TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

The Metro Atlanta Beginning Teacher Induction and Support Consortium is a collaboration of Georgia State University, Atlanta Public Schools, DeKalb County Schools, Fulton County Schools, and Gwinnett County Schools. The foundation for the program is based on professional and state standards for teachers and students. The standards provide focus for the consortium, especially in success for teachers in bringing all students to high levels of achievement. INTASC standards and the state Quality Core Curriculum are standards that inform the work.

The ultimate goal of the Consortium is to increase student achievement by supporting, developing, and retaining committed and effective beginning teachers for our schools. The Consortium has two main components, the support component and the development component.

Support Component

The support component is designed to:

•  provide facilitating environments for beginning teachers in the most meaningful place, the schools in which they work;

•  identify and provide resources needed for beginning teachers and all others involved in the mentoring process;

• allow for adequate, quality time for teachers to make the transition from beginner to effective veteran in a positive manner; and

• prepare several types of trained personnel to deliver services needed by beginning teachers. 

Development Component

The development component is designed to:

• provide a longitudinal plan which recognizes that growth into an effective veteran is not a quick or linear process; that is, progress will come over time, and likely include some periods of slow- or no-growth in professional development;

• to focus on teacher reflection and critical thinking, in the classroom and on broader issues;

• feature an interactive process to promote full participation among novice teachers, trained mentors, and all others who will provide support and induction services; and

•  to assess student learning outcomes and the processes used in the model itself. 

Teacher Retention

If the support and development functions of the model are effective, it will then lead to increased teacher retention by:

• establishing a school-wide mentoring environment for the induction period;

•  providing initial attention on teachers’ needs and induction support rather than assessment;

• giving a broader resource base for teachers and mentors;

•  contributing to increased teacher efficacy; and

•  ultimately leading to increased effectiveness and professional satisfaction.

Assumptions of the Consortium

The Consortium members developed some assumptions that undergird effectiveness.

•  To be effective, an induction model must focus on the needs of beginning teachers. Some of those needs can be generally identified from the knowledge base on beginning teachers, while other needs must be personally expressed by individual teachers, based on their training, context, efficacy, skills, and professional readiness.

•  Beginning teachers have many and complex needs, emanating from multiple sources. Therefore, an effective mentoring model must provide services from various people (a mentor, other teachers, teacher educators, building administrators), agencies (district, university, department of education), and sources (documents, electronic communication, and verbal interactions). The Consortium is strongly based on an assumption that the needs of beginning teachers cannot be met by a single designated veteran teacher placed in charge of his/her development.

• Effective mentoring requires adequate resources, including but not limited to: trained personnel, release time and/or compensation for beginning teachers and mentors, communication technology, and opportunities to interact with other beginning teachers.

•  Beginning teachers have completed a teacher education program and are certified in their teaching field during the induction years. This allows Consortium personnel to better anticipate the levels of knowledge, skills, experience and needs of the novice teachers they will serve, leading to a more effective mentoring plan.

•  Teacher induction begins during preservice and continues until a teacher can 1'> independently and effectively assume the full scope of professional responsibilities, including the promotion of achievement for all students. Therefore, any mentoring model must monitor a teachers progress until the induction process is complete, irrespective of time in-service. For some teachers that development will come faster; others will need more time. The induction and support process must be interactive, not directive. Effective induction is something accomplished with beginning teachers, not to them or simply for them. Beginning teachers must learn how to be active participants in their own development through reflection and critical thinking facilitated by every person and agency in the induction plan. There should also be reciprocal benefits that accrue for those in mentoring roles, so they can experience professional growth as well.

• Teacher induction, which includes mentoring, is the shared responsibility of several agencies: the school faculty and administration, the school district administration, the teacher education institution (in particular the Professional Education Faculty and each program’s faculty), and the State Department of Education. 

Principles that Undergird the Work of the Consortium

All of the work will be pursued under some common understandings and principles that can promote well articulated efforts across all parts of the project and the evaluation of the project.

1.  Needs assessment and support must precede evaluation. Beginning teachers cannot give their undivided attention to the complex process of development while at the same time being under evaluative scrutiny, particularly high stakes evaluation that may determine job continuation. In its first stages, the Consortium calls for the provision of services to
   •  determine beginning teachers’ needs;
   • establish a supportive, interactive environment for teacher induction;
   •  give regular feedback and assessment of professional development.

Only eventually does the model call for a shift to the determination of a teacher’s effectiveness through critical observation and/or student achievement.

2.  Teacher development must be pursued independently from student learning initially. The literature on teacher induction is clear in its recognition that teacher effectiveness takes time to develop. Beginning teachers must first have the necessary knowledge, skills, support, and time in practice and reflection opportunities that contribute to effectiveness before student achievement should be used as an evaluative criterion. Therefore, the Consortium calls for teachers to be provided with the needed support, time, reflection, and on-going assessments in the first year and a half of teaching before student achievement measures will be used for evaluative purposes. To hold beginning teachers accountable for student achievement too early risks taking short cuts in their development, and making unfair determinations of their teaching talents.
3. All activities and goals for teachers’ development in the Consortium should be consistent with currently accepted standards, such as Interstate National Teacher Assessment and Support (INTASC) standards for beginning teachers. These standards were developed nationally and are compatible with the Consortium’s priorities for what beginning teachers should know, value, and be able to do. Standards provide a strong link between preservice training and the school system induction activities. It is expected that the Consortium should regularly benchmark its activities against standards.
4.  The Consortium devises strategies and procedures for assessing its effectiveness in facilitating the support, development, and retention of beginning teachers in the program using a variety of data sources and types. Those assessments will provide the basis for making decisions to maintain or revise specific project activities in the future.
5.  In most mentoring plans, the assigned mentor plays the central, and often a solo role in the provision of services to the beginning teacher. The fundamental role of the mentor teacher will be changed in the Consortium, to that of facilitator (of the overall process) and coordinator (of services needed by the beginning teacher). That is, the mentor teacher carries the primary responsibility of identifying a beginning teacher’s needs, but will not necessarily deliver the services to meet those needs him/herself.
6.  The Consortium will lead to a re-examination of the expertise needed by mentor teachers, other professionals, and other agencies participating in the mentoring plan. The model will also lead to new ways in which training is provided. For instance, the Consortium may call for a review of the focus, content and the delivery of TSS certification in Georgia.
7. The primary delivery point for the Consortium is the school in which a beginning teacher works. It is the key reference community within the model. The specific school context can provide the basis for much of the need; therefore services should be based in that setting in order to be most effective. While some out-of-school services are to be anticipated, they should be held to a minimum.
8.  The Consortium will necessitate new communication and mentoring strategies, with a strong reliance on a variety of appropriate technologies for those purposes. Since many parties will participate, and cohorts of beginning teachers in one school district must be linked together, an information infrastructure must be developed to facilitate those activities.

Activities of the Consortium

One function is to facilitate the training of mentors who work with beginning educators. Many school systems provide mentor training. The state has a certification add-on endorsement (Teacher Support Specialist) for mentor teachers. It is conducted by school systems and higher education institutions and includes one course and an internship. Endorsed teachers receive a stipend for working with other teachers. The Georgia Teaching Force Center reports that the metro area had over 800 teachers who received stipends for mentoring working with 1200 beginning teachers. The consortium can reach more teachers. In addition to direct training, the consortium supports school leaders in developing new teacher induction and mentoring programs in their schools. This support will include training, assessing the needs of new teachers, and providing a resource for information on best practices in mentoring and induction. The Consortium advised GSU in developing its new Teacher Support Specialist program.

The Consortium is part of the Metro Atlanta P-16 Council. Other projects include a standards-based teaching project. The MAP-16 Council web site is http://education.gsu.edu/p16.

This collaboration advances the use of technology for induction and in future thinking about how to link teacher education and schools in the effort to retain and develop quality teachers.

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