Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on equity, edtech innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year’s 9th most-read story focuses on first-year teaching supports.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

This is my first year as a teacher and I’m teaching sixth grade, so both my students and I are new to the school. I’m wondering if you have any advice for how to make students feel welcome in a new building? — I’m New Here

Dear I’m New Here,

Congratulations and welcome to the classroom. You are about to learn the magic of classroom leadership. 

You have a toolbox of strategies from your pre-teacher service work. Use them. You will need to try all of those strategies and see which ones work for you.  

I teach 12th grade now, but when I was a middle school teacher, I was constantly thinking of ways to reach students. I felt like I spent more time managing behaviors than teaching. To fix the problem, I planned amazing lessons that would flop because the kids would either stare at me without paying attention or refuse to turn in assignments. I remember being so frustrated and ready to quit. 

Today, during parent-teacher conferences, a parent approached me and asked, “Did you used to teach at Meramec Elementary School?” I could not believe my eyes because this woman looked exactly like a fifth grader from my first teaching assignment. She told me her name and I was transported back to 2001 when this 10-year-old wore two long braids and smiled all the time. 

She shared great memories and told me how much I influenced her life. This now-adult told me my presence meant the world to her. I found her message heartwarming and timely because for me, it was hard to believe my first year of teaching was a good experience for her. 

The truth is when you teach middle schoolers, you feel like you don’t make a difference. I learned from this former student that I was wrong. As a first-year middle school teacher, you can be successful and impact adolescents’ lives. 

Here’s how to get through your first school year

Bad advice abounds, ignore it! When I graduated with my master’s degree in education, there was a popular book that urged teachers not to smile for the first days of school. We were advised not to smile because we needed to send a message that we meant business. The theory was if we wanted respect from students, we had to communicate that we were no-nonsense educators who wanted conformity.

That did not work for me at all. I started smiling on the first day and felt like a total failure. I continued to smile every day because I realized the stern approach does not work for me. 

I finally asked myself what does work. The answer: authenticity. I needed to show up as me. 

Think of the old Bible story of David and Goliath. David was a teenager who wore an adult soldier’s tin uniform. The strange armor and borrowed weapons ended up hurting more than helping him, so instead he threw a stone to slay the giant. 

In the same way I continued to smile and David dropped that armor, don’t be afraid to lose whatever you were told or taught that isn’t working. 

Don’t isolate yourself. Most of the time, you will be alone with 20-30 students. Though you might not feel it yet in the excitement of your first year, being in a classroom with students all day can be tiring. 

If you’re like me, around the third or fourth hour of each day you might begin to question your decisions in the classroom and might even wonder if you have chosen the right career. 

This is a daily occurrence. Having teacher friends reminds you this is normal and to see the bigger picture. We have a big task and teachers support each other. 

In my first year, I made friends by eating lunch in the teacher’s lounge and planning lessons with grade-level teachers.

Decide what you value. Are you a teacher who values conformity over free thinking and expression? 

Someone who values conformity might emphasize strict due dates, teacher-enforced rules and consequences, and lecture-style learning. 

Someone who prefers free thinking in the classroom might tolerate late work policies, student-created rules, student choice teaching such as stations and differentiated instruction. 

Whatever you value as a teacher should be represented in the physical and social environment of your classroom. 

– Physical environment – Consider the systems you will use to communicate your values. If you lean toward a student-centered classroom, a system could be as simple as identifying space in your classroom where students can access basic supplies such as a pencil or Chromebook charger.

What are your non-traditional seating options? I follow on YouTube a middle school teacher, Joy Bazzle, who uses spin bikes for desks. She has standing desks and wobble boards. Her classroom has great energy. 

Avoid items in your classroom that can cause bad feelings for students. My high school students have shared with me unfortunate memories of their names being on the board or the color being red on a classroom behavior chart at the end of the day. They recount times of missing recess or not attending popcorn parties. These punishments did not change their behaviors, the students said. They felt targeted.

Will your behavior management system convey feelings of superiority and exclusion? 

– Social environment -How will you encourage students to interact? Consider equitable systems for calling on students to participate in discussions. Trust students by including more movement in tasks where students are only using paper and pencil.

In my own classroom, I use fishbowl strategies to encourage discussions and debates. An easy way to incorporate movement and encourage discussion is to take an anticipation guide and have students move across the room based on whether they agree or disagree. 

Support students as individuals. As teachers, we’re trained to see who’s not doing what we asked or to prioritize finding mistakes. I have found that providing affirmation and validation are worth learning. 

Spend more time finding and acknowledging the ways in which you and your students are growing to help change the narrative that schools are a place of discipline. 

You could use your wall space to provide positive reinforcement and encouragement. If you set up your classroom as a place of cooperative education, it can create an opportunity for additional buy-in, especially from reluctant learners.

Build a community of learners. My No. 1 goal is to help children learn as much from each other as they do from me. I make it clear that everyone in class doesn’t have to be best friends. But as long as we are assembled together in a classroom, we will listen and hear one another, accept each others’ differences, and recognize strengths and how each student can contribute to the classroom environment. 

Sixth grade teachers can also facilitate collaboration. My favorite go-to strategies as a middle school teacher were the annual poetry slam and the million dollar project. There are other ideas to deepen student collaboration.

I’m New Here, teacher programs attempt to imitate the complexities of your first year as a teacher but it is nearly impossible to know what every classroom and every student will be like when you take over your classroom. 

Know that you will survive and what you learn this year will stick with you for a lifetime.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education.

Related:
3 ways to bring teacher PD into the 21st century
6 key elements to build a successful coaching program
For more news on teacher supports, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership page

Key points:

• It’s time to stop fearing AI and welcome the potential it has for student success
• See also: Empowering educators through holistic teacher PD
• See also: Teacher Q&A: Strengthening PD with AI
• For more news on teacher PD, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership page

Last fall, ChatGPT, an AI-powered language model, became the subject of widespread discussion, from lighthearted memes about robots taking over to genuine confusion about the capabilities and implications of AI. While we have come to understand this technology better, there still remains hesitancy and caution surrounding AI and its integration into education. A prime example was the New York City School System, which had prohibited students and teachers from accessing ChatGPT’s website on school computers.

This hesitation is understandable, as any new technology brings about both excitement and trepidation. However, it is essential for educators and instructional coaches to embrace emerging technologies like AI, as doing otherwise would mean doing our students a disservice. By integrating AI into the classroom, we have the opportunity to enhance teaching practices, coaching conversations, and ultimately support student success in innovative and meaningful ways.

AI in instructional coaching: Analyzing practices and breaking down conversations

AI, and specifically generative AI tools, are revolutionizing instructional coaching by providing powerful insights and analysis into teaching practices. These tools can analyze coaching conversations, identify patterns, and offer targeted recommendations for improvement. With the assistance of AI, instructional coaches can gain a deeper understanding of effective teaching techniques and those that may need refinement.

Generative AI tools can also help coaches break down coaching conversations and highlight essential points that may have been missed during the session. These tools can transcribe and analyze coaching conversations in real time, providing coaches with valuable data and insights into the teacher’s instructional strategies, student engagement, and areas for growth.

Moreover, AI is not limited to analyzing coaching conversations alone. It can also process a wide range of data, including instructional materials, student work, and assessment results, to offer evidence-based insights. This wealth of information equips instructional coaches with a holistic view of the classroom environment, enabling them to provide targeted support and guidance to teachers.

Beyond generative AI: Exploring the full potential of emerging AI technologies

While generative AI tools have shown tremendous potential in instructional coaching, it is important to recognize that they are just one piece of the puzzle. The field of AI is rapidly evolving, and educators should explore various emerging AI technologies to amplify the impact of instructional coaching.

For instance, machine learning algorithms can help identify teaching practices that lead to improved student outcomes by analyzing large datasets and pinpointing effective strategies. Natural language processing (NLP) enables coaches to analyze student feedback and identify trends or areas of concern. Computer vision technologies can revolutionize classroom observations by automating the process and providing objective insights.

Additionally, AI-powered recommendation systems can suggest personalized professional development resources for teachers based on their specific needs and areas of growth. Virtual reality and augmented reality can create immersive learning experiences, enabling teachers to explore innovative pedagogical approaches and enhance student engagement.

By harnessing the power of these emerging AI technologies, instructional coaches can perform their jobs more efficiently and effectively. They can focus their efforts on targeted interventions, provide timely feedback, and support teachers in adopting evidence-based practices.

AI technologies in instructional coaching: No longer an option but a necessity

Incorporating emerging AI technologies in instructional coaching is no longer an option but a necessity. The hesitancy around AI and new technologies is understandable, but it is crucial to recognize the immense potential they hold for enhancing teaching practices, breaking down coaching conversations, and ultimately supporting student success.

Generative AI tools, alongside other emerging AI technologies like machine learning, computer vision, and recommendation systems, offer powerful insights and analysis that can transform instructional coaching. By embracing these technologies and leveraging their capabilities, instructional coaches can provide personalized guidance, target areas for improvement, and help teachers create meaningful learning experiences for their students.

As AI continues to evolve, it is imperative for educators and instructional coaches to stay curious, informed, and adaptable. By embracing the possibilities that AI offers in education, we can pave the way for more effective instructional coaching and ensure that our students thrive in a rapidly changing world.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

Twelve years ago, when I left a career as a lawyer to become a history teacher, my vision of what a “good teacher” looked like was shaped in part by movies, such as “Stand and Deliver” and “To Sir, With Love,” which depict teachers who overcome institutional dysfunction to connect with students and inspire them to achieve their potential.

Watching “To Sir, With Love” was even a course requirement in my teacher residency program. It was with great trepidation — knowing that I could not live up to this model but wanting to do my best — that I took my job teaching social studies at a small public high school in the Bronx.

I spent the next decade at that same small school, and my time there reshaped my view of what makes a good teacher. The movie model, I learned, underplays the extent to which a school’s success depends on collaboration and on an interconnected web of complementary skills of teachers and school staff.

No one can be all things to all students, yet all students need love and a reason to show up. This requires a team capable of providing academic skills and content as well as consistency, emotional support, extracurricular activities, and so much more.

Who is needed on this team? I expected the obvious: general content teachers, teachers who work with English language learners and students with disabilities, counselors, social workers, paraprofessionals, and other support staff. In practice, I found that what is really needed is staff who can learn from each other and how to support each other.

Last year, as I watched my co-teacher quickly defuse a cranky student with humorous banter — a skill I never did acquire — I appreciated again how much a school needs these different strengths. His action allowed me to calmly steer all the students back to the history lesson at hand. While I benefited from his deep connection with our students, other teachers learned from my organizational skills, which I used to map out curriculum, break down standards, and track student progress.

Schools, I’ve learned, need teachers who are adept at differentiating instruction for individual learning needs, tutoring small groups, and instructing dozens of students for multiple periods in a single day without a break between classes. They need teachers who know the latest scholarship and those who know the latest social media platforms. They need teachers with physical and mental endurance, but they also need teachers who struggle physically or emotionally. There are lessons that cannot be explicitly taught.

They need teachers and staff who can anticipate and prevent conflicts from happening, those who will jump in to contain a fight, those who can calm a classroom after a conflict raises adrenaline and brings everyone close to an emotional edge, and those who can mediate conflict afterward, bringing healing to the whole community.

Schools need teachers with high expectations and teachers with a deep, personal knowledge of the stresses and life experiences that can make it difficult for children to get to school in the morning and live up to their potential.

They need school staff who speak the home languages of the students and teachers who reflect the students’ ethnic, religious, and racial backgrounds. They need educators who are willing to reflect on their own assumptions, privileges, and biases, and those who are adept at leading others in that process. They need teachers who are not afraid to have hard conversations with students about class, race, gender, and other challenging subjects, and who know how to create productive spaces for them to occur.

Schools need staff members with connections to other professionals, the community, and those in the trades. They need those willing to organize school-wide events that build a sense of belonging, and those who will organize field trips even when funding or transportation pose challenges.

They need teachers with naturally loud voices that can reach across a classroom or outdoor space, and they need those who talk softly and force the students to learn to listen more attentively. They need introverts and extroverts.

They need teachers and staff members who recognize neglect, hunger, and abuse, and those who recognize a student’s hidden genius as a writer, philosopher, artist, poet, or engineer. They need teachers who know when to quietly bring a box of tissues, when to text a counselor or consult a social worker, and how to build trust with a student.

They need teachers who laugh and those who make the students laugh. They need teachers who can laugh at themselves.

It took time for me to fit into the web of my small school. What ultimately made me a good teacher there was recognizing and drawing upon my own strengths and the strengths of my colleagues. Supplementing individual performance reviews with celebrations of teamwork among school staff could result in happier and healthier workplaces and reduce teacher turnover.

I never did replicate the movie model, but I found in my colleagues the strength and skills to give my best to my students. Although I left teaching reluctantly in June due to the accumulated strain of the work, which increased astronomically after COVID, and the commute, it was especially hard to leave my fellow educators.

This is my love letter and thank you note to my former colleagues. It is also a plea that we do more to acknowledge all of the amazing people who, working together, make a school a good place to learn and grow.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education.

Related:
Investing in mentorship can help the teacher retention crisis
Empowering educators through holistic teacher PD
For more news on teacher PD, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership page

Key points:

• Video coaching is a great way to encourage self-reflective teaching
• New teachers are more likely to stay with supports in place
• See related article: 9 big ideas to bolster the teaching profession and boost student learning
• For more news on teacher PD, see eSN’s Educational Leadership page

At the Van Winkle Early Childhood Center within Jackson Public School District in Mississippi, we enroll students for one year to prepare them for kindergarten. Family engagement is critical to a student’s success throughout their academic career, so we also help prepare families to support their children every step of the way.

We believe that successful mentoring and instructional coaching sustains teachers, especially new ones, throughout the year and improves their ability to build strong relationships with students and families. To ensure that our mentoring and coaching is intentional, focused, and fits into everyone’s tight schedules, we recently began using video. Here’s how it works.

How video coaching works

Because video coaching is new to our school, I have been taking the recordings myself this year. I just ask if I can record for a few minutes so that teachers can see themselves from a different perspective.

Next year, I plan to ask teachers to volunteer to record part of a lesson. They may capture a few minutes of their class to receive feedback on an instructional practice they would like to improve or to highlight something they do particularly well that they would like to share with their colleagues. Everyone is good at something, and it’s important to focus on what teachers do well in addition to the areas where they need a little more support.

Another way we are using video this year is to improve the efficacy of model teaching. In that case, I will record the lead teacher or another teacher who excels in the instructional practice we’re targeting. Then we watch the video in a professional learning community (PLC), talk about it together, and have the teachers model the skills they saw in the demonstration. We ask them not to mimic the model teacher exactly, but to put their own spin on it. When teachers are creative and put their own personality into their instruction, they have more fun and build stronger connections with their students. We don’t want them to simply go through the motions of excellent teaching, but to make effective practices their own.

One thing I like about using video recorded in actual classrooms is that it includes all the complications and interruptions of real life. When we first began, one of our teachers felt bad that a student came up to talk to her in the middle of her recording. But that’s a classroom. Especially in a classroom full of very young students, there are going to be distractions and interruptions to deal with. Including those moments portrays the reality of the work, and sometimes they provide their own teachable moments.

Building rapport to support teacher growth

In the beginning, some teachers were hesitant to be recorded because they worried it would be used to negatively critique them. When I emphasized that the video I was capturing was only intended to help them build their capacity as teachers, they became more comfortable and, in many cases, even eager to see themselves teaching.

I already have pretty good rapport with my teachers, so there was a foundation of trust there to build on. To get the most out of video coaching, teachers need to know that you’re there to support them and give them what they need. If they understand that you’re not there to judge them, but only to help them improve so they can have a long and successful career, they’re more likely to be vulnerable and self-reflective about their practice.

To be most effective, we have found that video coaching should be consistent, intentional, and timely. Being consistent does mean that we are gathering video regularly, but it also means checking in with teachers about their progress. I like to go back once a week to see if they need any additional support on the teaching practices they are currently working on or are ready to begin targeting another area of improvement.

When it comes to video coaching, for us, being intentional means that we are focusing on one area of improvement at a time. If you give someone a laundry list of things to work on, they will feel overwhelmed and may even become demoralized. I find that it’s most effective to focus on one thing at a time, such as teacher-student interaction, facilitating center rotation activities, or small-group work.

When providing feedback, the first thing to keep in mind is that it should be timely. If you wait too long, it can begin to feel less relevant. We use Teaching Channel’s Platform to capture video for coaching, and it allows coaches and mentors to leave comments on the video itself. This helps teachers to see exactly what their coach is referencing as they watch their own video.

I have found that feedback is more effective when teachers take the lead in observing themselves. It ensures that they are working on something they are motivated to improve and helps develop a habit of self-reflection about their own practice. I like to watch their videos with them and ask them what they see that could be improved before I say anything. Then we talk together about what they might do differently to make that improvement. I keep it to one suggestion at a time, again, to avoid overwhelming them with too much to do. If it doesn’t work, we go back to the drawing board–or a new video–and come up with a new plan to improve. Once they are happy with their growth in that area, we move on to something else to improve.

Growing teacher support into the future

I believe that everyone is capable of growth and improvement, so I am working on ways to improve our coaching and mentoring techniques as well. I plan to introduce pre-assessments and post-assessments to ensure that teacher growth is translating into student growth.

I also plan to improve teacher retention by offering new teachers as much support as we can from the beginning of the school year. We’ll begin gathering video right away so that we can show them later in the year how far they’ve come.

Most novice teachers leave the field within a few years, so we want to be sure they know they are getting better at the job. Beginning right when the school year starts will also ensure that we are checking in with them to talk about the issues new teachers tend to have in an early childhood classroom. Questions like, “What do you see in your circle time? Are your rules intentional? When you have to correct a student, are you talking to them about why you have the rule?” can go a long way toward helping a new teacher feel more comfortable in the classroom and find their rhythm.

With assurance that it will only be used to support teacher growth, video coaching is a great way to encourage teachers to be self-reflective about their practice. With timely, targeted, and teacher-led feedback, it’s an incredible tool for nurturing educator growth that feels relevant and important to each teacher.

This article originally appeared on the Clayton Christensen Institute’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

Key points:

• Don’t simply fill a teacher shortage with virtual teachers
• Get creative with a clear and smart goal of boosting every child’s learning
• See related article: Teacher shortages are worrying the majority of K-12 parents
• For more news on teacher shortages, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership page

“Fueled by teacher shortages,” we’re told in a recent article in The74, “Zoom-in-a-Room” is making a comeback.

If this is the case, although it’s better than the alternative—no teacher at all—it’s also a missed opportunity for deeper innovation.

As reporter Linda Jacobson noted in the article, online learning has long been used in schools for subjects they couldn’t otherwise offer. She cited A.P. Calculus and Latin as examples. But even courses we think of as fundamental—physics, for example—have long been glaring areas where schools haven’t had qualified teachers. As I wrote nearly a decade ago, “less than two-thirds of high schools–63%–offer physics. Only about half of high schools offer calculus. Among high schools that serve large percentages of African-American and Latino students, one in four don’t offer Algebra II, and one in three don’t offer chemistry.”

According to Jacobsen, “as districts struggle to fill teaching vacancies, they are increasingly turning to companies like Proximity to teach core subjects.” The practice is one in which the teacher of record delivers whole-class learning virtually, and an in-person monitor—often a substitute teacher—tracks behavior and ensures students do their work.

In some ways, this use of online learning could be a classic case of a disruptive innovation, which begins as a primitive innovation. As a result, disruptive innovations typically start by serving areas of nonconsumption—where the alternative is nothing at all. By outperforming this alternative, disruptive innovations can take root and improve over time until they take over.

Back in 2008 when we published Disrupting Class, we suggested that teacher shortages could represent a significant area of nonconsumption into which online learning could make its mark and begin to transform classrooms from monolithic, one-size-fits-none environments to student-centered ones that customized for the individual needs of each and every learner.

But for this to occur, the use of online learning shouldn’t just be to pipe in a virtual teacher that delivers more one-size-fits-none, whole-group instruction. It would seem that there’s not a lot of room for improvement in that model.

Instead, schools ought to be taking these opportunities to do what Heather Staker and I described in Blended—offering a la carte online courses with great digital curriculum mixed with elements of the Flex or Individual Rotation models of blended learning that match the path and pace of each individual’s students’ learning needs.

Just as Teach to One uses a mix of in-person and online teachers to deliver a personalized-learning pathway for every student in middle-school math, so, too, could schools begin to assemble blended-learning options that leverage virtual teachers but do so in formats that move beyond standardized instruction and incorporate a variety of engaging learning modalities; ranging from direct instruction tailored to a novice learner’s level to rich, real-world projects that allow a student to apply their learning of knowledge and skills in real performances, and from heads-down, solo learning experiences with software, offline work, or virtual tutors to small-group conversations and explorations.

These sorts of models would take advantage of the online format by delivering a tailored learning experience for each student rather than beaming a remote teacher into classes to do the same old, same old that hasn’t been working—and, as we saw with “Zoom-in-a-room” during COVID, was likely even less effective.

As Mallory Dwinal wrote in 2015 when she explored the opportunity for innovating where there are teacher shortages, states could also help by allowing these experiences to move away from seat-time requirements to mastery- or competency-based learning and giving districts some resources to evaluate and select the appropriate learning models.

So here’s my challenge to districts: Next time you see a teacher shortage, don’t just sub in a virtual teacher and fill the seat. Instead, get creative with a clear and smart goal of boosting every child’s learning. Spend a bit of time thinking about how this could be an opportunity, not a threat. And use virtual talent to design a much more robust learning experience for all. That would be something worth talking about.

Key points:

• States are using inadequate elementary reading licensure tests
• States should transition to stronger tests and test providers should clearly identify weaknesses in tests
• See related article: Teacher Q&A: Strengthening PD with AI
• For more news on teacher prep, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership page

Most states (29 states and the District of Columbia) use a weak elementary teacher reading licensure test, meaning that they do not effectively measure teachers’ knowledge of scientifically based reading instruction prior to entering the classroom, according to a new analysis from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).

In fact, one state, Iowa, requires no reading licensure test at all. This shortcoming means that, every year, nearly 100,000 elementary teachers across the country enter classrooms with false assurances that they are ready to teach reading.

The data brief, False Assurances: Many states’ licensure tests don’t signal whether elementary teachers understand reading instruction, provides the most up-to-date analysis on the quality of elementary reading teacher licensure exams being used by each state.

More than 50 years of research has illuminated the most effective way to teach children to read. It requires systematic, explicit instruction in the five core components of the science of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Preparing teachers to teach these five components–known as scientifically-based reading instruction–can ensure more than 1 million additional students enter 4th grade able to read each year.

Unfortunately, far too often, states allow teachers into the classroom inadequately prepared to teach reading. Licensure exams, if rigorous and aligned to the science of reading, can serve as an important guardrail for making sure teachers have this critical knowledge. However, many licensure tests are weak in that they do not adequately assess teachers’ preparedness to teach reading. Far too many states are using these weak tests.

“Every child deserves great reading instruction, but far too many children aren’t receiving it,” said NCTQ President Heather Peske. “As part of a comprehensive strategy to improve reading instruction, states can help ensure teachers are prepared to teach reading effectively by requiring stronger licensure tests.”

Examining every elementary teacher reading licensure exam currently being used by states, NCTQ looked for evidence that the tests adequately address the five core components of reading. NCTQ also examined whether these tests devote undue attention to methods of reading instruction that have been debunked by research and
can hinder students from becoming strong readers, such as three-cueing.

Additionally, NCTQ checked whether these tests combine reading with other subjects. This is important because if subjects are combined, the teacher’s understanding of reading could be masked. Using these criteria, NCTQ determined whether tests were strong, acceptable, weak, or unacceptable.

Key national findings:

• Of the 25 elementary teacher reading licensure tests in use by states, the majority (15) are weak. Just six exams are rated “strong” and four are rated “acceptable.”
• Across these 15 weak licensure tests: Ten do not adequately address all five components of the science of reading and five combine reading with other subjects, such as social studies or science. (Note, one test fits into both categories listed above.) One includes too much emphasis on content contrary to research-based practices.
• The majority of states (29 states and the District of Columbia) use “weak” tests that do not signal whether teachers have the knowledge they need to teach students to read.

“Teachers who aren’t prepared in the most effective instructional practices for teaching reading unknowingly enter classrooms ill-prepared to help students become successful readers,” said Peske. “This lack of preparation has a profound impact on students’ literacy skills and future prospects, especially among students of color and
those living in poverty.”

Roughly one-third of children in elementary classrooms across the country cannot read at even a basic level by the middle of the fourth grade. The situation is even bleaker for historically marginalized students, for whom inadequate reading instruction is yet another barrier to educational equity, with 56 percent of Black students, 50 percent of Hispanic students, 52 percent of students in poverty, 70 percent of students with disabilities, and 67 percent of English Learners reading below basic reading levels.

Students who are not proficient readers are four times more likely to drop out of high school, face lower lifetime earnings, and have higher rates of unemployment.

Recommendations

To address this pressing issue, the NCTQ recommends the following solutions.

State education leaders should:

• Transition to a stronger reading licensure test: States select and approve the tests that their teachers must pass for licensure. Requiring a stronger test will likely lead to better reading instruction in elementary classrooms across the state as preparation programs will be motivated to align their courses with the components of reading addressed in a stronger test.
• Require a strong reading test for anyone teaching students in the elementary grades. In some cases, states require reading tests for general education elementary teachers but not for special education teachers or for early childhood teachers who are licensed to teach lower elementary grades. These loopholes ultimately hurt the students who most need teachers capable of building a foundation in literacy.

Testing companies should:

• Shore up weaknesses and clearly identify limitations in existing tests: Both major testing companies, ETS and Pearson, have strong and acceptable reading licensure tests on the market, but they also offer tests that omit numerous topics from the core components of reading, and that combine reading with other subjects, diluting the assessment’s ability to verify teachers’ reading knowledge.

This press release originally appeared online.

Key points:

• While mentorship is key for professional growth, it is often missing from training programs
• Mentorship can provide crucial help to early childhood educators in navigating challenges and overcoming obstacles
• See related article: Empowering educators through holistic teacher PD
• Get the latest news on teacher PD by visiting eSN’s Educational Leadership page

Mentorship is an essential aspect of professional growth and development for early childhood educators, but for many training programs, mentorship components are either not well supported or are missing altogether. Experience shows that it can be highly valuable for both the mentee and the mentor as well. Being a mentor to someone else is a rewarding leadership experience that allows one to give back to the profession and help shape the future of early childhood education.

If structured and designed well, a mentorship program can help early childhood educators grow and develop in their current careers by gaining new insights, knowledge, and skills from a more experienced colleague. The early childhood education field and its many training programs, certifications, specializations and professional training should invest in a quality mentorship component.

Mentorship programs are common across many industries and offer a structured and supportive approach to professional development. A mentor can provide guidance on best practices, share knowledge and experiences, and offer constructive feedback in the context of a deeper, more trusted relationship. Early childhood educators can benefit from a mentor’s expertise in areas such as child development, curriculum planning, and parent engagement, and often receive more practical and personal tips rooted in experience. 

Mentorship can also provide crucial help to early childhood educators in navigating challenges and overcoming obstacles in their professional lives. A mentor can provide emotional support, helping educators deal with the stresses and challenges of their work. They can also provide guidance on career advancement, helping educators set goals and achieve their professional aspirations. These supports help to retain educators, many of whom leave the field after just a few years on the job.

Historically, one reason coaching and mentorship programs are not standardized is because of the high cost associated with this additional component. Cost cutting or cost avoidance is symptomatic of broader underinvestment in early childhood educators. Mentorship programs, however, are important to building the foundation of childhood education and should be viewed through the lens of overall benefit as opposed to just cost. They strengthen and amplify the content of instruction and should be viewed as a core component and a best practice – not a nice-to-have add-on. 

Through partnerships with networks of schools, Bank Street College of Education has designed degree programs that add a mentoring component to the combination of coursework and coaching all aspiring teachers receive as part of their degree. Our report, Cultivating Powerful Mentorship in Educator Credential Programs, takes a close look at the different ways these programs were designed to identify key components critical to the development of an effective approach to mentoring. We found that:

1. Strong educators aren’t automatically strong mentors; they need training

Mentors are typically teachers who have been in the field for several years, but they may not be familiar with adult development or have experience working with a student teacher in their classroom. In order to make mentorship a powerful experience, programs need to provide sustained training to prepare mentor teachers to effectively support residents. Opportunities to reflect and learn with other mentors help them to continually grow their practice throughout the residency year. 

2. Mentor training can provide experienced teachers access to the latest professional standards

The field of education moves quickly, with new concepts or philosophies guiding teacher preparation. One of our programs supported new teachers learning how to teach English as a second language. When introducing the concepts of translanguaging, mentors were able to learn alongside residents and deepen their own practice. 

3. Mentoring can be designed as a paid leadership pathway to attract and retain highly qualified educators

Mentors should be well-compensated for their work in recognition of their time and the additional work required in the role. This should include paid time for training as well as mentoring hours – aligned with hourly rates for similar work. In addition, the opportunity to mentor a new educator needs to be valued and recognized as a leadership role to attract experienced educators to the role. If done effectively, this can create meaningful responsibilities for educators we want to retain in their teaching roles.

4. Set schedules and routines for mentor-resident engagement and collaboration are critical 

Scheduled time during the day for co-planning, reflective discussions, and learning together is essential for mentoring to be impactful. 

5. New teachers say a mentoring relationship kept them in the job

For many educators, the first few years of teaching are the most challenging. Given these obstacles, earlier career teachers are more likely to leave the field. Mentorship can support residents and prepare them to be lead teachers by providing them with real world experience. When in formal training programs, mentors can also help residents establish tangible connections between their coursework to experiences working with children.

Early childhood education is a profession that’s all about forging meaningful connections–between the educator and the child, social bonds among the children, bonds to new concepts and connections to communities, values, and new ideas. Mentoring builds those same meaningful connections between new and experienced early childhood educators–cementing lessons learned in coursework so they can be replicated in the classroom.

At a time of strained resources, burnout, and a teacher shortage, now is the time to invest in forging those connections through stronger, more personal approaches to professional development.

Key points:

• Best practices in professional development are advancing–and AI is taking it to a new level
• Here, one educator shares her experiences with AI-powered teacher coaching
• See related article: 9 big ideas to bolster the teaching profession and boost student learning

Just like educational technology is continually advancing, so are best practices for supporting teachers in classrooms. Professional development needs to be relevant, engaging, and personalized.

Megan Schlagel, a high school math teacher in St. Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont, Colo., is an award-winning educator who is dedicated to the continuous improvement of her teaching practices. As part of this dedication, Schlagel, as well as a number of her colleagues, are turning to innovative new approaches to support their learning. This includes the use of AI-powered teacher coaching via the AI Coach by Edthena platform.

With the platform, teachers like Schlagel engage in personalized coaching cycles to further their development. The platform uses artificial intelligence to guide teachers through a self-coaching cycle aligned to common growth areas as they watch video of their classroom teaching in action.

We recently interviewed Schlagel about the use of this new technology and how her district prioritizes teacher development. 

What were your first thoughts when you heard about using AI for professional learning? Why did you decide to try it?

Last year, I was a mentor to a first-year teacher at my school, and my mentee had to record a lesson of her teaching as part of the induction program. I decided to also record myself conducting a similar lesson, so we could go over the lessons together, discuss what works and what doesn’t, and set goals for improvement.  

This was my first real introduction to video coaching. Admittedly, even as a mentor teacher, I was nervous to record myself. However, I quickly learned it wasn’t that bad seeing myself on screen and that this was a powerful way to reflect on my practice. My mentee and I both learned a lot.

So, when my district offered a new professional development course that would allow us to try out AI coaching, I signed up. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was getting into, but I was already benefiting from video coaching and wanted to see what the new AI aspect was all about. At the very least, I knew this opportunity would provide me more time for self-reflection.

How does the AI coaching process work?

During my first time using the AI Coach platform, I uploaded a video of one of my recent algebra lessons. Then, the platform’s computerized coach provided observation tips and asked me a number of questions to consider as I began to analyze my video. This helped me as I made a number of comments on the platform—both about areas I wanted to improve upon and areas I felt I was excelling in—as I watched my teaching play out.

The guidance from the virtual coach helped me think more critically about my practice (…and it also made me laugh – the coach can definitely be funny and sassy at times!).

This helped me set a goal for myself around increasing student discourse. I wanted to encourage my students to talk more in class, and the platform provided me with a number of instructional resources to help me get better at this skill.

At the end of the coaching cycle, after I incorporated these strategies in the classroom, I came back to the platform and reflected on what I learned. I thought about how these new strategies worked and created an action plan for my continued learning in the future.

How has AI-powered coaching impacted your teaching?

What surprised me most about the AI coaching process was that it opened my eyes to different things I could change (and might have missed) about my teaching. I was able to really reflect on how I was teaching and how my students were responding. 

Sometimes it can be daunting—or even feel less genuine—when a coach or administrator comes in to conduct a formal observation. You may be worried about how your students are acting or unknowingly teach differently than normal.

But, with the AI Coach process, I feel less pressure because it really is just myself reflecting on my teaching alongside a computerized coach. This gives me more freedom to try out a new instructional strategy or take a risk with how I deliver a lesson, without having the feeling of being evaluated.

Continuous reflection is so important, and I’m a firm believer that the best teachers have to be reflective—if you aren’t reflecting on your practice, you aren’t growing!

How do you and your colleagues plan to use AI Coach by Edthena moving forward?

In addition to supplementing in-person coaching, I think AI coaching will continue to be a great support for mentor and mentee teachers alike.

In chats with my administrative team, I’ve also suggested using the AI Coach platform for our school’s yearly peer observations or self-reflection observations. Traditionally for the self-reflection observation, teachers write a paper detailing their teaching and how it can improve, but I think this type of video-based reflection can be more impactful and feel more genuine. And, it will allow teachers to receive the benefits of ongoing coaching which is really about reflecting inward and trying to constantly improve.

My school and district always do a great job of supporting teachers’ growth and encouraging us to take on new and innovative professional learning opportunities. The use of AI Coach is just another example of this! 

Key points:

• Educators are stretched thin, but empowerment is key to battling burnout
• Empowering teachers means providing them a wide range of strategies, tools, resources, and opportunities
• See related article: 3 innovative ways to help teachers feel engaged and valued

I vividly remember 20 years ago when I first entered the education field as an elementary school teacher. My lifelong career dream became a reality as I proudly entered my classroom, ready to nurture and positively impact young minds. 

Also memorable was that it didn’t take long to recognize I was missing key training and resources that could help make me a more effective educator. I approached this realization with optimism, eager to learn and grow, reaching out for the support of my supervisors and peers. I didn’t know it at the time, but these early experiences in the classroom and exposure to professional development would profoundly help shape my career path. I became passionate about helping other teachers feel prepared and finding ways to help them enhance their skills, knowledge and confidence.    

As leaders, it’s imperative we remain focused on providing educators what they need to succeed as the education landscape continues to evolve. To truly excel in this dynamic field, educators require a broad array of tools in their toolkit. 

While the vast majority of teachers are well schooled in pedagogy, instruction, and assessment, many are not prepared to manage and support students with the increased occurrences of mental health issues and behavioral struggles. Further complicating matters, educators today are also under greater pressure to serve students with special needs. Two-thirds of students with disabilities now spend more than 80 percent of their time in general education classrooms, according to NCES. The combination can feel like a tidal wave, leaving teachers unprepared to navigate challenging classroom environments. 

Working in a classroom day in and day out can be tough, especially when you aren’t seeing the positive changes you had hoped for. 

Recent research shows that nearly one-third of U.S. K–12 educators are thinking of leaving their jobs. The annual rate of teacher attrition rose 20 percent from 2019-2020, at least in part impacted by the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic. After dipping a bit from 2020-2021, attrition rose 17 percent from 2021 to 2022 and is on track to outpace pre-pandemic monthly averages.

It’s time to focus not merely on the problem, but the solution: empowering our educators. 

Empowerment is key to retention. For teachers to feel empowered and to be successful means providing them a wide range of strategies, tools, resources, and opportunities to enhance their skills, knowledge, and teaching practices. 

When anyone, including a teacher, feels confident or set up for success in their role, they’re more likely to be engaged, be successful, and derive satisfaction from their work. Taking a more holistic approach to professional development (PD) may be the key to helping keep America’s teachers in the classroom. 

Through a robust teacher PD program, district leaders and administrators can equip and empower educators to address all student needs and challenges, no matter how complex, whether they are academic or nonacademic.

Adopting a balanced, holistic approach to teacher PD that encompasses classroom management, instructional excellence, and leadership development can empower educators to meet and overcome the diverse challenges they face. This integrated method fortifies learning environments and offers vital support, providing a robust and efficacious pathway to enhanced student outcomes and comprehensive school transformation. 

Educating teachers on how to effectively manage their classrooms can lead to more positive, inclusive environments where all students can learn. It also allows educators to spend less time disciplining and more time teaching. While the challenges facing educators and district administrators are significant, proven classroom management strategies exist that can make a real improvement. 

It’s a tall ask to expect district and school administrators to do this on their own. And balancing teacher workload and maximizing the outcomes of teacher PD–to create immediate impact, lasting skills, educator engagement–requires a thoughtful approach. 

One solution is to partner with a professional development service provider that offers instructor-led workshops, on-demand training, and job-embedded coaching for teachers. A careful mix of these delivery methods can increase professional learning opportunities without adding more hours, stress, and scheduling headaches to educator PD days. Working with a partner can provide a district with an outside perspective on needs, areas of growth, and opportunities. 

We all know that a teacher’s time is precious. School administrators should look for PD solutions that are personalized, flexible, and that best suit their needs in the classroom, one-on-one, and in small group sessions. 

We’ve entered into this field to make a difference. Let’s retain our vital teachers and help them to help our children succeed, now and in the future. 

Related: Prioritizing teacher well-being can help schools retain talent

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

Miles Clements’ life took a turn after his parents divorced and his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. 

He was a student at Fishers High School at the time. His studies began to suffer and his behavior changed, he said, so much that he was issued a detention once. 

Things could have turned out worse, if one teacher hadn’t checked up on him, he recalled. He said they didn’t even talk about school. She just wanted to know what was going on in his life. But it was enough for Clements to start taking his learning seriously again — and make a decision about his future.

Clements said experiencing firsthand the impact that a teacher can have on someone’s life made the difference for him. He’s now a junior at the University of Indianapolis, preparing to become a teacher himself.

“If that teacher could do that for me, I can do that for other students,” Clements said. “I just wanted to be that person that can be there to care for them and give them the education that they need.”

Like school systems across the country, Indianapolis districts have struggled to fill their teaching vacancies, especially after the pandemic. Many experienced teachers are leaving the profession, citing inadequate pay or high stress. 

But in Indianapolis, a new generation of aspiring teachers are launching or preparing for careers in the classroom, motivated by the opportunities to shape young people’s lives and undaunted by the challenges. In conversations with Chalkbeat, they talked about their decisions to pursue teaching careers, their experiences so far, and how they believe they can make a difference. 

At the University of Indianapolis, Clements said he’s had opportunities since his first semester to gain classroom experience. His interactions with students at Central Elementary School in Beech Grove solidified his decision to pursue education. 

Clements said he was immediately drawn to teaching skills like literacy, where students can get creative. He knows that classroom instruction relies on knowledge of material and methods, but he said he’s learned there’s a balance to teaching.

“I’ve even said in the past that you could be Albert Einstein and not know how to teach something,” Clements said. “You could be super, super smart, but not have the social skills or the empathy for the students.”

Alexis Britt discovered how critical those social skills are during a combined English and history class at Decatur Central High School, where she worked with students last semester. 

The UIndy senior organized a mural project related to Elie Wiesel’s memoir “Night,” where students had to work in groups to pull quotes and draw imagery from the text. 

“It was the best moment in my entire life, because I was like, I love that they love it,” Britt said. “Just seeing those students have all this fun doing it really made me happy.”

The prospective teachers said they feel secure in the choice to pursue teaching, either because of positive relationships with teachers in the past or classroom experiences during college. Even so, there are moments of doubt. 

Aracely Guerrero-Alonso, a sophomore at UIndy, hopes to teach elementary schoolers, specifically first and second grade. She said when she tells people that she plans to become a teacher, the reactions aren’t usually positive. 

She said she knows what she’s signing up for. Guerrero-Alonso said hearing accounts from teachers via social media, like TikTok and Instagram, about their daily life and any struggles they face has prepared her for the realities of education. Still, she said it’s hard having other people in her life tell her to choose another career. 

“I feel alone at times,” Guerrero-Alonso said. “No one really supports what I’m doing. They say not to go into it. But if you tell people not to go into it, we’re not going to have any teachers.”

Despite public skepticism, many people are pursuing degrees in education in Indiana. According to data from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, in 2021, over 1,700 of the over 33,000 bachelor’s degrees earned at Indiana’s public institutions were in education. 

First-year teacher Bianca Winston, who graduated from Martin University in December 2022 wants students majoring in education to know that more than anything, work-life balance is key to success. 

There’s a world beyond the classroom and the job, said Winston, who teaches first grade in Indianapolis. “You have a life outside of that. You create your own peace. Don’t let anybody take your peace away.”

Gregory Golden is heading into his senior year at Butler University, during which he’ll do his student teaching at Center for Inquiry School 84. As graduation nears, he’s aware that teaching can feel like a “thankless job.” Golden urged people considering careers in teaching to step into a classroom for themselves to see if education is really for them.

“I see my friends that are going into business and going into health care and doing all sorts of odds and ends that are going to be, you know, to be frank, making a lot more money,” Golden said. 

“We are, as teachers, very much so unsung heroes of the workforce,” he said. “Just know what you’re getting into, because it’s something that you should not take lightly. It impacts people’s lives more than a lot of other careers.”

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education.

Related:
5 strategies for first-year special education teachers
9 big ideas to bolster the teaching profession and boost student learning

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

This is part two in a two-part series. Part one focused on four major challenges facing the teaching profession. Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to get these stories and more delivered straight to your inbox.

America’s schools face a number of warning signs about the teaching profession: higher turnover, lower morale, declining interest in the profession among college students, persistent shortages in certain subjects. These problems could have big consequences for students.

“I don’t want to sound alarmist, but it’s been bad,” said Luis Rodriguez, an education researcher at New York University. “The concerning thing is that we as a nation aren’t doing anything systematic to address some of these causes.”

So what should policymakers do?

Chalkbeat reviewed dozens of studies and spoke to a number of researchers and teachers. Although there are no foolproof answers for strengthening the profession and improving teacher quality, the following are some ideas that research suggests might help.

Raise early- and mid-career teacher salaries

There is substantial evidence suggesting that higher pay attracts more talented people into the classroom and keeps them there. But teachers’ take-home pay has fallen further and further behind other college-educated workers’. Surveys show that relatively low pay is a source of frustration among teachers and deters college and high school students from choosing the profession.

A higher starting salary may be a particularly good way to draw new people into teaching. Raising salaries beyond the first year and through the middle of teachers’ careers is also important, both for attracting new teachers and retaining existing ones. Some research finds that schools are most likely to lose effective teachers after the first couple years in the classroom. 

One way to raise salaries might be to shift some of teachers’ compensation from benefits to take home pay. Teachers receive a greater fraction of pay through benefits compared to other workers, and retirement benefits make teacher compensation heavily backloaded. This might be unappealing to people considering teaching and may cause them to underestimate total teacher pay.

“I think right now current compensation overweights investments in career teachers’ long-term benefits and under-invests in the first year teacher’s starting salary — we back-weight the benefits,” said Matthew Kraft, an education researcher at Brown University. 

Pay teachers more in shortage areas

Severe teacher shortages tend to be clustered in certain schools and subjects — often high-poverty schools and subjects like math, science, and special education. 

Again, pay can help solve this problem. Schools might consider targeted salary increases for those shortage areas. This approach is surprisingly rare, but research shows it can work to draw in and keep teachers. This, in turn, has been shown to boost student learning in some cases. 

One recent study examined a Dallas program that offered large bonuses for teachers to work in struggling schools. The initiative drew an influx of new teachers and boosted student test scores. However, once the bonus program ended, student achievement fell as effective teachers were more likely to leave. That suggests that to make a sustained difference, schools should consider sustained salary increases rather than temporary stipends.

“We have a lot of pretty good, compelling evidence that it can work,” said Rodriguez, who has studied salary incentives in Tennessee.

Turn the first year in the classroom into an apprenticeship

One of the most consistent findings in education research is an intuitive one: Teachers struggle the most in their first year. New teachers are especially likely to leave the classroom, too. To a degree, this is natural. Experience matters. But what is unusual about teaching is its flat structure. New teachers are often doing the exact same job as their veteran colleague across the hall. 

“It was a little rough coming from other jobs in the past where you have a little bit more transition time,” said Michele Koopman, who recently switched careers to enter teaching. “Here it was like: Here’s the key to your classroom, good luck.” 

New teachers might benefit if their first year in the classroom is reinvented into more of an apprenticeship. This could be structured in different ways, but the key would be to give teachers a lighter workload — perhaps half as many classes to teach — and a dedicated mentor or coach. Research shows teachers learn from colleagues and benefit from quality mentorship and coaching. 

Assign teachers to students more strategically

The benefit of teaching experience is not just about time in the classroom; it’s also about experience working in a specific grade or subject or with specific students. A number of studies have found that teachers perform better when they remain teaching the same grade or subject in back-to-back years. This may also reduce teacher turnover. 

Teachers regularly switch between grades or even subjects from year to year. One study in New York City found that more than 1 in 5 teachers switched roles within the same school. In some cases, there may be good reasons for that. But school leaders might also not appreciate the costs of constant teacher churn. 

If teachers do switch grades, they perform better if they follow the same group of students up to the next grade, a practice known as “looping.” 

Policymakers might consider trying to disseminate information about looping and grade stability and creating incentives to encourage these practices.

Provide teachers with a strong curriculum

Teachers have many responsibilities — often including cobbling together their own lessons and curriculum. Schools could help ease teacher workload by providing quality curriculum and lesson materials that ensure teachers are not creating their own from scratch. One study found that simply providing middle-school math teachers with access to off-the-shelf lessons boosted student learning. 

Koopman, who teaches in west central Illinois, said she didn’t have a math curriculum until half way through her first year as a special education teacher. “So many teachers too don’t feel like they have a great, full curriculum to use, and then they’re constantly trying to find other things to supplement,” she said. 

Give teachers more support to manage student discipline

One recent survey asked teachers what their schools could do to support their mental well-being. Among nearly two dozen options, the second most common response was “more/better support for student discipline–related issues.” Sixty-two percent of teachers said this would help (which was only slightly behind a pay increase). This aligns with numerous anecdotal reports from teachers describing heightened challenges with student behavior and mental health since the pandemic.

Research does not provide simple solutions to this challenge — neither school suspensions nor an alternative of restorative justice has a proven track record, according to existing studies. Schools might consider investing in other support staff, like counselors and social workers, who may reduce disciplinary incidents and are valued by teachers. Schools could consider instituting school-wide behavioral support systems. They could also target extra support to the small number of teachers who appear to have major challenges managing student behavior. And policymakers could experiment and study new approaches to provide schools with actionable ideas. 

Ease the teacher certification bureaucracy

Unnecessary or overly bureaucratic teacher licensure rules can keep good teachers out of the classroom and contribute to teacher shortages. 

Many states, for instance, make it cumbersome for out-of-state teachers to get certified. But there is little evidence this is beneficial. In fact, some studies suggest it’s actively harmful to student learning by limiting the supply of teachers. In one survey of former teachers, over 40% listed a lack of certification reciprocity between states as one factor that would make it more likely they would return to the classroom. 

Simply fixing bureaucratic challenges may help, too. Many former teachers say that “easier and less costly renewal of certification” might lure them back.

Prioritize recruiting and retaining teachers of color

A large body of evidence suggests that students of color, especially Black students, benefit from having teachers of the same race. And yet the share of teachers of color lag far behind the share of students of color.

This diversity gap starts early in the teacher pipeline. College graduates of color are much less likely to enter teaching than white college graduates. This gap has actually grown with successive generations of teachers. This suggests that schools of education could do a far better job recruiting people of color into the profession. 

Teachers of color also often have higher turnover rates because they work in higher-needs schools. Targeted incentive pay, as mentioned above, might help. So could improving working conditions and recruiting more diverse principals. 

States could also experiment with reducing certification barriers, including licensure tests, that disproportionately exclude teachers of color. Some states waived certain requirements during the pandemic and should carefully examine the consequences of this move.

Consider alternatives to seniority-based layoffs

Education budgets are in flux right now. With COVID relief money running out, some districts may face teacher layoffs in coming years, particularly if politicians don’t step up with additional funding. In some places, the teachers’ contract stipulates that layoffs be done in reverse seniority: last in, first out or LIFO.

Research suggests that this has harmful consequences. First, it requires more layoffs since less experienced teachers are lower paid. Second, such layoffs often disproportionately impact teachers of color. Third, this approach typically means high-poverty schools lose more teachers (since they usually have more novice staff). Fourth, LIFO may deter new entrants into teaching who fear they will quickly lose their jobs in the event of cutbacks. Finally, schools end up losing a number of effective early career teachers. 

“LIFO layoff policies are inequitable, lead to more total job losses, and undercut efforts to recruit talented and diverse teachers,” wrote one pair of researchers after reviewing the evidence.

Districts might consider changing policies or contracts to consider a broader set of criteria when layoffs are necessary, including teacher performance and school-level needs.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education.

Related: The teaching profession is facing a post-pandemic crisis

Key points:

• Teachers need to know they won’t be penalized for trying new tech-based instructional strategies that may not be successful
• Administrators are instrumental in supporting teachers whether these attempts do or don’t reach success
• See related article: With greater access to devices, teachers are folding more tech into instruction

Technology is quickly changing the way we learn and teach. To keep up with these changes, administrators need to support teachers in using technology in the classroom.

Following are three ways administrators can help teachers become successful with technology in the classroom and help student engagement.

1. Encourage innovation. Administrators should encourage teachers to be innovative in their use of technology by giving them the freedom to experiment and explore new technologies. Allow teachers to try–and fail. When teachers know they are allowed to fail, they can be original in their innovations.  Create a culture of innovation by celebrating teachers who are successful in using technology to improve student learning.

Encourage teachers to try flipping their classrooms and use project-based learning experiences. Give teachers access to resources and support, such as online tutorials and teacher communities. Assure that your school allows time for teachers to discuss with staff or in their PLC how they use technology in the classroom. Innovation causes more innovation.

2. Provide funding. Technology can be expensive, so administrators need to provide funding for teachers to purchase and maintain the technology they need by setting aside money for hardware, software, apps, and accessories. They can also provide funding for professional development opportunities that will help teachers learn how to use technology effectively. Try using Google Forms so teachers can write quick proposals to get the tech as quickly as possible. Funding can be difficult in schools, but we must make technology a priority since it is going to be a huge part of our student’s future. Consider using grant funding and/or Donors Choose to support teachers’ use of technology or partner with businesses and organizations to provide teachers with access to technology. We can’t let a lack of funding affect student success.

3. Offer professional development. In 4 Ways to Develop a Team of Forward-Looking Tech Enthusiasts (Andrade, 2022), David Andrade writes, “…teachers can learn how to use [tech] tools just as their students do–through trial and error and watching how others do it.” Doing so can help spark ideas for innovative tech integration and keep teachers from doing the same old thing. Professional development is essential for helping teachers learn how to use technology effectively. Administrators can offer professional development opportunities that are specific to the needs of their teachers and that are aligned with the school’s goals. Offer professional development opportunities that are specific to the needs of teachers and that are aligned with the school’s goals. Provide professional development opportunities that are delivered in a variety of formats, such as online courses, workshops, and one-on-one coaching. Partner with universities and other organizations to offer professional development opportunities for teachers.

4. Have clear expectations for technology as a school. Make sure expectations and rules for using technology are taught and reviewed throughout the year. Teach digital citizenship (Common Sense Education is a great source of materials) to keep students safe and responsible online. Make sure teachers feel supported when enforcing rules and keep parents involved with digital newsletters.

By taking these steps and reaching out to teachers about their technology needs, administrators can help teachers use technology to improve student learning and prepare students for the 21st-century workforce and to be lifelong learners.

Related:
Discover how edtech makes your teaching more effective and efficient
Teachers using technology report stronger connections, community with students

Key points:

• New teachers look at engagement differently–and Abbot Elementary is spot-on in its depictions of new and seasoned educators
• The show also highlights student engagement and teacher support as critical parts of a new teacher’s journey
• See related article: 5 strategies for first-year special education teachers

Abbott Elementary has been widely beloved since its conception, and for good reason. Like many current and former educators, I’ve loved watching the sitcom for the smart humor and great characters, but also for how accurately it represents so much of what I experienced during my time as a teacher, academic coach, and principal. 

There has never been a show that so successfully captures the joy of teaching while simultaneously depicting the challenges, heartaches, and relationships that come with it. One really important thing Abbott does well is highlight the major differences between how newer and more experienced teachers approach engagement, and how new teachers grow as they learn new strategies and practice their skills to increase student engagement. 

New teachers’ high expectations of themselves

In a study conducted last year, 96.9 percent of teachers said they used teacher caring and relationships as an engagement tactic often or very often. When I was an instructional coach, the teachers I worked with knew how important it was to build strong relationships with their students. As a result, teachers would strive to go above and beyond to show how much they care about their students. This resulted in spending a lot of time on activities that didn’t always result in student engagement, without realizing both can be done simultaneously. It’s a massive challenge, particularly for busy teachers trying to move the needle academically. 

When I watch Abbott Elementary, one thing that stands out is seeing the less tenured teachers – Gregory, Janine, and Jacob – hold themselves to extremely high standards, but not always knowing the best strategies to effectively engage their students. In the Season 2 episode “Read-A-Thon,” we see this front and center. Jacob wants to create a podcast club. He dedicates a lot of his free time outside of the classroom and demonstrates significant effort to connect with his students through the creation of the new club. 

While this is something his students are interested in, they threaten to leave the club when Jacob’s focus leans primarily towards his own interests. He’s so enthusiastic and excited to participate, he believes that just in creating the club he’s building meaningful relationships and future opportunities for his students. It’s not until his principal points out that the club was based on Jacob’s interests that Jacob realizes his students’ interests need to be the focal point of the club. 

Classroom-wide expectations 

The second thing I think Abbott’s team gets so right about engagement-supportive practices is how Janine, Gregory, and Jacob set not only high expectations for themselves, but for their students. In 2022, 92.4 percent of teachers reported using setting high expectations as an engagement strategy. This plays a large role in how they approach setting high expectations for their students. One size does not fit all. 

In the Season 2 episode “The Principal’s Office,” Gregory learns it’s necessary to use multiple strategies to engage all of the students in his classroom. At the beginning of the episode, we see Gregory sending a student to the principal’s office for shouting in class about his favorite TV character. As a principal, I saw this a lot. New teachers would send students to the principal’s office or take more drastic actions more often than experienced teachers because they had high expectations for their students, but hadn’t yet determined how to differentiate those expectations based on individual relationships or students’ needs. 

From a principal’s perspective, the goal is to support the child, and we see this in a rare moment of strong leadership from Abbott’s principal, Ava. She highlights how the student may feel, while explaining to Gregory he can both hold high expectations for his students and simultaneously differentiate for the students who need additional support (like the one he sent to the office). By the end of the episode, we see Gregory challenge the student by including his students’ favorite character in the lesson as a way to keep him engaged in the lesson. 

Teachers supporting teachers 

Some of my most enduring friendships were made during my time at schools. In order to be successful driving learning outcomes forward, as well as maintaining mental health in the classroom, teachers need other teachers’ support, guidance, and camaraderie. Abbott Elementary displays this almost perfectly, especially when it comes to demonstrating how teachers lean on each other for help engaging their students. 

In the show, one thing that rings true to my experience is a lot of the critical learning for Janine, Gregory, and Jacob takes place outside of formal professional development. It’s also backed up by research: training and professional development was perceived to be the least influential on the most used engagement instructional strategies. These differences were statistically significant. Though in this case, we can’t be totally surprised – they have a principal with little to no understanding of elementary education! Regardless, learning outside of professional development was common in the schools in which I’ve worked. 

As a principal, I saw yearly how intentionally our experienced teachers would support the new or the newest teacher on their grade level teams. Like in Abbott Elementary, this validation, guidance, and coaching often took place in the kitchen, hallway, lunchroom, or casual conversations after school. The teachers who took advantage of relationship building with tenured teachers were the ones who saw the most growth in their ability to engage and educate their students effectively. The growth we see from Janine, Gregory, and Jacob from season to season would not be as profound if it weren’t for Barbara’s and Melissa’s mentorship, support, and tough love along the way. 

Mentorship and growth 

As we laugh our way through the episodes of Abbott Elementary, former educators can’t help but reflect on our own engagement journeys. It’s fun to think about how many new teachers I have had the privilege of seeing grow into excellent educators as they learn hard lessons and get better along the way. As an audience, the show leaves us eager to see how Janine, Jacob, and Gregory continue to grow into the great teachers we all know they are capable of becoming. 

Maybe we’ll even get a flash forward episode of Janine mentoring a new, eager, enthusiastic teacher. We can dream! 

Related:
How to use micro-coaching for teacher PD
How to reimagine teacher leadership

Key points:

• Teacher-leaders are an integral–but under-utilized–part of a school
• School leaders can secure teacher buy-in around new initiatives through teacher-leaders

The typical leadership structure in a school is quite rigid, with administrators and teachers filling their roles separately. In this model, teacher skills are only utilized inside of the classroom, leaving teacher leadership potential on the table.

Because this is true in almost any school building, it is time for administrators to reimagine teacher leader roles and leverage teacher leadership, specifically at the grade level or in content teams. Many schools have positions such as “Lead Teacher” or “Content Team Leader,” which is a great starting point. The next step is transforming these established positions, or creating similar models, and implementing them across your school. This should lead to actionable steps taken by these teacher-leaders, and the loosening of the reins by administrators.

Leading Grade Level Initiatives

Rapport and community built at the middle leadership level is more responsive to student interests and needs. The foundation of any successful school is a strong school community where teachers and students can build a solid relationship over the course of the year. Quite often, this is artificially imagined by district experts as X or Y initiative in each classroom. Instead, the model needs to move to a teacher determined and led initiative.

A top-down community building set up by administration might be a pep rally for all grades. Not an unpopular choice, as it builds rapport between the students and the school. Given more time and thought, that same space can instead be used to build rapport between students and teachers.  A teacher leader would converse with their team to determine a community building activity that might be a better fit for their students. This might include a trust building activity outside, a teacher vs. student basketball game, or a community service project. Similarly, the activity can more accurately reflect student interest and can be an opportunity to be culturally responsive to the school community. The activity itself doesn’t matter, but rather the student and teacher’s voice.

Likewise, teachers can make direct connections to their classroom instruction. We know students engage more in classroom activities when they develop a strong sense of rapport with their teachers. In the long run, these teacher-led initiatives will make the school year more authentic to the student body.

Classroom Observations

Many teachers feel anxious about observations, even if they have nothing to fear. If the grade level or content team can get over these worries, a teacher-leader observing your class can provide benefits to the school at large. To be certain, these observations should not be instructional or evaluative, but rather data collection on school culture and classroom procedures.

While observing, teacher-leaders should look for shared routines and classroom structures, behaviors of individual students to the teacher’s instruction, and something positive to celebrate.

Consistency amongst teachers provides continuity for students, especially in grades where they transition between classes. Similarly, routines can be refined and honed, especially if one teacher is exceedingly proficient. Share their expertise with the team!

Student behaviors, specifically students who struggle with behavior or academic performance, should be noted in these observations. Maybe they are more engaged or proficient in the class you are observing. If so, the teacher being observed should share ways they develop rapport with the student. On the flip side, if the observer sees a student who is usually a high performer, but is disengaged, the observer should talk with the student or teacher to provide that extra level of support.

Lastly, teacher-leaders should not forget to celebrate their team! Teachers go too long without being regularly recognized for their hard work. Taking time to acknowledge something good about their class to either them or to the team at large can positively grow your teacher’s confidence.

Developing a Middle Leadership

Schools have a plethora of goals to achieve and need all the extra layers of support they can afford. Developing and fostering teachers who are looking to grow into leaders not only provides support, but mobilizes larger teams of teachers if teacher-leaders are effective.

This requires a structure and a framework developed with your school in mind. This would include items such as goals for the position, meeting times with the leadership team, and potentially a professional development plan for the teacher or team based on the school’s needs.

Next, you need to select the teacher you would be interested in developing in this role. This teacher should exemplify the school’s mission and values, and should be an expert in their content area. Ideally, this teacher has a strong rapport with their peers and has a track record of being invested in the school community. As this step can make or break the process, it should not be rushed, and teachers should be viewed from multiple perspectives to ensure they are a good fit.

Once these elements are in place, take time as an administrator to nurture the teacher-leader position. Ask for their input about school initiatives, ask about the needs of the team, and provide them with the resources or support they need.

Developing these teacher leaders will take time, but in the long run your school will benefit from the additional support provided by the staff, the increased sense of community, and the strong rapport between students and teachers.

Related:
How to use micro-coaching for teacher PD
How to stave off teacher burnout with PD

Key points:

• Communication is key for all those involved in special education
• Don’t forget to think creatively and look at the big picture when framing students’ goals

If you’re heading into your first job as a special education teacher, congratulations. Not only will you be able to use the knowledge you developed as a student to make a difference in children’s lives, you’ll be doing it in the most needed position in U.S. schools.

Two-thirds of schools with staffing shortages said special education is the hardest area to staff, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

I’m sure the excitement of landing a position was mixed with the fear we all face when starting a new job. The demands on special education teachers are unlike any other position in schools, and because of shortages, you may be asked to tackle a bigger role than expected when you start.

While your job will be thrilling, frustrating, and exhausting, sometimes all on the same day, I do know there are successful strategies that can help you make the needed adjustments to be effective while at the same time maintaining a necessary work/life balance.

Try these 5 strategies to help you succeed in supporting special education teachers:

1. Keep the big picture in view

Special education students’ work is directed by their individual education plan. Whether a student is new to special education or just renewing an annual plan, this is the time to make sure their IEP reflects the support they need to learn as well as meeting all legal requirements. Make no mistake: this is a heavy lift, but it’s vitally important. Pay attention to the student’s current standardized tests scores and subjective evaluations, but use this information to create a reachable goal. Remember, these goals don’t have to be all academic. For a student with severe ADHD, staying seated 80 percent of the time in a classroom setting could be an awesome achievement. Trust that meeting non-academic goals such as this one will also drive the student’s academic achievements.

2. Stay on top of paperwork

It’s best to think of your job in two parts. First is the actual teaching, setting up classroom rules, and finding your style of classroom management. This is the part your college probably trained you well to tackle. The second half, especially for a special education teacher, is paperwork. IEPs are legal documents and they come with a plethora of dates and deadlines. Your best friend here will be a robust digital calendar. You not only have to know when every student is due to have their IEP renewed, but you also need to know if they are slated for a reevaluation or other assessment during their year. IEPs require a wide variety of information from you, parents, and other teachers. Write reminders to collect this information ahead of time to avoid last-minute panic.

3. Remember your life/work balance

Starting any teaching job can be overwhelming, and the demands on special education teachers add to this burden. Let’s be honest: Your job is very important because students are expected to learn during their time with you. Knowing that all students don’t progress steadily and seeing a frustrated child in front of you every day can evoke two very different feelings. I counsel new teachers that they need to know themselves and know what they need to recharge their batteries. Don’t let the sometimes hectic and frustrating job overwhelm you. Identify your tribe in school–an informal group you can use to vent, brainstorm, or just come together to admit the work is hard. You’re going to make mistakes, but just like all your students, if you can learn from each one by the end of your first year, you’ll be a markedly better teacher.

4. Be efficient

It’s no surprise that sometimes new teachers overwork themselves, leading to burnout. Learn how to pace yourself. As a principal, I literally used a timer to make sure I didn’t work too long on any one task. Also, don’t discount taking a break. Sometimes using part of your planning period to do something such as breathing deeply can make you more productive the rest of the day. Another trick I used as a principal was to make a weekly to-do list that I finished every Friday. It allowed me to get a great start on Monday while remembering my most important tasks for the week. There’s one caveat to this strategy, though: Sometimes a school can pile on more work than any one person can complete. If you find yourself working until 9 p.m. every night, chances are your workload is too much. Talk to your principal to create a game plan together that makes sense for you and the school.

5. Communicate

This may seem obvious for someone whose job is literally teaching children, but I mean to learn to communicate with your peers. Sharing data with classroom teachers or leaders can help those people see a student clearly and that information can lead them to help with the student’s education. Also, learn your district’s digital tools for progress monitoring and use these to help share progress reports. Following this technique will also help you gather data when the time comes to renew an IEP.

Related:
How to use micro-coaching for teacher PD
How to stave off teacher burnout with PD

The United States is experiencing a national education shortage of teachers leaving the profession in droves, coined “The Great Resignation” due to high anxiety, burnout, safety concerns, low salaries, and challenging job demands. This shortage is further fueled by plummeting enrollment in teacher preparation programs.

The Wall Street Journal reported that at least 300,000 public school teachers and other staff left the field alone between February 2020 and May 2022. Recent McKinsey research shows that nearly one-third of U.S. K-12 educators are considering leaving their jobs.

While this situation creates immediate problems for schools, like hiring qualified teachers from a shrinking pool of candidates, it also creates secondary problems, like the troubling trend that the teacher shortage is creating surrounding professional development (PD).

Carving out time for PD can be extremely difficult for educators, especially when their district cannot offer that time during the school day or as an option for time off. Teachers are also already overwhelmed with their work, so adding one more course or event to their calendars is challenging and sometimes not allowed. Yet, professional learning is critical to increasing student achievement by as much as 21 percentile points.

What is micro-coaching?

Micro-coaching is a workflow model that had its roots in business organizations pre-pandemic and has relevance for professional learning in schools. Micro-coaching is a form of coaching that involves brief, targeted, and focused interactions between a coach and an individual or a group. Micro-coaching aims to provide bite-sized, actionable learning, feedback, and support to help individuals improve specific skills, behaviors, or performance.

Unlike traditional coaching in education, which typically involves longer sessions through coaching cycles or extended professional development sessions, micro-coaching can support and improve teaching practices such as classroom management, student engagement, questioning techniques, or feedback delivery.

How to implement micro-coaching?

Many instructional coaches or districts are utilizing micro-coaching to provide educators with the tools and skills necessary to grow.  Here are several ways to create short sessions during the week for teachers to learn and develop their skills without a huge time commitment.

1. Explainer videos: Instructional coaches create short explainer videos to provide teachers targeted feedback on specific aspects of their instruction. These videos might focus on topics such as classroom management, questioning techniques, or the use of technology in the classroom. The coach creates a video using a screencasting tool (i.e., Loom, Screencastify, Screencast-O-Matic).
2. Tutorials: Instructional coaches create short tutorials to help teachers develop new skills or strategies through video recordings or interactive online modules. The coach can provide step-by-step guidance, model effective teaching techniques, and offer feedback.
3. Mini one-on-one sessions: Instructional coaches conduct brief one-on-one coaching sessions with teachers to provide targeted feedback on specific aspects of their instruction. These sessions are conducted virtually or in person and focus on a particular skill or strategy. The coach provides guidance, answers questions, and models effective teaching techniques.
4. Self-reflection prompts with classroom videos or written material: Instructional coaches provide teachers with self-reflection prompts to encourage them to reflect on their instruction and identify areas for improvement. Coaches respond to either classroom videos or written materials submitted by the teacher through a professional learning platform (i.e., Sibme) and provide feedback on the teacher’s reflections to guide them in developing an improvement plan. Learn more about the power of video in the classroom here.
5. Peer feedback and self-reflection: Instructional coaches facilitate peer feedback among teachers in their district by conducting peer feedback sessions, creating structured feedback protocols, and providing opportunities for reflection and feedback through video.
6. Mini webinars: Instructional coaches conduct mini webinars to provide targeted professional development to teachers. These webinars focus on a specific skill or strategy in a short, digestible format. The coach offers learning, guidance, modeling, and feedback during the webinar.

What are some benefits of micro-coaching?

There are several benefits of micro-coaching to both the coach and the teacher.

1. Targeted improvement and improved performance: Micro-coaching provides targeted, individualized support to help teachers improve skills critical to effective teaching and learning.
2. Real-time feedback: This allows the teacher to make immediate adjustments and quickly see their changes’ impact.
3. Increased self-awareness: The teacher gains a deeper understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement through feedback and self-reflection.
4. Increased job satisfaction: By providing targeted support and feedback, micro-coaching helps teachers feel more supported and valued, which may increase job satisfaction and retention.

What are some challenges of micro-coaching?

While there are benefits to micro-coaching, there also are some possible challenges.

1. The coach’s skill: Micro-coaching can be inconsistent if coaches do not have the training, experience, or skills to coach individuals and effectively create high-quality resources and professional learning.
2. The teacher’s mindset: Some teachers may be resistant to feedback, unable or unwilling to self-reflect accurately, or may find it difficult to accept and act on areas for improvement.
3. Time constraints: Micro-coaching requires dedicated time for observation, feedback, and follow-up, which can be challenging to schedule.
4. Limited impact: Micro-coaching may have little effect if the teacher does not have the time, resources, or support needed to implement the changes.

The keys to successful micro-coaching involve providing quality, bite-sized learning experiences, modeling, targeted feedback, and teacher guidance. By incorporating various micro-coaching strategies, instructional coaches and districts can support teachers’ growth and development and enhance student learning and achievement in their district.

Survey after survey confirms teachers feel stressed and burned out. Nearly 75 percent of teachers experience frequent job-related stress, compared to just a third of working adults. More than half of teachers have considered leaving the profession earlier than originally planned.

Exhausted and frustrated teachers face a growing list of adversities, including:

• Insufficient funding
• Overwhelming administrative work
• Demanding parents
• Hostile communities

Dire staffing shortages have added to an unprecedented level of strain. When educators pick up the slack from unfilled positions, their work obligations increase. But their plates merely grow more full — nothing is ever removed. Districts can’t afford to lose more teachers and must take steps to assist them.

Key contributors to educators leaving the field include a lack of preparation, mentoring and support. Professional development, however, is one powerful tool that can alleviate some of the pressure and help reduce teacher turnover.

Benefits of professional development

Continuing education and career training make up a vital part of the educational process. It exposes educators to the latest instructional methods, offering research-based best practices and providing the confidence to teach new concepts. New and seasoned teachers can level up their skills and work toward subject mastery.

Workshops and peer groups provide a creative outlet for teachers to lean on each other for advice. More than half of teachers consider collaboration with colleagues the most effective type of professional development. When teachers are encouraged to support each other, they learn new ways to excel in their classroom, improving instruction.

By investing in their teachers, districts directly invest in their students. According to the U.S. Department of Education, student achievement increases as much as 21 percent when their teachers participate in professional development programs and adopt different techniques to deliver instruction. This positive impact is crucial as student math and reading scores decline across the country.

Implementing professional development

Implementing and improving professional development requires a thoughtful, detailed approach. Districts need to deliver a professional development program that is:

• Continuous: Teachers need more than a few days of professional development workshops at the beginning of each school year. Districts should create opportunities for teachers to ask questions, collaborate and learn from each other throughout the year. A commitment to ongoing training also empowers educators to stay up to date on best practices and current research in their fields.
• Relevant: Districts should ensure professional development focuses on useful instructional practices and strategies pertinent to each teacher and their classrooms. Allow teachers to assess their own areas for growth and support them through initiatives that will resonate with them the most. Nothing frustrates teachers more than spending hours in a professional development session that’s irrelevant and not applicable to their current needs. 
• Engaging: Teachers work hard to design and present engaging, differentiated lessons. Districts should do the same for their staff. Teachers benefit as much as their students from interactive, hands-on professional development that encourages participation.

Creating accountability

Districts can pair continuous, relevant, and engaging professional development programs with teacher-driven follow-up sessions. For example, teachers can share their experiences with the professional development sessions and provide feedback to school and district leaders. These sessions hold districts accountable for adjusting programs as needed to best serve their teachers.

District leadership must also give teachers the time and space to put their professional development lessons into practice. Doing so often requires a bit of trial and error as teachers adjust their approaches to align with new methods or insights.

The worst thing an administrator can do is to evaluate and criticize a teacher who’s trying something different, which might not work the first two or three (or more) times it’s implemented — a situation that can cause significant stress. Instead, department heads and other educational leaders should collaborate with the teachers, offer constructive feedback and help troubleshoot and brainstorm, especially when lessons don’t go as planned.

As teachers become more comfortable with implementing what they’ve taken from professional development sessions — perhaps they’ve adopted a new program, for example — the learning outcomes and achievement data provide a big-picture view of the program’s success.

Only 12 percent of teachers feel “very satisfied” with their jobs, and more than half say they wouldn’t advise their younger self to enter the career field. Teachers want to feel satisfied and fulfilled in their careers. They recognize that a little stress is normal — but to live under a constant state of stress causes physiological harm, hurts morale, and creates discontent.

To prevent burnout and reduce stress, district leaders must offer opportunities for educators to grow their skill sets. Teachers have the vital role of shaping the minds of the young people who will one day shape the world.

Related:
4 ways to support teachers after the holiday break

Research shows that professional learning has the potential to transform teaching and advance equitable learning and student success. Yet notable gaps in practice undercut its impact.

A new report, Teaching, Learning, Equity and Change: Realizing the Promise of Professional Learning, developed by Every Learner Everywhere in partnership with Achieving the Dream (ATD) and the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), aims to inform the strategic action needed to realize the promise of professional learning at our nation’s equity-focused campuses.

Recent research in the field demonstrates the effectiveness of professional learning in advancing equity-focused change in education. It also provides a clear picture of the best practices used by effective Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs).

Key questions remain:

• What is the status of professional learning on campuses serving most of the nation’s racially minoritized and poverty-affected students?
• How do these institutions deploy professional learning to support equity-focused teaching and learning?
• What does best practice look like?
• What obstacles and gaps in practice get in the way?
• What kind of assistance would be helpful?

The report, co-authored by ATD’s Bret Eynon, Jonathan Iuzzini, and H. Ray Keith with OLC’s Eric Loepp and Nicole Weber, provides answers to these questions through a synthesis of data collected via surveys and interviews.

It highlights professional learning practice at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and community colleges, often overlooked but crucial sectors of higher education. And it deploys research-based standards for high impact professional learning to uncover strengths and gaps in current field practice.

Based on this data, the report maps critical contours of the field:

• The field is shaped by growing interest, yet lagging investment in professional learning. This tension is particularly pronounced at MSIs and community colleges.
• Exemplary CTLs position professional learning as a strategic intervention to achieve mission-critical goals, including equity, enrollment and completion.
• Priority focal points of professional learning fieldwide include active learning, inclusive teaching practices, and engaging students in online and hybrid teaching formats.
• The field is challenged by gaps in awareness of research-based resources for best practices in professional learning.
• MSIs and community colleges identified a strong need for capacity-building partnerships focused on professional learning.

A dozen recommendations for addressing the key findings are organized into three categories, suggesting steps to be taken by campus professional learning leaders, institutional leaders, and ecosystem partners such as funders, state systems, and national higher education networks.

Across all three categories, the authors emphasize that the process of improvement and change requires shared vision and collaborative partnership: “Our survey respondents and the leaders we interviewed made clear that change is possible, and that professional learning – designed and resourced with great care and attention to the needs of both full-time and part-time educators – is one of the best tools we have for advancing equity-focused change in service to our students.”

Related:
4 ways to support teachers after the holiday break
6 reasons to improve teacher and principal evaluation policies

This press release originally appeared online.

Teachers (and administrators) appreciate breaks as much as students do. Time away from the classroom allows teachers to clear their minds, celebrate the holidays, relax with family and friends, and maybe catch up on grading or lesson planning in comfy clothing, slippers, and with a ready cup of tea or coffee at hand.

Now that teachers have returned to their classrooms refreshed and ready for the second half of the year, school districts should have a plan to help them maintain that energy — and keep burnout at bay.

Here are four strategies school leaders can employ to support their educators, help reduce their stress and maintain their enthusiasm after the holidays (and all year long).

1. Reinvest in teachers’ career growth and knowledge-building

Many districts bookend the school year with professional development workshops for teachers, but continuing education and career training opportunities available throughout the year have the greatest benefit. A commitment to ongoing professional development signals a district’s commitment to its teachers and empowers educators to stay up to date on current research and best practices in their fields.

Professional development must focus on useful strategies relevant to each teacher and their classrooms. The mid-year point is the perfect time to ask teachers to reevaluate their professional goals and needs. Districts should empower teachers with a voice — and a choice — in what professional development would benefit them the most. Otherwise, teachers will find themselves dedicating hours of their already hectic schedules to listening to professional development not applicable to their current needs.

Continuous professional development programs provide more opportunities for teachers to put their professional development takeaways into practice. Incorporating something new into their lesson planning often requires a little trial and error. Districts — and supervisors — need to give teachers room to experiment as they align these new insights and methods with their approaches.

2. Create space for teachers to connect and engage with each other

Most teachers naturally gravitate toward each other — during lunch breaks or cafeteria duty, standing at the copier, or before faculty meetings — to run ideas by each other, ask for resources and more. It’s how less experienced teachers might work through teaching a lesson on an unfamiliar topic, or a veteran teacher might find a new approach to freshen up an older unit. Teachers are constantly supporting each other — and school leaders should provide as many opportunities as possible for them to collaborate formally and informally.

Collective efficacy, coined by Albert Bandura in the 1970s, is a shared belief that a school’s staff and faculty can positively impact student learning and achievement. School leaders should provide teachers space to collaborate, building in time during department meetings, for example, and establishing professional learning communities. It may be challenging — but not impossible — to launch these initiatives mid-year. Perhaps start with a monthly meeting after school, with a simple framework built around the principles of professional learning communities, including:

• A focus on student learning
• Instructional leadership
• Adult learning
• Privileged time
• A commitment to continuous improvement
• An evidence- and data-driven approach

District leaders and administrators should help teachers build informal and formal communities by:

• Conducting mid-year data analysis and planning.
• Creating moments for teachers to serve as “coaches” and share experiences and insights with colleagues.
• Providing lunch breaks for specific subject teachers or grade-level teams to brainstorm solutions for similar challenges they share.
• Building time into department meetings and encouraging teachers to share their reflections on new and innovative teaching practices.
• Creating schedules for teachers to observe each other “in action.”

These opportunities provide creative outlets for teachers to lean on each other for advice and find new ways to excel in their classrooms and improve instruction.

3. Bring on the volunteers!

A new calendar year provides a perfect time for reflection — and a natural opportunity to try something new. Teachers assess and readjust all year long, whether it’s tweaking homework routines, changing seating arrangements or mixing up small group rotations.

Some changes, however, require observant administrators who ask — and proactively suggest — other solutions to provide their teachers with more support, especially in the classrooms. Budgets meticulously calculated down to each line item might not have room to include additional paid staff for classroom support, but what about inviting families and other community members to lend a hand?

Think about it. Most classrooms have only one educator to meet the emotional and academic needs of 20 to 30 (or more) students. To support teachers in addressing all their students’ needs, school leaders can assign volunteers and interns to classrooms to help with one-on-one or group instruction and enrichment. Check with your local university and solicit volunteers from pre-service education programs.

A bonus: many edtech programs offer scripted lessons and ready-made materials volunteers can use to supplement classroom learning. These materials reduce the prep work lessons often require, saving teachers time and providing students (and volunteers) with a meaningful, beneficial experience.

This community of support benefits everyone. The students gain the perspective of another adult cheering them on. The volunteers and interns gain the opportunity to mentor the younger generation. And the teachers gain valuable support for their mental well-being.

4. Involve the community

Teacher support begins in the classroom but shouldn’t be limited to the school or district. Why? Because only 46 percent of teachers feel like the public respects them as professionals — a 31 percent decrease from 2011. And why shouldn’t educators expect their school communities and students’ families to appreciate them? After all, they’re entrusted with teaching the world’s most precious resource: its children.

As a leader, look for opportunities for the community to understand and recognize teachers for the time and effort they dedicate to shaping the future for millions of children, community leaders should:

• Showcase teacher achievements during focused gatherings within the larger school community.
• Set aside time for teachers to share the complexities of their careers during administrative and leadership events like school board meetings.
• Publicize job and volunteer opportunities within school districts.
• Contact local media and news outlets to showcase small, medium and large accomplishments at the classroom level.

An ancient African proverb says, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Now more than ever, communities should embrace their role as advocates for teacher success by encouraging and recognizing teachers as valuable and vital professionals.

Fewer than 15 percent of teachers feel “very satisfied” with their jobs. But it’s not because of the students they’re teaching; in many cases, the districts are doing the best they can with the available resources. School district leadership can show teachers (through actions, not words) that they’re valued by implementing innovative strategies via volunteers and edtech, slight schedule adjustments, and meaningful professional development to offer support and remind them everyone’s in it together — for the students.

Related:
6 reasons to improve teacher and principal evaluation policies
I’m a first-year teacher. How do I become successful in the classroom?

The 2023 TCEA Convention & Exposition is almost here, and with the conference comes the opportunity for educators to connect in person and share insights and innovations around teaching and learning.

This year’s conference is in San Antonio and, according to the TCEA site, is “the intersection of passion and possibility, curiosity and discovery, education and technology. And it’s the kind of learning that will change the story of education.”

Conferences offer the opportunity for educators–from administrators and classroom teachers to IT leaders and curriculum directors–to attend sessions targeted to their interests and their individual school or district needs.

It’s not too late to register! Get started here.

Here are 7 TCEA 2023 sessions that caught our eye:

1. From Stigmas to Selfies: The Power of Using Social Media in the Classroom. Break through the stigma surrounding social media and learn how you can utilize it to foster communication with parents, develop and model digital citizenship skills with students, and grow personally in your field as an educator. Walk away with various apps, tools, and resources you can use to create your own personalized content today!

2. Immersive, Innovation Spaces Are Propelling Future-Readiness! Come actively engage with artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and a variety of innovative technology-rich devices. Explore ways to deepen STEM concepts, fulfill TEKS, and increase collaborative thinking and creativity. Refocus from strictly “making” to creation and innovation! Immersive, innovation spaces create endless opportunities for students to expand and apply their ideas and offer immeasurable opportunities for accelerating achievement and increasing engagement for students of all backgrounds and abilities. Let’s create a trajectory of learning opportunities for future-ready learners!

3. How to Create Accessible and Equitable Library Collections. Most librarians understand the importance of including diverse books in their collections, but deciding which books to get can be an intimidating challenge. What should you look for when considering books outside your life experience? How can technology tools, like social media, help you with your book research? How can you discern between respectful representation and harmful stereotypes? And what is up with #OwnVoices? In this session, which will have a special emphasis on mental health, disability, and neurodiversity, an autistic librarian will share tips and recommendations for making your library a place where everyone can belong.

4. 30 Apps That Support Student Executive Functioning. Learn how to support neurodivergent students’ executive functioning skills with 30 apps that promote time management, self-control, planning, goal setting, and problem solving. Leave with resources to share with peers and parents and the know-how to successfully train students and deployment the apps.

5. Analyze This: Data Is for Students, Too! Students analyzing their own data changes how they view ownership in their education! Learn why student-led data is not only impactful for your classroom or campus but essential for student ownership and growth. You will receive a “starter pack” that will not only answer the important question of “how do I get started?” but also give you all the resources needed to make your own version of student data trackers– digitally or on paper.

6. Organization for the Techy Teacher/Librarian. There are so many awesome ideas out there that we want to try out, but how to keep track of them all? Come learn about different ways to keep your library programming ideas, presentation ideas, and lesson ideas, and make sure that they go from “I want to try this” to “That was so much fun!”

7. Seven Social Media Inspired Project Ideas for Any Subject. Our favorite social media platforms can act as inspiration for student creations! Using the popular ways content creators share on social media as a baseline, we’ll examine how students can create graphics, write captions, and record videos related to their course work. Explore cross-curricular connections and applications for all ages. We’ll look at strategies for helping students share what they’ve learned, in big and small moments, and in ways similar to how they share in social spaces online. We’ll discuss what you need to do to set students up for success whether they are sharing with visuals or text.

Related:
9 new digital learning resources from TCEA 2022