In a couple of weeks, I will be working with the new teachers at my school during their orientation. Most of them are novice teachers or have been only teaching for a year or two. I have about 3.5 hours total time with them broken up into two different sessions. I have some ideas for what I would like to do with them based on what I did last year that was well received and some new ideas to try as well. Here are some of my thoughts…
- Establishing a personal learning network (PLN). I would like to encourage all of the new faculty to see/use Twitter as a wonderful opportunity for professional development (PD). The Educator’s PLN and Classroom 2.0 will also be on my list of suggested resources.
- Formative assessment (FA) techniques. I am a big fan and user of “clickers” (Student Response Systems) in my classroom and want new teachers to think about a variety of ways that they can assess where their students are as they come to master new concepts. One of my favorite descriptions of FA is: “Assessment FOR learning not OF learning.” I do not remember where I picked this up, but I like it. Of course, one key piece in FA is what the teacher DOES with the information he/she learns. Knowing that the students are struggling with an abstract concept and knowing what to do next are not one and the same.
- Backwards Design approach to lesson planning. I have run a typical lesson with the new faculty as the students and then deconstructed the lesson from the perspective of the teacher, explaining how I planned the lesson, activities and assessments along the way. This has been well received in the past by the new faculty and generated a great deal of discussion about lesson planning. On a side note, Grant Wiggins, one of the “inventors” of backwards design happens to be a fellow alum of Loomis Chaffee and former faculty member. I was lucky enough to moderate a panel with him and a few other fellow educators at Reunion weekend this past June.
What do you think are the most important topics to include during orientation for new teachers? Please share your ideas and thoughts. Thanks!