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Almost done! How are you relaxing this summer?
C.O.P. Meeting
June 11, 2024
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Objectives
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Agenda
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Reflection & �Feedback
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Reflection & Feedback
Check in and say hello
Please answer the following:
Record notes on your slide
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Group 1
Professional Practice Impacts
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Group 2
Professional Practice Impacts
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Group 3: Lori, Olivia, Jen, Kelly
Professional Practice Impacts
Being able to collaborate with fellow teachers as I live in a silo, peer into the world of mentee’s classroom and gain other teachers.
Everyone works hard, had a chance getting to know you.
Mentee was different from other years. Recognizing that the mentees need support from their administrators. There are so few resources for the new teachers as well as new CS teachers.
There are more tasks for new teachers than there used to be.
Understanding of equity shifted toward the teacher side of everything (perfect model would be the administrators supporting teachers the way teachers support their students)
Equity focus should be at the beginning of the school year. It should also be built into every single standard. Might be helpful to have the demographic data at the beginning of the school year
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Learning from Your Experience
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Virtual Stations
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For the next 45 minutes, we will be engaging in activities to support project growth and summer training for the next cohort of mentors at the CSTA Conference.
We are going to break into 3 randomized groups for the following:
Each rotation is 15 mins | Station 1 (Bashir) | Station 2 (BT) | Station 3 (Jen) |
Rotation 1 | G1 | G2 | G3 |
Rotation 2 | G3 | G1 | G2 |
Rotation 3 | G2 | G3 | G1 |
Main Room: Looking Towards the Summer (15mins)
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Summer training for the next cohort of mentors will be at CSTA Conference. Most will be new mentors and need your insight/expertise to help train them.
Let’s discuss the following:
Looking Towards the Summer
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What training or support was most helpful to you as a mentor (for this project or anywhere else)?
Discussions with others (learning from others, new ideas and perspectives)
Structure is important! Continued guidance
Enjoyed the book club (Shoutout to Zaretta) highlighting activities to CSTA courses (can be done with mentees)
Spending time focusing on the standards. Helpful to have conversations about them to get better understanding of them at the start of mentoring.
Looking Towards the Summer
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What training or support was most helpful to you as a mentor (for this project or anywhere else)?
- The toolkit was quite helpful
- Toolkit shouldnt feel like homework for the mentee
Looking Towards the Summer
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What training or support was most helpful to you as a mentor (for this project or anywhere else)?
- Can communities get together on their own?
- Great to have the opportunity of an in person mentor training
- Let’s not have mentors overwhelmed through toolkit exploration
- Stamp CoP vs mentoring 1:1s to make sure folks are completely aware of what's what and who’s who
Looking Towards the Summer
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What else would be helpful for new mentors to know on day one?
Give yourself grace! Mentors and mentees have their own expectations. Enter partnership with flexibility and an open mind.
There’s so much already put together but you can adjust as needed
Have them figure out how the toolkit have to be completed in advance
Looking Towards the Summer
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What else would be helpful for new mentors to know on day one?
- Mentees arent support confident yet
Looking Towards the Summer
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What else would be helpful for new mentors to know on day one?
- One of the main focuses of this program is not checking things off but developing a relationship with another teacher. Getting to know them first and foremost.
- Have solid knowledge of toolkit and expectations of how to use it.
Teaching Moments Situation Writing
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What are Teaching Moments?
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Developed by MIT Teaching Systems Labs, Teaching Moments is an online practice system that allows per service or new teachers to practice varying situation so they can determine how they would respond to said situations in the classroom. These situations are often around or concerning difficult conversations or happenings re: DEI.
We will be doing a variation of this at training as we plan to use situations mentors write in the same manner.
Teaching Moments Prompt (15mins)
Being a mentor can be very rewarding but also quite challenging. It can be helpful for new mentors to anticipate some of the challenges they may experience and consider how they would respond. Think of one challenging situation that you experienced as a mentor that would be useful for new mentors to think about ahead of time. Potential topics may include:
Write a brief description of the challenging situation, plus some suggestions for how a mentor should respond – based on what you did or your learnings from your response.
Please find the slide with your name on it and respond there
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Jodie
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Olivia
SEL and helping to find emotional support- What to do when your mentee has hit the point of emotional exhaustion, ready to “quit” , or in need of support? What are resources you can help the mentee identify or advocate for themselves to continue in their own roles as teachers so that they may best support their own students.
prompt
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Lori
Sometimes a brand new teacher trying to establish themselves as ‘authority’ in the classroom might have difficulty sifting through their own feelings of diffidence (not being confident). It was really helpful to continue negative talk (both self talk and student talk) with positive spin. For example, students don’t want to ‘be naughty’. There are usually underlying reasons for what they’re doing, etc.
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Saghar
Sometimes mentees face scenarios or have priorities that you may never had to worry about because of the geographic area, etc.
Those are the moments that you may not have the best solutions, but you can guide your mentee to find solutions through discussions and sharing experiences that may help mentee.
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Mary
You don’t have to do it all.
Mentees need to understand that they don’t have to create lots of new things to meet standards. Think about somethings that you already do to start with. Do you need to adjust or build? Do you need to take a risk and try something new outside your comfort zone. Some of the best activities can sometimes simply fall in place.
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Amy
Feedback/suggestions for mentees
Men
Mentees may ask for suggestions and help in planning lessons or coming up with activities but what works in a mentor’s classroom will most likely not work in a mentee classroom. A mentor needs to refrain from just giving suggestions and instead guide the conversation so that the mentee comes up with the idea and is willing to try it. We are here to empower the mentees - not just dump our knowledge on them.
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Linnea
Scenario - You are teaching in a way encouraging communication and collaboration between all students. One of your assignments requires students to create a storyboard for a web site with a team and follow the plan to create a website using paired programming techniques.
A few of your students claim they already know how to make website, don’t need to create a plan before coding or prefer to work alone.
What strategies can you use to encourage all students to participate in the recommended activities, collaborate and learn from each other and actively participate coding with another student using paired programming techniques?
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Mike
Issue: Disconnect between my classroom experience and the experience of my mentee
As we worked through issues during the year, there were times when the suggestions I made with my mentee didn’t resonate. This was in part due to the fact that we were both working in very different teaching situations with differing challenges.
Suggestions: Work with the mentee to guide the mentee to find his/her own solutions
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Brenda
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Laura
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Kelly
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Kathy
You are in a situation where you find out that there are differently-abled students in your class. You may not know the material very well if it is one of your first few years teaching it and now you will need to read IEPs, modify the curriculum, etc. Each differently-abled student is unique as are their needs. How can you meet those needs?
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Teaching Moments Prompt - Portia
Equity can be interpreted in different ways including possible cultural differences and student needs.
A mentor that listens and tries to understand what is needed to support their mentee and may not have all of the answers. Can use COP meetings to gain ideas and also work with the mentee to solidify a common understanding what equity and how to apply with their students.
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Project Feedback
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| Start | Continue | Stop |
Community of Practice | Fresh/new teachers not aware of standards, seemed more aware of content rather than standards - in the surveys consider changing the standards question to ask how they have integrated the standards Consider giving time for the mentees to meet up like the mentors do. Maybe group folks based on location and have an in person meeting | | |
Mentoring Toolkit (reflection, goal setting, meeting log, etc.) | Include the equity piece in the toolkit. The first item should be diving into the school report card and looking at the pieces of equity that would affect the mentee | The log included standards. THe toolkit did a nice job of everything we needed based on the breakdowns of , easily accessible format | |
1:1 Mentoring (3 cycles, standards, etc.) | | Enjoyed the flexibility of meeting times between mentee/mentor. | |
MENTORS in CS Start, Stop, Continue Matrix
Add any notes you may have feedback on regarding any of these project processes or items.
Please don't feel like you have to comment on everything or in every space
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| Start | Continue | Stop |
Community of Practice | Find a way for mentees to have time together Classroom visits (mentees go to mentor classrooms and vice versa or another mentor (or former mentor)/mentee in the area) | Keep the mid-year check in where mentees can meet - it allows them to see each other’s challenges | |
Mentoring Toolkit (reflection, goal setting, meeting log, etc.) | Put the reflection at the bottom of the toolkit Clarify whether it is important to fill out all of the toolkit. Which parts are vital? | Using the toolkit in the CoP - it was a good reminder | |
1:1 Mentoring (3 cycles, standards, etc.) | Consider whether there can be any in person meetings | Keep the 3 cycles | |
MENTORS in CS Start, Stop, Continue Matrix p2
Add any notes you may have feedback on regarding any of these project processes or items.
Please don't feel like you have to comment on everything or in every space
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| Start | Continue | Stop |
Community of Practice | Slowing down some of the content (it sometimes feel rushed) | Building a community that is supportive - will be especially important for the new mentors | Do not meet in June - already long into summer vacation, people are AP readers |
Mentoring Toolkit (reflection, goal setting, meeting log, etc.) | Include conversations about options at the beginning of the year (knowing that each pair is filling it out differently) | Primarily for the mentor to take care of for the mentee and not something else to add to the to do list | |
1:1 Mentoring (3 cycles, standards, etc.) | Giving more practical strategies and approaches around the standards. If it is equity, focus on equity conversations, activities around equity, etc. Provide a way for the mentees to think about what their goals for the session might be. It can be difficult to help the mentee identify a specific goal ( maybe a list of questions for them to answer [e.g., what are you most interested in? What is a strength you want to build on?] or an example of a process to go through or case studies from mentors/mentees [give an opportunity for people to share their success stories] . It might be helpful to have them create a goal that is focused on their strengths.) | Provide sample goals | |
MENTORS in CS Start, Stop, Continue Matrix p2
Add any notes you may have feedback on regarding any of these project processes or items.
Please don't feel like you have to comment on everything or in every space
Mentor Impacts and Highlights
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“It is difficult to find like minded teachers when it comes to CS education and it is nice to feel included rather than a lone island within the teaching profession. Coming from a small rural school, there isn't another teacher that I can connect with. This program provided me with a community that I could connect with and that understands what I am going through as a professional.”
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“Having support from an experienced CS teacher was a wonderful experience to continue to build my confidence teaching CS. Typical CS PD sessions often feature super knowledgeable colleagues flexing their brain muscles and can often make us beginners feel small and ineffective. The mentor program was supportive and built me up on many levels.”
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“This experience has been extremely valuable to me as a new computer science teacher. I learned a lot from my mentor and I established a relationship with other computer science teachers throughout the state. As the only computer science teacher in my district, it is very helpful to have someone to consult. The program also treated the teachers involved very well. They were always kind, respectful of our time, and clearly communicated expectations and meeting times.”
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Some Trends from Our Research
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Our Collective Impact
52 teacher participants
~7,521 students reached
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Expanded to three communities:
Refined Structures
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Mentor Highlights & Celebrations
(5mins)
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Close-out
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Other Notes
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