National New Teacher Center

The New Teacher Center (NTC) is a national non-profit that is dedicated to improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers and school leaders. It is much larger in scope than our Lesley New Teacher Community and we thought it would be worth sharing information about this with you, especially information about professional learning opportunities called MOOCs, short for Massive Open Online Courses.  The links are provided below or by clicking through the New Teacher Center website: http://www.newteachercenter.org/about-ntc The New Teacher Center works with schools districts, state policymakers, and educators across the country to develop and implement induction programs aligned with district learning goals. NTC induction programs include programs one-on-one mentoring and professional development, all taking place within school environments that support new teachers. NTC responds to the national need for improved teacher effectiveness by: • Providing outstanding new teacher induction services and programs • Working with state policymakers to create thriving policy environments within which new teacher induction can take place • Influencing the national dialogue on new teacher effectiveness. While many of their services are for specific school systems and programs, the New Tea her Center offers a wealth of resources that you might be interested in.  Keep reading! When we focus on teachers, students succeed. New teachers and administrators are typically placed in difficult assignments in hard-to-staff schools. Many of their careers will not survive this trial by fire. Yet, it is these schools, and the low-income and students of color that attend them, that stand to benefit the most from excellent teaching. Improving teacher effectiveness delivers on the promise of public education and helps close the achievement gap in our nation’s schools. How can we reach even more new teachers, and their students? We found a way. Wouldn’t it be phenomenal if every new teacher in the country had access to the support of a mentor and a high-quality new teacher induction program? We’re working on that. In the meantime, we found a way to help greater numbers of teachers across the country get off to a great start and be able to meet the exciting challenge Common Core State Standards represents. Now, all teachers across the country (and around the world!) have access to three New Teacher Center professional learning opportunities called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – for free – thanks to our new partnership with Coursera, a leading MOOC provider. (We know this is new territory. Here’s how MOOCs work.) We hope you’ll sign up and spread the word to all the teachers you know. After all, what teacher couldn’t use more support? Sign up for one of these New Teacher Center MOOCs First Year Teaching – Success from the Start Success with your students starts on Day 1. Learn from NTC’s 25 years developing key skills and strategies to create positive, productive classroom environments where students thrive. How do you build relationships with students, establish and maintain behavioral expectations, implement classroom procedures and routines, and use instructional time effectively? Begins August 6, 2013. Sign up or learn more. https://www.coursera.org/course/start1styearteaching Common Core in Action: Literacy Across Content Areas Learn how to apply some of the tools from the Literacy Design Collaborative to incorporate Common Core literacy strategies into your content area. In this course you will implement a template task and examine student work according to the LDC writing rubric. Starts soon. Sign up or learn more. https://www.coursera.org/course/ccss-literacy1 Common Core in Action: Math Formative Assessment This course offers participants an opportunity to engage in a community of learners using an inquiry cycle focusing on math formative assessments as a strategy for implementing CCSS in math. It focuses on the implementation of a Classroom Challenge: a 1 – 2 day lesson developed by the Mathematics Assessment Project (MAP) based on formative assessment and the CCSSM. Starts soon. Sign up or learn more. https://www.coursera.org/course/ccss-math1