Mentoring and Coaching New Teachers: A Comprehensive Approach to New Teacher Induction

Who Should Participate

Mentor teachers, building and district administrators, mentor program coordinators, professional developers, teacher education faculty, and state education agency staff

Goals of the Sessions

The sessions are designed to enhance individual and organizational capacity within schools and districts to provide content-based mentoring and coaching of new teachers, create structures and strategies that support effective and sustained implementation of mentoring/coaching programs, and assess and evaluate the impact of mentoring/coaching programs.

Format of the Sessions

Learning sessions range from two- or three-day workshops up to yearlong strands to support site-based implementation.

What You Learn

Session I: Essential Skills for Mentoring New Teachers (three- to five-day workshop plus one to three full-day follow-up sessions):

• Clarify qualities and roles of effective mentor teachers.
• Understand the needs of new teachers, how those needs shift throughout the school year, and the implications for a mentor’s role given these changing needs.
• Deepen understanding of teaching and learning standards.
• Engage with research-informed practices and critical elements of effective content-based approaches to mentoring and coaching.
• Enhance understanding of and ability to apply essential mentoring and coaching skills.

Session II: Essential Skills for Mentoring New-Teacher Alternative Certification Candidates (three- to five-day workshop plus one to three full-day follow-up sessions):

• Presents Session 1 content with a particular emphasis on the alternative certification process.

Session III: Lead Mentor Training: Enhancing Teacher Leadership to Mentor and Coach New Teachers (up to four workshop days and up to six site-based days):

• Builds on Session I and focuses on implementation practice and personal coaching.

Session IV: The Administrator’s Role in Mentoring and Coaching New Teachers (three-day workshop):

• Focuses on practical strategies and structures to ensure effective implementation of mentoring and coaching programs. Introduces a collaborative evaluation tool to use in assessing and evaluating mentoring and coaching programs.

Session V: A Professional Development Design Course for Professional Developers (three-day workshop):

• Focuses on the elements of powerful learning, the implications for designing professional development, and learning about a framework for designing content-based professional development for teachers across the continuum.

Who Facilitates Your Learning

Kathy Dunne and Susan Villani of Learning Innovations at WestEd share over 30 years of experience in designing and facilitating professional learning sessions about mentoring and coaching for teachers, administrators, and state department of education personnel. Other Learning Innovations staff provide content-specific expertise and are available to provide formative and summative evaluation of mentoring and coaching programs.

What Resources Support Your Learning

Three key documents authored by WestEd staff structure and inform the learning sessions: Mentoring New Teachers Through Collaborative Coaching: Linking Teacher and Student Learning; Mentoring New Teachers Through Collaborative Coaching: Facilitation and Training Guide; and Mentoring Programs for New Teachers: Models of Induction and Support (see pages 67 and 69).

What the Research Says

Up to half of new teachers leave the profession within the first few years of teaching, yet effective mentor programs can increase the retention of new teachers to rates of 80-90 percent (Villani, 2002).

Cost

Workshops and technical assistance days range from $2,000–$4,000 per day. There may be an additional materials fee.

Contact Information

Kathy Dunne
781.481.1102
kdunne@wested.org