This blog offers information, and connections to nurture recent graduates. We welcome your participation on this and on our Facebook Page. The NTC continues to be deeply grateful to MEDITECH for its long history of support for this program. Over the years, MEDITECH has made it possible for the New Teacher Community to serve a vital role in helping our graduates to persist in a challenging, yet deeply rewarding profession.
The
New Teacher Community is thrilled to offer a mini-grant opportunity for Lesley
University alumni novice teachers. The purpose of this program is to provide
financial support to improve your teaching.
Funds
may be used for such things as:
•Classroom supplies for specific
projects and curriculum enhancement;
•Teacher enrichment and professional
development, such as attending a conference or mini-course;
•Membership in a professional
organization;
•Educational apps connected to your
curriculum.
Priority
will be given to first-time applicants and teachers who are in their first five
years of full-time teaching after receiving their degree from Lesley.In general, successfully funded applications
are well written and provide all information asked for.Please limit your request to no more than
$400.00 in funding support.
Applications
for the mini grants are accepted in one cycle during each academic year. The application due date is January 31, 2015 and all
receipts for funds awarded must be submitted by June 30, 2015. Copy and paste the application below, complete the entire application and submit it via the email
address below or through the U.S. mail by the due date.
Mail to:
Nancy Roberts
Lesley University
GSOE Field
Placement/New Teacher Community
29 Everett Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Email as an attachment(with
Mini-Grant in the subject heading) to either:
2.Newteacherscommunity@lesley.edu (Please type the address carefully---The email address is newteacherscommunity with an “s” after teachers)
Contact:Andi Edson, Director of the New Teacher Community (aedson@lesley.edu) via email
if you have questions about this opportunity. Please note that there are two
pages for this application.
Read and Follow: Our Facebook page for wonderful fully-funded professional development opportunities and travel trips for teachers! ******************************************************************************
2014-2015 New Teacher Community Mini-Grant
Application
How will you evaluate the
outcome of this project?
Your proposed budget:
(Attach an additional page if
necessary.Please be specific about
where you hope to purchase these materials should you be awarded the
funds.If you are applying for funding
for a conference, a course or membership in an organization, please be specific
about what the funds will cover and send us specific follow-up and background information.)
What's the biggest piece of advice you would share with an aspiring teacher?
"Network,
network, network. Connect yourself to great teachers, and stay
connected. I've been a networked teacher from the start of my career. In
recent years there has been an exponential growth in the number and
quality of teacher networks"
Follow this wonderful conversation on NPR ED. The comments that follow (look at the link are eye-opening, reaffirming, and thought-producing).
When we began our 50 Great Teachers series, we set out to find
great teachers and tell their stories. But we'll also be exploring over
the coming year questions about what it means for a teacher to be great,
and how he or she gets that way. 50 Great Teachers
To get us started, we gathered an expert round table of educators
who've also done a lot of thinking about teaching. Combined, these
teachers are drawing on over 150 years of classroom experience:
Ken Bain is president of the Best Teachers Institute and author of What the Best College Teachers Do.
He taught U.S. history on the college level for nearly 50 years — at
the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University,
New York University and elsewhere.
Troy Cockrum
is director of innovative teaching for a K-8 school in Indianapolis. He
hosts a podcast on the flipped classroom, and is the winner of a
2013-2014 Jacobs Educator Award for using technology to support
innovative learning.
Eleanor Duckworth is a
research professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a
former elementary school teacher with an approach to teaching and
research grounded in her study with psychologist Jean Piaget.
Renee Moore
is a high school and community college English teacher, a National
Board Certified teacher, a member of the board of directors of the
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and co-chair of its
certification council. She also blogs for the Center for Teaching Quality.
Jose Vilson is a math educator for a middle school in New York City. He's a blogger and the author of This Is Not a Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education.
What qualities make a great teacher?
Renee Moore: The
Hebrew word for teach has, among its meanings: to aim or shoot like an
arrow, to point like a finger, to flow like water. The word reminds me
of what parents do when we teach our child to ride a bike. The first
time, we may ride with her or turn the pedals. Next time, we steer while
she pedals. Finally, the moment comes when we balance her, aim her down
the sidewalk, push her off and let go. Great teachers do that: They
start or move the minds of their students along a path, prepare them for
the journey and propel them into the future. And they do it
consistently and passionately. Ken Bain: ... I
think we have to avoid the temptation to define everything in terms of
what the teacher does to the student. Sometimes, as the title of a wonderful book put it, we teach best with our mouth shut.
I
think about the way my youngest grandson is learning to ride a bicycle.
It actually isn't the way Renee describes. Rather, his parents bought
him a balance bike when he was barely 3 years old, and simply gave it to
him. He then figured out how to balance himself on it entirely on his
own. ... Sometimes, great teaching happens when we simply provide the
resources and challenges and get out of the way. Eleanor Duckworth: Getting people to think about what they think, and asking them questions about it, is the best way I know how to teach.
How do you know that you're having an impact? Jose Vilson: The kids tell me, whether I want to hear it at the time or not. Moore: I've taught my entire career in the rural Mississippi Delta, in small schools in small towns. As we used to say at Bread Loaf[the
writing school of Middlebury College in Vermont, where Moore earned a
master's degree in literature], I "inhabit the consequences" of my work.
After 25 years, I'm surrounded by my former students, their families,
and I'm now working with some of their children. I've had so many come
or write back to tell me the impact I had on their lives. Among my most
precious things are letters, handmade plaques and signs, and other gifts
from grateful students. One wrote me from jail just to say, "Mrs.
Moore, it's not your fault ... "
What kind of training and experience makes a great teacher?
Bain: I
know I'm going to get pushback on this, but I think one of the major
problems we face in cultivating great teachers is that we don't pay
enough attention, especially in K-12, to the learning of the teacher. We
should help them develop the dynamic powers of their minds and should
continue to do so throughout their lives.
Second, we should
help them develop an understanding of some of the major ideas coming out
of the research and theoretical literature on what it means to learn,
how the human mind works, and all of the personal and social forces that
can influence learning. This is a dynamic field with lots of important
research and ideas emerging almost constantly, and the training and
experience of a great teacher has to include the opportunity to explore,
understand and apply the ideas and information that is emerging.
Finally, great teaching includes the ability to give good feedback and to make assessments. Vilson: It really depends on the environment
around the teacher. ... With more experienced staff, it's important to
get beyond the humdrum PDs [professional development opportunities] and
get into something truly transformative, which is hard to find. That's
why so many of us have to seek out PD opportunities both on and offline
on our own time, past the meetings and opportunities provided by our
school. Moore: There is so much in teaching
that would be best learned through apprenticeship, rather than the
current system of leaving most new teachers to trial-and-error their way
through. The teachers who become great or master teachers seek out the
help and PD they need, as Jose mentions, but I agree with the work of
Deborah Ball and others that we know enough about teaching that we can,
and should, be much more systematic in sharing that collective wisdom
with our newest members.
Also, Ken is correct about the
importance of being able to assess student learning and give timely,
appropriate feedback. The current overemphasis on test preparation and
other misuses of standardized testing have taken much of this critical
professional skill out of the classroom and away from teachers.
How has the definition of great teaching changed over time? How do you expect it to change in the future?
Vilson: The
definition hasn't changed much over time, but the stereotype of it
certainly has. The idea of raising test scores, being young and bringing
a new set of ideas is different from the elder statesmen and women that
comprised most of my ideas of great teaching growing up. Great teaching
seems to reflect whatever the mode of education reform we're in at the
time. Bain: I'm afraid I'm going to have to
disagree here. I think there has been an enormous change in the way we
define great teaching. In the old days, we often defined it in terms of
performance on the part of the teacher. I'm afraid those old definitions
still persist in the minds of some people. We had certain notions about
great performances in the classroom, and we looked for those
performances. In the emerging definition of great teaching that I've
been suggesting here, some of us are now thinking of it in terms of
learning and the facilitation of learning. Moore: And
I disagree with Ken. Great teachers (and the students and parents they
serve) have always defined great teaching in terms of the long-term
effects on their students. ... Your response suggests that the impetus
for deeper learning on the part of teachers has come from the top (e.g.,
higher ed researchers) down to classroom teachers, when in fact, the
greatest movement has been among teachers ourselves. Bain: I'm
really not suggesting a top-down model at all. I'm just recognizing
that the research on human learning over the last half-century in
particular has had an enormous influence on how we define teaching and
how we understand what it takes to cultivate someone else's learning.
Some important aspects of that research have been done by classroom
teachers on all levels, so I'm not seeing much room for a "Us" and
"Them" or top-to-bottom way of understanding this.
Who should not be a teacher?
Moore: Anyone who cannot listen or learn from others, including his or her students. Vilson: Anyone who can't take critique and isn't willing to center their visions on the students. Troy Cockrum: Someone
who is not passionate for why they are in education. Students are not
widgets. You can go to a job every day producing or designing widgets
and do a good job at it even if you aren't passionate for what you do.
Students deserve more. Students should be treated and respected as
individuals, and only a passionate educator can do that.
Who, in your life, has embodied great teaching?
Duckworth: I
danced ballet for six years, but I quit when I was 15 because I thought
it wasn't a serious way to spend one's life. I was a very serious young
woman. When I was 58, I finally got the courage to try again. Margie
Gillis [a modern dancer and choreographer] was a great teacher of mine.
My
first workshop with her was a weeklong class that had people ranging in
age from 16 to 72 and in experience from total beginner to New York
professionals. There were 35 people in the class, and it was a peak
experience for everybody. She gave us exercises — such as, cross the
floor as delicately as you possibly can — which we all did at whatever
level we could, and we did them side by side. It was really
extraordinary teaching. Moore: I've been
blessed to have had several great teachers in my life, starting with my
father, who first taught me to love learning itself. Among my
schoolteachers, the great ones included: Mrs. Bailey, a tall, elegant
black woman who was the principal of our elementary school. She was one
of the first educators I encountered who genuinely believed every child
could learn, and would inspire us to attempt things we thought
impossible. Another was Dixie Goswami, the director of the writing
program at Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English, where I
earned my M.A. Dixie not only taught us how to write, but also the
tremendous transformative power of literacy for us and our students.
Well into her 80s and still teaching, Dixie continues to inspire me (and
push me) to make a difference, not just a living. Vilson: If
we just focus on my time as a teacher, the best ones I know include
Mrs. Ruff, a sixth-grade teacher whose classroom management was based on
civil rights and empowerment. [Vilson also named Moore and suggested
her for this round table].
How important is it to share some of the background and experience of your students?
Moore: Having
some common experiences or understanding of my students' backgrounds
was always helpful to me in my work with high school students because I
taught in 100 percent African-American schools. The black students
needed to see that it is possible to master the use of standard English
without turning into a white person. But when I began teaching at the
college level, I realized it was also important for the white students
to have a highly accomplished African-American English teacher, because
so many of them needed that model to counteract what they had been
taught and told all their segregated lives.
What in your personal experience or biography helped make you a better teacher?
Cockrum: I
come from a media production background. While that express experience
may not have made me a better teacher, the need in the field to be
innovative, creative and technologically advanced has given me the
needed skills to bring those to education. Vilson: Everything,
but especially growing up in a poor neighborhood and gaining access to
private education, because I brought some of the ethos and expectation
from my upbringing to my classroom. Moore: I
agree with the others on this, and have often said that teaching is the
consummate profession. A highly accomplished teacher draws on everything
s/he knows and has ever done to do the creative, dynamic work that is
teaching. Among the experiences that helped me most were my background
as a freelance journalist, and as a parent (I've raised 11 children —
was a 30-year-old mother of four when I started teaching). Duckworth: I was Piaget's student in Geneva. From
Piaget I got the theoretical view that no one can know exactly what
meaning somebody else has made. Words can express it to some extent, but
you can't assume anybody is making the same meaning as you are, and
everybody has their own path.
The other thing I got from them
was the way of talking to kids. I learned from [Piaget's research
partner Barbel] Inhelder about getting kids interested in what you want
to talk about, and not giving them any hints.
How do you improve on the job?
Cockrum: I
attend four or five conferences a year, sometimes more. Presenting at
conferences also provides me the opportunity to reflect on my own
practice. I'm connected online through Twitter and other social media,
to keep myself connected to my PLN [personal learning network]. I make
sure to balance my face-to-face professional development with my online
professional development. I model for my students the act of being a
constant learner. What's the most important lesson you learned when you were just starting out? Vilson: Stop
taking things so personally, Jose. And if you break down emotionally
one day, rest up the rest of the afternoon, go to sleep early, and get
into school early the next day. Don't take the day off unless you're
absolutely sick or something important is happening. Cockrum: I
had a student come to me during her break period very upset. She vented
about a problem she was having and really struggling with. I kept
trying to interject advice to help her solve the problem. Finally, she
said, "Mr. Cockrum, I don't want advice, I just want someone to listen."
I regularly remind myself: Students just need someone to listen. While
advice can be helpful, the most beneficial thing I can provide in most
situations is just to listen. Bain: I'd just
say that we have to learn constantly, about our students, their
learning, our subjects, their society and lives, and so forth, and we
just have to take advantage of all the opportunities we have to learn.
All of the things that my colleagues have mentioned are important, but
I'd emphasize three: Read, listen and talk. Read everything you can
about learning and about your subject. Engage in conversations with
other people who are also exploring the questions, ideas and
information.
What's the biggest piece of advice you would share with an aspiring teacher?
Duckworth: One of the important qualities is to be able to listen well. And a teacher needs to believe in their students. Moore: Network,
network, network. Connect yourself to great teachers, and stay
connected. I've been a networked teacher from the start of my career. In
recent years there has been an exponential growth in the number and
quality of teacher networks. Most of these are grass-roots, vibrant and
vital. Some great examples include: Center for Teaching Quality's Collaboratory,English Companion Ning, Classroom 2.0, K12Online Conference,
and hundreds of teacher-initiated and -maintained Twitter chats
(#engchat, #sschat, [social studies], #scichat, #tlpchat [teach like a
pirate] ...). Find the regularly updated list HERE.
