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The Teacher Mentor Program

In the last few years, educators have revisited the interaction between teacher and student in the classroom. Educational reform has increasingly focused on teacher performance and effectiveness in relation to student achievement. The primary goal of Baltimore County Public Schools is to improve student achievement. All county initiatives begin with that purpose in mind. The Teacher Mentor Program plays a significant role in promoting and analyzing teacher effectiveness in the classroom. The Teacher Mentor focuses on effective instruction and the impact that instruction has on student success. The program specifically targets new teachers and provides them with intensive on site assistance from full time mentors in the areas of instruction, assessment, positive discipline, and interpersonal communication.

Baltimore County is no exception to the national trends of teacher employment. New teachers express a need for a well-developed, on-going support system that would help them through the crucial two year period which often determines their success or failure as career teachers. The BCPS Teacher Mentor Program is unique in that it supports teachers with five or fewer years of experience in schools with low student achievement and high teacher turnover rates. These new teachers are not only unfamiliar with routines, texts, and their students, but are also inexperienced in making instructional decisions and in accurately using available curriculum and resources.

Mentors are instructional "generalists" or "content specialists" who do not participate in the formal evaluation process though they observe instruction with administrators and are trained in giving teachers instructional feedback. The goals of The Teacher Mentor Program are: (1) to maximize student achievement by improving teacher effectiveness and daily instruction (2) to retain capable new teachers by increasing new teacher satisfaction with their teaching experience.

"Mentoring is a critical topic in education today and a favored strategy in U.S. policy initiatives focused on teacher induction. If mentoring is to function as a strategy of reform, it must be linked to a vision of good teaching, guided by an understanding of teacher learning, and supported by a professional culture that favors collaboration and inquiry."

This information, cited from the Eric Clearinghouse on Teaching and Teacher Education Digest, July 1996, clearly support the initiatives and focus of the Baltimore County Public Schools Teacher Mentor Program.

Goal 1: To improve achievement for all students.

iiii ii* Provide follow-up and support. (NSDC)

• Provide teachers with objective feedback on instruction.
• Focus on one area at a time.
• Use the most objective form of feedback; audio, video, written.
• Encourage self evaluation through questioning and reflective strategies.
• Identify individual teacher needs.
• Foster students learning through the use of the following questions:

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii- What did the students learn?

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii- Was what they learned what the teacher intended?

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii - Was what they learned meaningful, worthwhile, and important? Did the iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii liiiiilearning occur in an appropriate amount of time?

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii- How did I arrive at this conclusion? What did students say or do that iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiserved as evidence of learning?

• Act as an instructional liaison.
• Set purpose for classroom visits and observations.
• Provide curriculum materials and resources.

iiiiii * Emphasize a challenging, developmentally appropriate core curriculum based iiiiiiiiiiion content and outcomes established by schools, parents and the community iiiiiiiiiii(NSDC).

• Communicate best practices for improving student achievement.
• Assist in lesson planning.
• Acquaint new teachers with formative and summative assessments of the Maryland Learning Goals.
• Model lessons for the classroom teacher, team-teach, co-teach, coordinate visits to other sites.
• Implement recommendations for improving minority student achievement.

iiiiii* Address the need for quality education for all children, regardless of race, iiiiiiiiiiethnic background, gender or special needs through staff development. iiiiiiiii(NSDC)

* National Staff Development Council's Standards for Staff Development, 1995

•  Management

Goal 2: To maintain a safe and orderly learning environment in every school.

• Implement models for student behavior management.
• Assist teachers in developing, implementing, and assessing schoolwide behavior management plans.
• Train teachers in classroom management techniques.
• Develop strategies to promote understanding of the relationship among student achievement, instruction and behavior.

Goal 3: To use resources effectively and efficiently

• Provide direction for teachers through inservice courses and professional activities.

iiiiii*Align staff development with school and district goals to improve education. iiiiiiii(NSDC)

• Provide professional development which reflects the needs of all constituents in data analysis, implementation of curriculum, research-based instructional practices, and assessment.
• Establish priorities on what issues to address using student data. (NSDC)
• Access and implement resources to address systemwide goals effectively.

iiiiii* Counsel and provide emotional support in an effort to improve instruction.

* National Staff Development Council's Standards for Staff Development, 1995