mentoring

The course is offered as part of the eMSS – Electronic Mentoring for Student Success program. It is part of the professional development options available to beginning math and science teachers.  The course used many of the Sakai tools in the learning process. 

As the eMSS program is a mentoring program the course is designed formatted with research based best practices in professional development.  Professional development that focuses on how students learn, pedagogical and disciplinary content knowledge, and instructional practice can lead to improved student achievement (American Educational Research Association, 2005; Borasi and Fonzi, 2002; Desimone, L., Porter, A., Garet, M., Yoon, K., and Birman, B., 2002; Kennedy, 1998; Borko, 2004).   Kedzior and Fifield (2004) draw these same conclusions from their synthesis of the literature and add that teachers begin to actively engage their students in developing ideas once they have a deeper understanding of the content. Borko (2004) makes the argument that when teachers have a powerful understanding of the content, consisting of subject-matter knowledge for teaching, understanding of student thinking, and instructional practices, it enables them to foster students’ conceptual understandings.  Inquiries create a structured format for the beginning teachers to implement content rich best practices in their classrooms.

The discussions take place in the Discussion and Private Messages using JForum.  Each part of the discussion – Plan, Prepare, and Reflect – are staged released every 2 weeks to allow participants to focus on each part of the inquiry at a pace that meets the needs of beginning teachers’ busy schedules.   The discussions are the focus of the inquiry as the community engages in discussions of practice.   The instructional sequence is built in the Melete tool. This allows parsing the Inquiry into the respective parts.  Additionally, it allows the program staff to include graphics and mathematical representations within the interface to enhance the learning experience. The tool is renamed “Inquiry Directions”.

Through eMSS, new and veteran teachers collaborate in an interactive and facilitated professional community  of practice to exchange information, ideas, and experiences in order to advance high-quality science and math instruction for all students.  As the program is designed to be “uncourse –like” – several of the tools are renamed to better reflect the mentoring aspect of the program.

The Assignments Tool is renamed – Self-Assessment.  Each participant must complete the Self-Assessment at the end of the inquiry as a means of assessing his or her professional practice and goals established at the onset of the Inquiry. In addition, participants are asked to identify successes and challenges.  Finally, the participants engage in forward thinking or next steps in their teaching practice based on the outcomes of the Inquiry.

The Gradebook tool is also renamed – My Progress.  Facilitators use a simple 1-point scoring system for each of the parts of the Inquiry.  My Progress is an indicator of professional learning rather than a traditional grading mechanism.

The Resources tool is also an integral part of the Inquiries.  Each Inquiry has examples, templates, and additional supplementary materials that may be used.  The resources include websites that have been vetted by the eMSS project staff.