Mentoring
A strong mentoring program is essential to the success of new teachers. The mentorship program should include a series of formal and informal meetings between the mentee, the mentor, and the administration. The focus of these meetings should be instructional and should help ease new teachers’ assimilation into the school and into teaching.
The first step is to find a mentor, preferably one in the new teacher’s subject area, who is vibrant and enthusiastic. Mentors should imbue a positive attitude and they should love the opportunity and the challenge of helping to develop and to mold a new teacher into a vital and contributing member of the school’s team. They should also enjoy and understand the teaching process. Additionally, they should be well grounded in the philosophies of the school.
It is especially important for administrators to avoid assigning mentors who are weak instructionally or who have a poor attitude. These teachers will not be able to provide the new teacher with the necessary technical or emotional support.
The mentor program should include instruction in how to create lesson plans and how to utilize these plans to enhance instruction. One area of weakness that I have observed in new teachers is that their lesson planning lacks depth and they lack clear and focused goals. Mentors can help new teachers avoid the pratfalls of Nellie by working with them on the components of good lesson planning. Administrators can help the new teacher in this area by covering the standard expectation for lesson planning and providing the new teacher with a template to make their job easier and less stressful.
Lesson plans should be thorough. They should contain the objectives for the lesson and the teaching methods that will be employed. They should also be very specific about the content and the materials that will be covered in the class. Additionally, the teacher should indicate how students will be assessed at the conclusion of the class. Assessments should take a number of different formats. Learning to design, to deliver, and to assess instruction are a major component of instruction that better learned by new teachers in the school setting. The guidance of the mentor and the administrator at this point of teacher preparation are essential.
