Thesis: Investigation
Project Design
I wanted to develop strong mentors for the Magnolia Teacher Intern Program: they would need initial training and evaluation to identify their strengths and needs, and they would need ongoing support to help them be successful in their mentoring relationships. In order to develop the tools, records, forms and examples that would best serve mentors, I investigated the following questions:
1. What is the context for the mentoring component of the MTI Program?
2. What works in other successful schools? What works at our schools already?
I wanted to develop strong mentors for the Magnolia Teacher Intern Program: they would need initial training and evaluation to identify their strengths and needs, and they would need ongoing support to help them be successful in their mentoring relationships. In order to develop the tools, records, forms and examples that would best serve mentors, I investigated the following questions:
1. What is the context for the mentoring component of the MTI Program?
2. What works in other successful schools? What works at our schools already?
The Context: Magnolia Public Schools
The MTI Program will ultimately serve many Magnolia campuses, however I focused on my own campus first due to time/travel limitations and the state deadlines for submitting our intern program proposal. Magnolia Science Academy, San Diego (MSA-SD), is a charter middle school serving about 300 students in the 6th-8th grades and a handful of 9th graders. We are part of a larger family of 9 Magnolia schools and two Pacific Technology Schools, which are our under our state-wide charter. The majority of Magnolia schools serve grades 6-12 and are in the Los Angeles region, with a few in northern California and our single campus in San Diego. The first Magnolia school opened in 2002 in Los Angeles; San Diego was the second campus and opened in 2005.
The Culture: Magnolia Science Academy San Diego
MSA-SD follows a departmentalized structure of core classes as well as daily PE, computer lab time integrated with core classes, and electives. Each grade level has three core teachers: one for English, one for history, and one for science. Math teachers teach across the grade levels because we offer several advanced levels of math and students are placed in their math class based on grade level and current math skill. Our small size means that we have 3 teachers per department and a total staff of about 18 teachers. We have a Principal, a Dean of Academics (testing, grades, accountability) and a Dean of Students (discipline, campus culture).
Despite our small size, our campus has very few formalized structures for working together. We have whole staff meetings on Wednesdays for about 60-90 minutes but these meetings are updates and announcements rather than collaborative time. Starting two years ago, we began having alternating grade-level and departmental meeting time for about 30 minutes after the whole staff meetings. The agenda for that meeting time is loose and has generally been used however staff felt was best. This year staff members were chosen to be grade-level team leaders and department chairs so that someone is responsible for that meeting time and serves as a communicator between staff and administration.
Like many schools, MSA-SD struggles to find and retain qualified math and science teachers, which is a particular concern since we are a math, science, and technology-focused charter. Also, with only three teachers in a department, if one or two teachers move, go on maternity leave, or change jobs, it has a huge impact on the stability of the department. We have a lot of young staff: nine participants in BTSA during the 2009-2010 school year and five BTSA, one intern, in the 2010-2011 school year. Between staff turn over and general lack of experience, I believe staff collaboration and communication are especially important for developing and sustaining a positive school culture. Additionally, developing strong mentor teachers creates strong incoming staff, thus increasing the chances that students will be academically successful and that staff will return year to year.
What Works Elsewhere
I read many books, articles, and websites relating to school culture and the work of mentoring. Two books really impacted my ideas about how mentoring could and should play a role on our campus: Building an Intentional School Culture by Charles F. Elbot and David Fulton, and The Hardest Questions Aren’t on the Test by Linda F. Nathan. While Elbot and Fulton’s book identified eight “gateways” of school culture, Nathan’s book gave a narrative of her school’s growth and challenges. In each book, I saw how teacher relationships, support, and training played a critical role. For example, of Elbot and Fulton’s eight gateways to school culture, six directly connect to the work of mentoring: voice; leadership; teaching, learning, and assessment; relationships; problem solving; and expectations, trust, and accountability. While I had felt that “school culture” was too large a topic for one master’s thesis to tackle, I came to realize that developing a strong mentoring program would impact the school at many levels. I especially wanted the MTI Program to focus on voice, relationships, and trust as these “soft” arts can make or break the success of a mentor-mentee relationship: a point well illustrated by Nathan’s book.
Linda Nathan is founder and principal of the very successful Boston Arts Academy. In her book, Nathan shares how she and her staff, students, and community have tried to answer questions such as: How and why does a school develop a shared vision of what it stands for? What makes a great teacher, and how can a principal help good teachers improve? Why must schools talk openly about race and achievement, and what happens when they do? Nathan’s honest conversations with her staff, the amount of support and role modeling and sharing they do together and with their students, inspired me to engage mentors and interns in conversation and collaboration in ways new to Magnolia’s culture.
To create a program that could safely introduce new ideas and strategies into the Magnolia culture, I pulled heavily from other successful programs: using protocols, looking at student work, the phases new teachers go through, mentoring roles, reflection journals, video observations and feedback, and role plays. These ideas came from the book The Power of Protocols by McDonald, Nohr, Dichter, and McDonald; the lasw.org website; the book Mentoring Matters by Lipton and Wellman; the book The BEST Mentoring Experience based on the Arizona teacher induction and mentoring program by Kortman and Honaker; and the induction and intern programs offered at High Tech High. All of these resources emphasized structured and thoughtful collaboration: success through support became my focus.
What Works Here:
I wanted to investigate how staff at MSA-SD were already working together, how they would respond to new strategies like protocols, and what they thought of the mentoring work already happening on campus for BTSA. Our staff is made up of 12 core content area teachers and 4 elective teachers, some of whom are part time. Therefore, the sample group is very small, especially since not all staff participated in all surveys or activities.
Would staff be open to a mentoring culture?
At the end of the 2009-2010 school year I surveyed staff about school culture (I did not include mentoring-specific questions as I did not have that focus at the time). The survey was sent via google forms and completed anonymously.
Some results that stood out to me as I began thinking about ways to support the staff were:
* Teachers generally reported that they "usually" or "always" felt MSA-SD did well as far as working together and supporting each other.
The MTI Program will ultimately serve many Magnolia campuses, however I focused on my own campus first due to time/travel limitations and the state deadlines for submitting our intern program proposal. Magnolia Science Academy, San Diego (MSA-SD), is a charter middle school serving about 300 students in the 6th-8th grades and a handful of 9th graders. We are part of a larger family of 9 Magnolia schools and two Pacific Technology Schools, which are our under our state-wide charter. The majority of Magnolia schools serve grades 6-12 and are in the Los Angeles region, with a few in northern California and our single campus in San Diego. The first Magnolia school opened in 2002 in Los Angeles; San Diego was the second campus and opened in 2005.
The Culture: Magnolia Science Academy San Diego
MSA-SD follows a departmentalized structure of core classes as well as daily PE, computer lab time integrated with core classes, and electives. Each grade level has three core teachers: one for English, one for history, and one for science. Math teachers teach across the grade levels because we offer several advanced levels of math and students are placed in their math class based on grade level and current math skill. Our small size means that we have 3 teachers per department and a total staff of about 18 teachers. We have a Principal, a Dean of Academics (testing, grades, accountability) and a Dean of Students (discipline, campus culture).
Despite our small size, our campus has very few formalized structures for working together. We have whole staff meetings on Wednesdays for about 60-90 minutes but these meetings are updates and announcements rather than collaborative time. Starting two years ago, we began having alternating grade-level and departmental meeting time for about 30 minutes after the whole staff meetings. The agenda for that meeting time is loose and has generally been used however staff felt was best. This year staff members were chosen to be grade-level team leaders and department chairs so that someone is responsible for that meeting time and serves as a communicator between staff and administration.
Like many schools, MSA-SD struggles to find and retain qualified math and science teachers, which is a particular concern since we are a math, science, and technology-focused charter. Also, with only three teachers in a department, if one or two teachers move, go on maternity leave, or change jobs, it has a huge impact on the stability of the department. We have a lot of young staff: nine participants in BTSA during the 2009-2010 school year and five BTSA, one intern, in the 2010-2011 school year. Between staff turn over and general lack of experience, I believe staff collaboration and communication are especially important for developing and sustaining a positive school culture. Additionally, developing strong mentor teachers creates strong incoming staff, thus increasing the chances that students will be academically successful and that staff will return year to year.
What Works Elsewhere
I read many books, articles, and websites relating to school culture and the work of mentoring. Two books really impacted my ideas about how mentoring could and should play a role on our campus: Building an Intentional School Culture by Charles F. Elbot and David Fulton, and The Hardest Questions Aren’t on the Test by Linda F. Nathan. While Elbot and Fulton’s book identified eight “gateways” of school culture, Nathan’s book gave a narrative of her school’s growth and challenges. In each book, I saw how teacher relationships, support, and training played a critical role. For example, of Elbot and Fulton’s eight gateways to school culture, six directly connect to the work of mentoring: voice; leadership; teaching, learning, and assessment; relationships; problem solving; and expectations, trust, and accountability. While I had felt that “school culture” was too large a topic for one master’s thesis to tackle, I came to realize that developing a strong mentoring program would impact the school at many levels. I especially wanted the MTI Program to focus on voice, relationships, and trust as these “soft” arts can make or break the success of a mentor-mentee relationship: a point well illustrated by Nathan’s book.
Linda Nathan is founder and principal of the very successful Boston Arts Academy. In her book, Nathan shares how she and her staff, students, and community have tried to answer questions such as: How and why does a school develop a shared vision of what it stands for? What makes a great teacher, and how can a principal help good teachers improve? Why must schools talk openly about race and achievement, and what happens when they do? Nathan’s honest conversations with her staff, the amount of support and role modeling and sharing they do together and with their students, inspired me to engage mentors and interns in conversation and collaboration in ways new to Magnolia’s culture.
To create a program that could safely introduce new ideas and strategies into the Magnolia culture, I pulled heavily from other successful programs: using protocols, looking at student work, the phases new teachers go through, mentoring roles, reflection journals, video observations and feedback, and role plays. These ideas came from the book The Power of Protocols by McDonald, Nohr, Dichter, and McDonald; the lasw.org website; the book Mentoring Matters by Lipton and Wellman; the book The BEST Mentoring Experience based on the Arizona teacher induction and mentoring program by Kortman and Honaker; and the induction and intern programs offered at High Tech High. All of these resources emphasized structured and thoughtful collaboration: success through support became my focus.
What Works Here:
I wanted to investigate how staff at MSA-SD were already working together, how they would respond to new strategies like protocols, and what they thought of the mentoring work already happening on campus for BTSA. Our staff is made up of 12 core content area teachers and 4 elective teachers, some of whom are part time. Therefore, the sample group is very small, especially since not all staff participated in all surveys or activities.
Would staff be open to a mentoring culture?
At the end of the 2009-2010 school year I surveyed staff about school culture (I did not include mentoring-specific questions as I did not have that focus at the time). The survey was sent via google forms and completed anonymously.
Some results that stood out to me as I began thinking about ways to support the staff were:
* Teachers generally reported that they "usually" or "always" felt MSA-SD did well as far as working together and supporting each other.
- In their comments, they wanted more time to work together, better collaboration, and showed areas for improvement professionally.
Teachers work well together as a whole...
The majority of staff reported satisfaction with our staff as a whole. This suggests to me that people feel comfortable working with each other, not just those in their grade level or department team.
The majority of staff reported satisfaction with our staff as a whole. This suggests to me that people feel comfortable working with each other, not just those in their grade level or department team.
My grade level peers support me...
This was encouraging: staff felt supported by their grade level peers regardless of department. This suggests that teacher who work with the same students throughout the day are not only comfortable working with one another, but that they already are working together.
This was encouraging: staff felt supported by their grade level peers regardless of department. This suggests that teacher who work with the same students throughout the day are not only comfortable working with one another, but that they already are working together.
My department peers support me...
Although most staff reported that they "Always" felt supported by their departmental peers, the 20% that felt they were only "Sometimes" supported stood out to me. I wondered which department(s) these staff were in and what it was that made them feel disconnected: was one department having challenges or were there some staff whose needs were not being met?
Although most staff reported that they "Always" felt supported by their departmental peers, the 20% that felt they were only "Sometimes" supported stood out to me. I wondered which department(s) these staff were in and what it was that made them feel disconnected: was one department having challenges or were there some staff whose needs were not being met?
Staff meetings support teacher needs...
Considering how positive comments were about grade level and departmental support, this response to the value of staff meeting time stood out to me. We generally spend more time on whole-group announcements than grade or departmental meeting time...is this where the change in satisfaction came from?
Considering how positive comments were about grade level and departmental support, this response to the value of staff meeting time stood out to me. We generally spend more time on whole-group announcements than grade or departmental meeting time...is this where the change in satisfaction came from?
How do staff respond to protocols?
Our staff meetings are loosely structured and often there is an imbalance in participation: some speak a lot, others stay silent. Based on the feedback from the school culture survey and inspired by work around protocols, communication, shared decision-making, and mentoring that I was doing in the GSE and as a BTSA mentor, I wanted to see how the staff would respond to a protocol that asked them all to participate and give feedback to a peer. I used this video observation protocol with the whole staff during a specially scheduled staff meeting:
In this protocol, I shared a two minute video clip I had chosen of me trying, rather ineffectively, to give directions to my class. The staff were asked to write down their own objective descriptions of what they noticed in the video, then share their observations with a small group of mixed peers. Each group then shared out something they noticed in the video. Next, each group brainstormed suggestions that would make the lesson better next time and shared those with the whole group. Each part of the protocol had set time limits and rules for participation. EVERYONE was highly engaged in this protocol--teachers from different fields, grade levels, and years of experience were talking together and then sharing out ideas to the whole group. I had been nervous to open up my classroom to my peers at first; but felt inspired and encouraged by their great ideas and feedback! Lastly we debriefed how the protocol went and I passed out a paper survey asking whether and how teachers would use this protocol and video feedback again:
Our staff meetings are loosely structured and often there is an imbalance in participation: some speak a lot, others stay silent. Based on the feedback from the school culture survey and inspired by work around protocols, communication, shared decision-making, and mentoring that I was doing in the GSE and as a BTSA mentor, I wanted to see how the staff would respond to a protocol that asked them all to participate and give feedback to a peer. I used this video observation protocol with the whole staff during a specially scheduled staff meeting:
In this protocol, I shared a two minute video clip I had chosen of me trying, rather ineffectively, to give directions to my class. The staff were asked to write down their own objective descriptions of what they noticed in the video, then share their observations with a small group of mixed peers. Each group then shared out something they noticed in the video. Next, each group brainstormed suggestions that would make the lesson better next time and shared those with the whole group. Each part of the protocol had set time limits and rules for participation. EVERYONE was highly engaged in this protocol--teachers from different fields, grade levels, and years of experience were talking together and then sharing out ideas to the whole group. I had been nervous to open up my classroom to my peers at first; but felt inspired and encouraged by their great ideas and feedback! Lastly we debriefed how the protocol went and I passed out a paper survey asking whether and how teachers would use this protocol and video feedback again:
I surveyed the staff afterward:
The results were overwhelmingly positive! I thought it was interesting that these surveys mirrored the school culture survey: staff felt comfortable getting support from their peers but seemed more inclined to want that support with their grade level team than their departmental team.
These survey results suggested that staff were eager to collaborate and help one another develop professionally even when that meant sharing video and having others observe your classroom. Since casual classroom observations are not the norm at MSA-SD but are a big part of mentoring, I think this is encouraging!
How can we discuss student work?
I was pleased with the positive response to our staff’s first protocol. I was curious to see how staff would respond to protocols for Looking At Student Work . Would staff engage in another protocol? Would Looking At Student Work be beneficial? I conducted one more protocol with my grade level team:
This time, I met with my grade level team (myself as English teacher and the math,science, and history teacher) and used a slightly condensed version of the ATLAS protocol to examine the work of a student we were studying as part of a Student Study Team. We each brought work samples so we could look for patterns, strengths, and challenges across all his classes. I was curious to experience a LASW protocol to see if it was as useful and adaptable as I was hoping. This protocol was very similar to the video observation protocol we had tried as a whole staff.
Results: when we discussed the protocol, we all were surprised at how much we had learned about this student! We realized that some of his challenges were exhibited in all his classes, but others were not. We saw the difference between his strategies for solving math and for writing essays. One teacher brought in samples of his artwork and another pointed out differences between his work on a test, his work at home, and his work when typed. This was only the second protocol we had used as staff at MSA-SD and everyone was happy with the structure and felt it ensured we all had time to speak but that no one person ruled the discussion. We were all eager to use the protocol again.
I was pleased with the positive response to our staff’s first protocol. I was curious to see how staff would respond to protocols for Looking At Student Work . Would staff engage in another protocol? Would Looking At Student Work be beneficial? I conducted one more protocol with my grade level team:
This time, I met with my grade level team (myself as English teacher and the math,science, and history teacher) and used a slightly condensed version of the ATLAS protocol to examine the work of a student we were studying as part of a Student Study Team. We each brought work samples so we could look for patterns, strengths, and challenges across all his classes. I was curious to experience a LASW protocol to see if it was as useful and adaptable as I was hoping. This protocol was very similar to the video observation protocol we had tried as a whole staff.
Results: when we discussed the protocol, we all were surprised at how much we had learned about this student! We realized that some of his challenges were exhibited in all his classes, but others were not. We saw the difference between his strategies for solving math and for writing essays. One teacher brought in samples of his artwork and another pointed out differences between his work on a test, his work at home, and his work when typed. This was only the second protocol we had used as staff at MSA-SD and everyone was happy with the structure and felt it ensured we all had time to speak but that no one person ruled the discussion. We were all eager to use the protocol again.
I was very encouraged by the positive engagement from my staff. Lastly, I wanted feedback on the mentoring work that was already happening on campus. I interviewed two staff members who served as BTSA Mentors for the 2010-2011 school year.
Some highlights from our conversation:
What was successful or what did you enjoy about mentoring this year?
• It was strictly selfish in that it was a really good opportunity to remind myself of the importance of being reflective and critical of your own teaching style because when you are doing that for somebody else you can't help but compare to how you teach and what you are doing in your own room. So for me it was a good reminder of "hey, this used to be me" and some days I feel like this still is me. This is an important process, BTSA is an intense 2 year program that beginning teachers need to go through but it also should be done on a regular basis by all teachers throughout their full career. Otherwise you end up being that 30 year teacher who is still teaching the same thing.
• I learn a lot; I pick up new ideas. Sometimes the questions that come up, you see something that is not working and being able to figure out why isn't that working for this person... if they aren't able to see it for themselves then it helps me think about reflecting in my own classroom like what's not working in my room and actually taking the time to figure it out is beneficial.
What training did you find most useful?
• Where we got the worksheet about how to observe and not ask threatening questions, to pose it like we're evaluating, was the best thing I got out of it.
• [The training where we role-played mentor/intern conversations] helped, because I'd been observed...(but not lead the conversation)
• If I needed the info/support you were there but the cheat sheet checklist was SUPER helpful--one place to see the big picture and a break down of what needs to happen when and why.
What would improve the observation process?
• More observations would absolutely be beneficial but long observations are hard to schedule. More random, short, frequent observations so there is less prep for observation.
• I feel like I don't get the whole picture. [On the video of the mentee’s class] I couldn't see what was on the [projector] screen, how kids are reacting. I do scripting so I have my watch and write down the time, what was on the board, how the kids are reacting [instead of the using the forms provided].
• Role play "perfect scenario" vs "don't do this" conversations for both mentors and mentees to see to help them see what to expect/how to participate in reflective conversations.
What would improve our mentoring program overall?
• To be a mentor, it helps to have gone through the program. It should be considered who takes on a mentoring position--if they've been through the program before. Also using repeat mentors so the skills/experience can build.
• One fill-outable pdf file with all the required documents in one form instead of lots of different files and forms; separate folders for additional/optional forms available.
• Do modules as we went through the year, mentees should meet monthly to check in with modules with actual deadlines instead of turning in everything in at the end of the year.