THE MINT NEW TEACHER LEARNING COMMUNITY:
LINKING EXEMPLARY VETERAN TEACHERS
AND BEGINNING TEACHERS IN MARYLAND
The Problem: For the past three years, and continuing into at least the next three years, Maryland is faced with critical teacher shortages -- recruiting upwards of 8,000 new and largely beginning teachers each year. Issues of retention have been identified as perhaps more critical than the recruitment of qualified individuals. One-third of all new teachers in Maryland drop out of the profession by the end of their third year of teaching. Many exit interviews reveal that teachers leaving their jobs feel disconnected and isolated and have fewer than needed professional and personal coping skills. Many say they would have benefited from an experienced “teacher buddy” or mentor, additional assistance and resources, and networking opportunities. At the same time, Maryland’s Talent Bank teachers, consisting of Teachers of the Year and other award-winning practitioners, consistently offer their services and talents, looking for ways they could help other teachers and the Maryland State Department of Education.
An Initiative Implemented in Maryland: In 2001, in an effort to lend a much needed level of state support to new teachers and to local school systems working with new teachers, the Maryland State Department of Education created the MINT Program - Maryland’s Initiative for New Teachers. MINT has successfully developed and implemented a New Teacher Newsletter, MINT News, which is distributed to 20,000 first and second year teachers and a limited number of teachers in their third to fifth years. In addition, socials and seminars for new teachers have been offered across the state in which new teachers meet the state superintendent and other inspiring education leaders. These events have brought useful information, instructional training, and professional networking to over 1,500 new teachers. Evaluations of these programs have been extremely high. Building on these successes, the department has explored the feasibility of a teacher “buddies” program, pairing exemplary and new teachers. An on-line learning community concept, proposed by Johns Hopkins University has been accepted. The McAuliffe award will help in making this concept a statewide reality.
The Partnership: The McAuliffe Professional Development Award will build on Thinkport - a multimillion dollar Maryland program supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s Stars Schools and one involving Maryland Public Television, Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Technology in Education, and the Maryland State Department of Education. Thinkport is a powerful new supersite for Maryland’s K-12 education community and families from Maryland Public Television and Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education that provides lesson plans, activities, materials, and tools for all teachers. In addition, MPT’s broadcast schedule of K-12 instructional programs and a searchable database of educational videos are available, as well as a myriad of resources from other websites and opportunities for on-line instruction. This very sophisticated site has been developed over the course of three years. It holds tremendous promise for new and veteran teachers but was not developed with new teachers specifically in mind. In addition, exemplary Teachers of the Year will provide important feedback regarding uses of Thinkport resources by new teachers. This project will piggyback off of a powerful and well-developed website and will create a much needed additional on-line component that supports mentoring between and among teachers.
McAuliffe Project Description: The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), 24 Teachers of the Year (2003 cohort) representing every Maryland school district, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Technology in Education (CTE) will partner to develop a statewide system for beginning and other new teachers to network with and learn from award-winning Teachers of the Year, National Board certified teachers, Milken National Educators, and other exemplary practitioners. An important outcome will be the development of on-line mentoring course content that will be critical in the future expansion of on-line mentoring of beginning teachers. As a result of this project, new and beginning teachers will have opportunities to access quality educational resources and peer mentors as well as the ability to individualize needs through on-line one-to-one and group conversations and on-line training. Interactive communication and learning will also be enhanced by in-person state, regional, and local gatherings, seminars, and networking opportunities offered through the MINT Program.
Thinkport and the Johns Hopkins Electronic Learning Community, a secure Web-based forum for professional exchange, will be the on-line catalysts to establish this new teacher resource. Building on Star School grants obtained by CTE and Maryland Public Television (MPT), and with support from the McAuliffe Program and corporate underwriters, the project team will design an on-line system to foster and sustain continuous instructional improvement in new teachers and to increase teacher retention in Maryland. The MINT Program of the Maryland State Department of Education will coordinate and act as a lead partner with CTE and MPT, identifying and coordinating Teachers of the Year and offering additional community forums for teachers throughout Maryland. Maryland’s 2003 Teachers of the Year (TOYs), who represent every school system in the state, will select a protege new teacher (second to fourth year of teaching) from his or her school, a feeder school, or nearby school. These teachers will comprise the design team.
In this first development year, the goal is to develop a small MINT On-Line Learning Community Model, which will grow in the coming years to accommodate 2,000 teachers in 2004-2005. The project partners will apply a peer mentoring model that has been tested in an on-line learning community environment. This community was developed and implemented by Johns Hopkins University over the past four years through other national grants. It was never designed, however, to be used by new teachers who need mentoring and guidance from others. Maryland’s design team of Teachers of the Year and beginning teacher proteges will develop and structure this community–a first in Maryland. The teachers, working with Johns Hopkins and MSDE coordinators and technology trainers, will spend the year designing and developing the foundation of Maryland’s MINT New Teacher Learning Community (MINT NTLC) which will, in the following year, expand to encompass from 500-1000 teachers across the state. The ultimate capability goal of the MINT NTLC will be to become available to 50 percent of all new and beginning teachers.
Specific objectives of teachers in year one are to
- identify the unmet needs of new teachers in Maryland
- develop content related to the unmet needs for the Thinkport supersite
- access Thinkport content to support instructional improvement
- engage in peer mentoring in a secure, Electronic Learning Community environment in which award-winning and new teachers work together
Additional benefits include the following:
- a peer review process for generating new content for new teachers within Thinkport
- an opportunity for Maryland award-winning teachers to engage in a rich, differentiated professional development experience
- a private forum for on-line mentoring between and among new teachers and award-winning teachers
- a starting point for establishing an on-line learning community to support collaboration and exchange for all members of the MINT Program that links to the resources in Thinkport
- a mechanism for customized on-line course delivery for Maryland award-winning teachers and to meet the needs of new teachers
- a replicable model for supporting new teachers in an on-line forum
First Year Objectives: The following objectives have been identified for the year.
Objective 1. Develop an On-line Mentoring Model for new teachers - review research and collaborate with colleagues to identify best practices in mentoring in on-line and face-to-face formats; draft one or more mentoring models with peer review; refine the model and post in an on-line format.
Objective 2. Establish a community of learners with the 2003 cohort of Maryland Teachers of the Year and build on their expertise to train new teachers in using Thinkport as a mechanism for obtaining information and resources - MINT NTLC rollout activity, announcement, training with identification of content drivers; face-to-face orientation with TOYs and their administrators; Thinkport and Electronic Learning Community training; support of TOY application of Thinkport resources and strategies in their classrooms with on-line discussion around experiences; provide electronic and print updates to administrators of TOY findings and applications.
Objective 3. Develop and deliver an on-line course to train award-winning teachers in the On-line Mentoring Model - develop a draft of on-line course content for the On-line Mentoring Model; share content for expert review and feedback; refine course content and post in an on-line format; pilot the course with TOY’s and proteges; evaluate the course effectiveness and report results.
Objective 4. Support Teachers of the Year in the recruitment and training of new teacher proteges - develop informational resources about the project; establish criteria for mentee/protege selection, expectations, and incentives; support TOY’s in recruitment; host face-to-face orientation of TOY’s and new teacher proteges; conduct a survey to evaluate training.
Objective 5. Identify and generate Thinkport content for new teachers - conduct on-line planning sessions to prepare protocols, logistics for focus groups to identify new teacher needs; analyze and report focus group results; meet with and support TOY’s in analyzing and identifying resources; support TOY’s through the development of new content for Thinkport; post new content in Thinkport for new teachers and publicize its availability.
Objective 6. Sustain the learning community of Teachers of the Year and new teachers within the context of the entire MINT community - work with MINT events for the 2003-2004 school year to interface MINT NTLC with activities; align project activities with MINT events.
Objective 7. Evaluate participants’ perceptions of how MINT NTLC, resources, and on-line mentoring affect new teacher retention and performance - develop on-line pre and post surveys differentiated for this project and for mentor and protege teachers; conduct pre- and post-evaluation surveys; analyze and report survey results; collect and report MINT NTLC usage statistics.
Objective 8. Present the MINT On-line Mentoring Project to key stakeholders to build support and disseminate project findings across Maryland - develop a MINT On-line project presentation and print materials; identify key stakeholders for support-building purposes and for dissemination; meet with key stakeholders through the year to build support for MINT NTLC; disseminate project findings through presentations; make project information available through existing publications in Maryland.
Project Team
Betsy Lowry, Program Director for The On-Line Learning and Distance Education Branch at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Technology in Education
Denise Simard, Program Coordinator for The On-Line Learning and Distance Education Branch at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Technology in Education
Darla Strouse, Executive Director, Office of Partnerships and Development, Office of the State Superintendent, Maryland State Department of Education
Jeanie North, Program Coordinator for the Research and Development Branch at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Technology in Education
Nancy Carey, Specialist, Instructional Technology and School Library Media, Maryland State Department of Education.
Maryland 2003-2004 Teachers of the Year and New Teacher Proteges
Budget Narrative
Personnel - much in-kind support has been promised in this category. The award will support two oversight coordinators - Denise Simard and Jeanie North.
Teacher of the Year stipends will be complemented with additional stipends from MSDE. Teachers of the Year will be major developers of the mentoring model and will help identify strengths and weaknesses of Thinkport which will be an adjunct to Maryland’s MINT New Teacher Learning Community. Stipends will support new teacher proteges additional time, travel, and substitute teachers for one or two statewide meetings.
Trainings, Meetings, Events - An orientation meeting will bring together the 24 Teachers of the Year and their principals to share project specifics and encourage principal buy-in. New teacher proteges will most likely also be coming from the same schools so leaders will need to have a positive view of the project and their teachers’ role in helping develop a new Maryland model. Two days of training will be offered to Teachers of the Year and their proteges. Training will be conducted by Johns Hopkins University, MSDE, and local school system experts in mentoring processes and the resources and uses in Thinkport (see enclosed brochure). All training materials will be given through in-kind underwriting. A MINT New Teacher Learning Community brochure will be developed and distributed to 24,000 first, second, and third year teachers in Maryland. A final stakeholders launch will be an event to share the mentor model and the MINT NTLC site which will be linked to Thinkport but specifically used by new and beginning teachers in Maryland.
Maryland Project Contact Information
Darla Strouse
Executive Director
Partnerships, Development and Recognition Office
Office of the Supterintendent
voice: 410-767-0369
e-mail: dstrouse@msde.state.md.us
