Mentoring in Schools a INDUCAS course by Margarida Pereira

Margarida Pereira´s Learning Diary

margaridacfp — 2017-05-20 17:36:52 UTC

About me...

margaridacfp — 2017-05-20 17:52:16 UTC

Hi, everybody! My name is Margarida. I am a Math Teacher in Matosinhos, a beautiful city in the north of Portugal.
I like technology, but it´s not way easy to implement it in my teaching practice.
The school I work at is quite big and recently was renewed.

There are more than 1,000 students aged 13-18.

margaridacfp — 2017-05-20 19:25:23 UTC

My students have the chance to access the Internet from home or from school.
I do not have my own classroom and rotate around different rooms throughout the day. Classroom layout is very traditional and students sit in rows in front of the teacher's desk but we have internet access in all of them.
There are projectors in all de classrooms and some interactive whiteboards but almost nobody uses them. We also have classrooms with computers to ICT classes.

MODULE 1: The role of the mentor

margaridacfp — 2017-05-20 19:29:59 UTC

Through this module, you will:

Understand different approaches to mentoring
Understand how working with newly qualified teachers is different (and similar) to working with more experienced colleagues
Understand how you as a mentor can facilitate your mentee to find their place in the school
Reflect about how you understand the relationship to your mentee
Reflect on your own mentoring practices
Reflect on the support you received when starting out and any extra support you would have appreciated
Discuss the pros and cons of doing summative evaluations of your mentees work

1.1 Mentoring – an introduction

Interview with Professor Sharon Feiman-Nemser

Local guides - show mentee how things work
Educational companions - teachers of teaching, keep their eye on long-term goals of mentee’s learning
Agents of change - create collaborative school environment where mentee can feel safe and supported across the school

after my vote the situation was:

1.2 Getting started with a mentoring relationship

margaridacfp — 2017-05-20 21:41:09 UTC

a point made by Professor Feiman-Nemser in section 1 about the process of learning happening not only at mentee level but also at mentor level. Therefore, in order for your mentoring relationship to succeed it is important that you understand it also as a form of developing your own practice as an educator.
Rachel Lofthouse provides some general advice to new mentors
- be authentic
- draw from own experience
- find out the expectations of your mentee

1.3 Mentoring beginning teachers

margaridacfp — 2017-05-20 22:01:27 UTC

O meu contributo: When mentoring teachers who already have some experience you have to be more careful about the way you talk. Let they explain ther points of view when making a decision

1.4 Mentoring “beyond” the classroom

margaridacfp — 2017-05-20 22:17:28 UTC

How you as a mentor support your mentee “beyond” the classroom. “Beyond” the classroom refers here to any work of the mentee that is crucial to their role as a teacher but does not happen directly in the classroom. For example, working with parents and other school stakeholders, or understanding school hierarchies and how to work best with school leaders, or simply about developing a positive relationship with teacher colleagues.

Rachel lofthouse:
- open doors
- advise who to talk to
- be a role model in your school community
- reharse likely situations with your mentee

1.5 What to avoid in a mentoring relationship?

margaridacfp — 2017-05-20 22:32:41 UTC

Rachel Lofthouse:
- remember that your way might not be the right for your mentee
- help your mentee to stand on their own feet as a professional and not just in the context of their school
- avoid giving the impression you have finished learning yourself
- avoid bringing judgments into the relationship early on
- avoid summative judgment if possible

Modulo 2: Mentoring through Collaborative Conversations

margaridacfp — 2017-06-04 20:17:51 UTC

In this module you should ideally:

Understand the role of collaboration in a mentoring relationship
Understand the importance of mutual trust in a mentoring relationship and how to develop such trust
Understand the importance to scaffold, stimulate, and question in conversations with your mentee and some strategies to do so
Identify collaborative projects you could embark on with your mentee
Reflect on how to implement trust-building approaches in your context
Discuss an effective discussion and feedback approach for a typical mentoring scenario
Identify development goals and actionable steps to achieve those goals

2.1 Collaborating with your Mentee

margaridacfp — 2017-06-04 20:27:52 UTC

I´m not a mentor.
Iíi love to explore with a mentee the use of technology in math classes

2.2 Developing a Climate of Trust with your Mentee

margaridacfp — 2017-06-04 20:28:57 UTC

Creating a safe environment for sharing
Having an open door (literally and metaphorically)
Structuring goal setting conversation(s) to avoid misalignment of expectations
Helping build connections with community and colleagues
Including the person in school (and social) activities
Demonstrating appreciation and belief in your colleague(s)
Respecting confidential nature of relationship
Remaining non-judgemental
Walking in the person's shoes
Avoiding the "you shoulds" via providing a menu of options for the person to consider
Following through on next steps
Being receptive to feedback yourself
Celebrating diversity of thoughts and perspectives
Focusing on each other's strengths

Activity

“Creating a safe environment for sharing “

by Teresa Novais

The environment of trust is necessary to work without the scare of being judge

2.3 Stimulating and scaffolding thoughtful reflection and discussion

margaridacfp — 2017-06-04 20:44:47 UTC

Stephen Covey, :

“Most people do no listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply.”

Activity

What do you tell your mentee?
What questions will you ask him?
What information do you share with him?
What will you address first, what last?

Module 3: Effective lesson observations for mentoring

margaridacfp — 2017-06-04 21:06:39 UTC

In this module you should ideally:

Understand how to prepare a lesson observation
Reflect on the use of a good pro-forma for recording data and information for an observation
Understand the potential of involving students in lesson observations
Understand general strategies to use after a lesson observation
Develop ideas on how to phrase feedback effectively
Reflect on bad feedback practices
Identify development goals and actionable steps to achieve those goals

3.1 Preparing a lesson observation

margaridacfp — 2017-06-04 21:39:52 UTC

I had never do lesson observations.
I have been observed. The supervisor fill a table from 1 to 10 of itens that came from the

Education ministry. thre was no discussion of the itens and the supervisor was a college

3.2 Involving students in lesson observations

margaridacfp — 2017-06-04 21:56:50 UTC

Furthermore, even though you will be sitting in the classroom with the pupils, your perspective and experience of the lesson will still be naturally very different to that of the students, who should ultimately be the benefactors of any changes in practice as a result of the observation.

For the reasons above, it can, therefore, be quite useful to involve students in your observation process.

ativity:

I do not agree to put students as evaluators of teachers' practices.
They should be focused on their tasks and activities and not on the responsibility of evaluating.
Of course, in the end we always have an informal response from them about how the class took place

3.3 Providing effective feedback after a lesson observation

margaridacfp — 2017-06-04 22:06:51 UTC

Rachel highlights a point about framing the feedback conversation in such a way so that it empowers the mentee to purposefully reflect about their own practice giving themselves a sense of agency to develop their own practice.

margaridacfp — 2017-06-04 22:12:04 UTC

3.4 Participate in our Course Teachmeet!

margaridacfp — 2017-06-04 22:23:57 UTC

Module 4: Online mentoring and the use of video in mentoring

margaridacfp — 2017-06-14 21:14:38 UTC

Using Video for Mentoring and Coaching

In this module you will:

Understand the benefits and challenges of using video in a mentoring context
Understand practical factors to consider when using videos for lesson observation discussions
Understand how online mentoring can provide new opportunities for you as a mentor
Understand the challenges of online mentoring
Explore and experiment with technical tools that can assist in the work with video and when mentoring online
Complete the final self-evaluation and development plan and submit for review
Provide feedback to the self-evaluations and development plans of three peers

4.1 Using Video for Mentoring

margaridacfp — 2017-06-14 21:17:49 UTC

Video-recording provides teachers with access to their own practice in a way previously not possible, and this has the power to re-frame a teacher’s view of students, of learning and of themselves
video will never capture everything going on in a lesson and it’s important to be aware of the limits of what we can capture with a recording

4.2 Mentoring Online

margaridacfp — 2017-06-14 21:23:06 UTC

loose the human factor

4.3 Tools to support online mentoring and the use of video

margaridacfp — 2017-06-14 21:27:56 UTC

IRIS Connect
Teachem
Skype or Google Hangout
Google Suite or Office 365 tools