Summer of Changes!

It's been a very long time since I've updated this blog! The 2011-2012 school  year has come to an end, and I am preparing for a new challenge for the next two years. In 2009, our district was awarded the Bill & Melinda Gates Grant, which is a seven year/$100 million investment. Part of the grant is being used to develop a new system for how teachers are supported, evaluated and compensated, which, in turn will increase student achievement. One component to the grant is the addition of New Teacher Mentors, which is the position that I will be undertaking for the next two years! I will be providing weekly support to brand new and second year teachers. This support includes, but is not limited to, observing, co-teaching, modeling lessons, analyzing student work, and conferencing. Mentors will also conduct observations using a variety of instruments. These include anecdotal records, observation tools from the New Teacher Center, and other observation templates based on Charlotte Danielson’s Framework. I have been attending trainings this summer to help me prepare for this exciting adventure. I would like to keep this blog going, since I have almost 300 followers (woo hoo!), and I would like to continue to share some of the ideas I have picked up along the way. I was also thinking about sort of combining my teaching blog and my family blog into a more general blog. I'll work on trying to figure out how to do that!