Do you have a goal?

Today I attended a New Teacher Center leadership meeting, where a fellow mentor colleague shared the story of a successful year of mentoring with a first year teacher. Their work together resulted in significant student gains, with 80% of the mentee's students reading at grade level by the end of the school year. At the start of the school year, most of the students were reading well below grade level. These gains aligned directly with the mentee's professional goals for the year.

Here's the point for those of us in a new teacher mentoring role: the mentor had a targeted goal for her work that aligned directly with the mentee's goal. These aligned goals on the part of both professionals kept the work right on target. At the end of the year, they were able to celebrate the resulting student successes together, and they had an understanding of how they got there as a result of their weekly reflection on student achievement and learning needs. This is what our work is ultimately about, and there is great satisfaction in realizing a stated goal.

In the coming days, I'm going to be sure to write up a specific goal for my work with each of my mentees that aligns precisely with his or her professional goals. It will be interesting to reflect on the results at the end of the year. I encourage you to do the same - and to share your outcomes here.

Thanks for reading!