More Induction Programs

TIP-Teacher Induction Program includes a five day training session in early August for all teachers new to the district, the use of demonstration classrooms, and ongoing mentor support during the first year of teaching. In addition, follow-up training sessions are conducted throughout the year to address the needs of new teachers.

Wendy Hughes
Henry County Schools
396 Tomlinson Street
McDonough, GA 30253

Helping new teachers with a structured, organized, and comprehensive approach is not a new phenomenon. Many of the school districts listed in Chapter 5 and 6 have been doing this for over ten years. The Santa Cruz New Teacher Project has been helping new teachers for over 14 years. The project is a collaborative effort among the University of
California at Santa Cruz's Teacher Education Program, the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, and nearly thirty school districts in the greater Santa Cruz and Silicon Valley area.

The Santa Cruz New Teacher Project (SCNTP) is the local manifestation for the California Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program. (See page 106.) The SCNTP claims a retention rate of 94 percent.

Because the success of their work is highly sought, they have formed the New Teacher Center (NTC), a national resource center dedicated to teacher development and the support of programs and practices that promote excellence and diversity in America's teaching force.

They sponsor an outstanding annual national symposium on New Teacher Induction. Information can be found on www.newteachercenter.org.

Ellen Moir
Santa Cruz New Teacher Center
725 Front Street, Suite 400
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Medford's Successful Beginnings: A Teacher Induction Program has been in existence since 1989. It works with teachers new to the district for two consecutive years. First-year teachers attend a twenty-one hour course in Classroom Management. They attend three seven-hour sessions in August, for which two graduate credits are granted. They then are assigned to a peer coach, who works with them throughout the course of the ensuing school year on concepts presented in the classroom management course. Second-year teachers follow the same format, with the emphasis being on Essential Elements of Instruction.

The Classroom Management course content covers prevention, intervention, independence, rules, procedures, lesson plan format for procedures, motivation theory, reinforcement theory, the "law of least intervention," logical consequences, and critical attributes for the first days of school. The Essential Elements of Instruction targets active participation, Bloom's Taxonomy, formulating objectives, teaching to an objective, modeling, using an anticipatory set, providing closure, and using specific lesson design.

Kathy McCollum
Medford School District
500 Monroe Street
Medford, OR 97501

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Teaching . . . But Were Afraid to Ask is the program for all teachers new to the two public high schools in this suburban Chicago district. It involves a weeklong training seminar in early August, with a heavy emphasis on classroom management. New teachers meet on a monthly basis with their assignedmentors and building administrators. The induction program is part of Leyden University, an in-house staff development opportunity for all new and veteran teachers.

Kathryn Robbins
Leyden High School
3400 Rose Street
Franklin Park, IL 60131

Two professional development coordinators and an administrator are the instructional leaders of the Homewood-Flossmoor induction program. Their role is to teach instructional skills and competencies necessary for the successful start of the school year while modeling effective instructional practices for participants. The new teachers begin their induction with a six-day program during early August and continue to meet regularly during the school year.

Homewood-Flossmoor's new teacher induction program is supported by a cadre of Model Teachers, veterans identified as exemplary professionals who serve as role models and mentors. Model Teachers receive two days of summer training and meet as a team frequently during the school year. Model Teachers and new teachers meet at least an hour weekly, observe one another's classes quarterly, and maintain learning journals.

Both programs are part of the district's professional development program: HF University. This internal university is based on the design outlined in Professional Development: Learning from the Best7 produced by NCREL (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory). All participants receive stipends or credit for advancement on the district's salary schedule.

Sandra Martin
Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School
999 Kedzie Avenue
Flossmoor, IL 60422