Creating Challenge

With the holiday season and a few weeks of much needed rest behind us, this is the perfect time to raise some mentoring conversation topics that create challenge in our work with our mentees. November is perhaps the worst month to take on such an approach - new teachers are often exhausted then, and usually only a day ahead of their classes. The holiday break brings quite a bit of rejuvenation.

Just today, I met with a first-year teacher and he was really happy with how his week was unfolding. He told me about how he was able to reflect on his classes over the break and how he wanted to change them to make them more engaging. As he put it, "I had an epiphany! I was bored in my classes, so my students HAD to be bored in my classes! I've decided I can do something every day to make the content I'm teaching much more engaging. We're doing hands-on activities outside, I'm doing demos more often, we're playing games to learn vocabulary, I'm working on making every wall in my room inviting and about learning. My students love it - and I'm happy today!"

Now with this type of motivation, my mentee was energized to hear about next steps he could take with his room set-up, more challenging approaches to weave into his vocabulary instruction, additional curriculum guides that could extend his hands-on lessons.

So what are some of the steps we can take to create challenge in our work with our mentees?

Here are a few suggestions:

• Dig into looking at student case studies. Look at their student work. Suggest next steps for mentees to reach out to the students' families. Note the questions that come up in your conversations and write them down on a Collaborative Log to follow up on finding the answer. Propose readings related to each case study student's learning needs and share insights together. Link mutual learning to future lesson planning and steps towards appropriate teaching strategies to differentiate instruction.

• Reflect on goals together. Rather than simply reflecting on how successful your mentee is at meeting his or her goals, work together to refine the goals towards more precise next steps. Of course, we celebrate any and all accomplishments that have been made thus far in the year, but the added layer of challenge keeps newer teachers inspired to continue to learn and grow.

• Design an Inquiry Action Plan. Action inquiry provides an opportunity to focus on a key question a teacher may have about a change he or she plans to make in the classroom. Together, you'll decide what kinds of evidence you want to gather to shape answers to that question over time. It's the perfect opportunity to encourage a mentee to try something in the classroom that he or she will stick with and reflect on using such evidence as classroom observation notes, student work analysis, assessment results, and lesson plans.

• Analyze Student Work. This is perhaps the most powerful approach to learning about what students specifically need to enhance their learning. It is a natural springboard towards a mentee making instructional decisions to meet those learning needs.

I find January to be an inspiring month for our work as mentors. It is a time of the year when the work becomes increasingly rich and focused on refining practice.

It would be fun to hear some of your January stories - and some of the successes you have accomplished along the way.

Thanks for reading!

-Alison.