Preparing Teachers To Be The Best

Teaching is a very demanding profession. To be a highly effective teacher, one must possess the ability to control the class, present engaging lessons, appropriately challenge all students, provide support and scaffolding as appropriate, not to mention analyze data to inform instruction, provide information to IEP teams, serve on the school improvement team, and other duties as assigned. Wow! And how do we treat new teachers? They are assigned the most challenging and needy classes, teach a full load, and are the ones who do not have a classroom, but rather schlep materials from room to room on a cart.


For teachers to truly be “ready and willing” to do their very best, I offer the following ideas:

• Increase the rigor of teacher education programs with the things that matter—instructional strategies such as differentiation and making accommodations and modifications for special needs students. I have interviewed far too many candidates who barely know the basics on instructional strategies and have not had instruction in working with special education students. Today’s classrooms are more and more diverse. Teachers must be equipped with the skills needed to be effective with all populations.

• Change teacher education programs to a five year program and infuse the program with more hands-on experiences. My daughter has just been accepted to Duquesne’s pre-pharmacy program. It is a six year program. After two years of general education courses, she will begin participating in various rotations and experiential learning projects. She must accrue 1500 hours of experience before sitting for her boards. She will learn to be a pharmacist not only through ‘book learning’ but by being in the field, working side-by-side with pharmacists. Shouldn’t we want the same level of experiences and learning for our teacher candidates, preparing them for a myriad of situations and students they will encounter during a 35 year career?

• Finally, new teachers should participate in a three year induction program. This program should provide an instructional mentor and professional development opportunities embedded into their daily routines to move new teachers from surviving to thriving.

Most people enter the teaching profession because they are passionate about children and desire to help students succeed. And yet, education does not operate on a framework to help teachers succeed. For teachers to be ready and willing to do their best, we must set them up for success.

Crucial Conversations

     Any conversation has the potential to be a crucial conversation. In the book, Crucial Conversations:  Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, the authors define such conversations as a discussion between two or more people where the stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong.  In one brief instant any conversation can become crucial.  While we may feel angry, scared, or hurt, it is important to look inward.  Locate your North Star, your original purpose.  Ask yourself these four critical questions: 

1. What do I really want for myself?
2. What do I really want for others?
3. What do I really want for the relationship?
4. How would I behave if I really wanted these results? 

Remember crucial conversations transform people and relationships.  It’s not my way or your way, it is a new way—a better way.

Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2002).  Crucial conversations:  Tools for talking when stakes are high.  New York: McGraw-Hill

Asking the Right Questions

It is School Improvement season in Pennsylvania!  I have been reading Edie Holcomb's book, Asking the Right Questions.  In her book, Holcomb frames the change process in these five questions:

1. Where are we now?
2. Where do we want to go?
3. How will we get there?
4. How will we know we are (getting) there?
5. How will we sustain focus and momentum?

Working with a district team this week, we began the process of answering question 4.  Once the team begins to implement their action plan, how will they know they are moving in the right direction?  We spent a great deal of time thinking through the process of developing indicators of implementation and evidence of effectiveness. We agreed that it was important for all stakeholders to participate in a conversation that examined the observable behaviors and artifacts that would result from implementation of their plan.  What would implementation look like?  Sound like? What would teachers be doing? Students? Administrators?  By working through these indicators, teams would be developing a common language that promotes understanding, consistency and commitment to the plan.

Holcomb, E.L. (2009).  Asking the right questions:  Tools for collaboration and school change (3rd ed.).  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Corwin Press.
Photo retreived October 23, 2009 from people.exeter.ac.uk/nkjdatta/photos/uk/dartmoor/.

Living in the Digital World

Lately, I have been spending more and more time in the "digital world".  Our Instructional Technology Specialist, Ann Johnston, has been more than patient with me over the last year.  When she first talked with me about tech tools that I could utilize in my role here at the IU, I told her that I didn't have time to learn all that "techie" stuff.  In November of 2008, I heard Will Richardson speak at the PASCD Annual Conference.  As he shared his passion for all things digital and how to incorporate these tools into the classroom, I started to think more about the digital world.  I started spending more time reading on the web.  Soon, Ann helped me capture feeds onto an iGoogle page and eventually to Twitter!  It was through the awesome educators that I follow on Twitter and the example of colleagues such as Ann and Kelly Pauling, (see Kelly's Curriculum Corner) that I decided to test the waters of blogging.  My hope is to share thoughts in the area of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment and perhaps serve as a catalyst for your own thinking in this area.  I hope you visit often and share your thoughts as well!