
In addition to working with beginning teachers to become highly effective teachers, SET develops master teachers into full-time mentors and coaches and prepares principals to establish a professional learning environment in their schools.
Finally, SET proposes to work with partners to dramatically upgrade the teacher, mentor, and principal evaluation and compensation system which will result in improved performance, address deficient performance, and reward success.
To learn more, contact Patty Horn.
