New Teachers Teach, Students Learn Academy

1. New Teachers Teach, Students Learn Academy

2. New Teachers Teach, Students Learn Academy (NTTSLA)UWF Institute for Innovative Community Learning (ICL) and Escambia County School District Partnership Presenters: Janet K. Pilcher jpilcher@uwf.edu Robin Largue elargue@uwf.edu

3. We developed, piloted and modified a model to retain new teachers and to improve their performance.

4. Presentation Structure • Description of the Model • Description of the Coaching Philosophy Attached to the Model • Implementation of the Model in Schools • Evaluation of the Model and New Directions

5. How did we define early career teachers? • Early Career Teachers in High Need Schools • Within the first 3 years of teaching • New hire at a high needs school • We defined the early career teachers as middle performers - Why? • Not yet expert performers • Asked principals to NOT give us low performers

6. Performance and Coaching • Business Partner – Studer Group • Hardwiring Excellence: Purpose, Worthwhile Work, and Making a Difference • Quint Studer

7. What to do with High Performers? • Tell them where the organization is going • Thank them for their work • Outline why they are so important • Ask is there anything you can do for them Reference: Studer’s Hardwiring Excellence

8. What to do with Middle Performers? • Reassure the individual goal is to retain: • Support – Describe good qualities • Coach – Cover development opportunities • Support – Reaffirm good qualities • Coach – Coach by sharing one area for development and improvement. Work on only one area at a time that is of highest need. Reference: Studer’s Hardwiring Excellence

9. What to do with Low Performers? • Low performers either go up or out • Don’t start meeting out on a positive note • Describe – Describe what has been observed • Evaluate – Evaluate how you feel • Show – Show what needs to be done • Know – Know consequences of continued same performance Reference: Studer’s Hardwiring Excellence

10. Participants (early career teachers in high need schools) • Initial Plan • Team of four teachers from 5 high need elementary schools and 2 middle schools • National Board Certified Teacher for each team • University faculty coaches leading effort and working with each team

11. Participants (early career teachers in high need schools) • Actual participants • Teams of four teachers from three elementary schools • Teams of three from two elementary schools • A coach from a different school was assigned to each of the teams • One teacher from each middle school • One teacher had one of the coaches from the elementary team • One teacher left initially for active duty, but came back and completed with us

12. Initial NTTSLA Model

13. Actual Model

14. Model • Description of Actual Model - Handout 1 • Online Instruction to reinforce learning from expert

15. Coaches • National Board Certified Teachers from schools not involved in grant • Two UWF faculty – Lead Coaches • Robin Largue • Janet Pilcher • Collegial coaching – teachers working with each other

16. Coaching Philosophy – The Power of Feedback • Harvesting the Wins Reference: Studer’s Hardwiring Excellence • Feedback to students and to each other - key to improving student learning

17. Feedback and Coaching – Harvesting the Wins • Message to our coaches: Recognize and reward success. Once you get a win, it’s important to sustain the gain. Help teachers focus on the problem, fix it, and follow-up by explaining how they are responsive to their students’ learning needs. Coaches document with their teachers that they understand and appreciate the teachers’ goals for a particular focus area defined in their learning communities.

18. Tools for Coaches to Harvest the Wins • WOW! Card • Manage Up Protocol • Thank you Card • Bright Idea Note

19. Feedback to Students • To Students • Black and William study: Students of teachers who provided quality and consistent feedback to students on specified learning objectives scored higher on end of year standardized tests. The highest gains occurred for lower performing students

20. Feedback to Students • To Students • Teacher in Britain: She scored writing of students in three ways (grade only, grade and comments only, and comments only) – What students scored the highest on standardized tests at the end of the year?

21. Where Did This Feedback Occur? • Learning Communities • LEARN from an Expert • PLAN with each other • PRACTICE in their classroom • REFLECT with each other about their lesson • MODIFY their practices from what they learned

22. Implementation

23. Timeline • Handout 2 • Four Instruction Segments • Work on one thing as a team for each segment

24. Instructional Segment 1: Assessment(Spring 2006) • Content Expert: Dr. Rick Stiggins • Online instruction • Plan lesson together • Deliver lesson together • Standard district CWT by district leadership • LESSONS LEARNED: • Expert was valued and appreciated • Online not working • District CWT not working • Needed to work on more involvement of team coaches in the model • In large group meetings, had a sense teachers showing up because of an obligation • Communication across project was shaky – could not break the district firewall!!! • Commitment from everyone had to become strong to make it work

25. Instructional Segment 2: STEM Literacy (Summer 06) • Experts: • Dr. Mae Jemison • Summer week-long workshop • Florida Space Research Institute • Implementation in classroom occurred at beginning of Fall 2006 school year • LESSONS LEARNED: • Loved Dr. Jemison and we realized that the experts were a major strength of the model • Content focus on summer workshop did not seem to go so well, but ended up being applied at their showcase presentation at end of project (Question - Teacher perception of value of content PD) • District CWT still not working – too isolated from process

26. Instructional Segment 3: Reading • Expert Presenters: • Dr. Gay Ivey • Implementation with teams and coaches beginning to take full affect • LESSONS LEARNED: • One of the coaches made recommended modification to the CWT part of the model that changed our model and moved the process to the next level • Teachers went crazy when offered a free book – used funds to implement a recommendation by expert. Teachers received a supplement to purchase a classroom library (Barnes & Nobles provided matching funding) • Continued reinforcement of value of experts • Teachers beginning to feel special

27. Instructional Segment 4: Diversity • Experts • Dr. Renee Martin • Dr. Ruby Payne • LESSONS LEARNED • Experts continue to be valuable • Teachers feeling special and now wanting the experience to not end • Coaches feeling more and more confident about their role and proud of their teams • UWF coaches not needed as much. Teams doing it on their own.

28. Conclusion of Academy • Team presentations • No guidelines except time (20 minutes) • Graduation • Teams and invited guests (family and friends) • LESSONS LEARNED • Asked if we were doing this next year – wanted to be the new teachers’ coaches • Developed with each other as a team – did not necessarily know each other very well prior to the academy • One group said, “No matter how bad things got, they now had someone they could turn to.”

29. Program Evaluation Program Evaluation Data Collected Evaluation of each of the expert presentations Mid-term evaluation Final evaluation (External evaluator)

30. Participants (re-hire rate) • Of 20 teachers, two moved out of state for family reasons. • The other 18 teachers are employed in the district. • Of those 18, 14 remained in the same schools. • Four transferred to other schools; three of the four came from one school. • Two schools were left with one teacher from the grant • In one school that started with four participants, three transferred to other schools in the district. • In the other school with three participants, one transferred to another school and one moved out of state. • Significantly, the schools that had the highest turnover rates in 2005 kept their team of teachers for the three years (year and ½ with us and going into next year).

38. Up to this point what are the things you like best about NTTSLA? • Meeting, talking and working with other new teachers • Professional development sessions with the experts and bringing in experts from other states • Good communication with Dr. Largue and Dr. Pilcher • Excellent information to apply to the classroom • Working with a team and an experienced coach • Learning new ideas

39. Up to this point what are the things you like best about NTTSLA? • Getting others’ insight on improving teaching techniques to help our students succeed • Team meetings that allow us to discuss the problems and challenges in teaching challenging students • Time with coach • Feeling of being a community • Planning with teachers who have a common goal

40. At this point, what issues still exist? • Communication because of computer problems • Science week was not very applicable and too advanced for elementary teachers • Constant changes • Pay to teachers took forever • Not knowing exactly what to do • Missing time away from students

41. At this point, what issues still exist? • Negativity from other teachers in the academy • Things are coming together • Want to visit and see what other teachers are doing • Everything has been resolved • Appreciate the patience

42. Thank you, FL DOE!!

43. Questions???