Collaborative Relationships

Guest Blogger:   Hannah Moore is a first year social studies teacher at Ames Middle School.  Here she writes about support she received from her mentor, as part of the new teacher mentoring and induction program.  Her mentor, Sara Knutson is an art teacher.  Though they do not teach the same content, Hannah still benefits from structured, professional interactions with her mentor. Sara guides Hannah to reflect on her teaching practice and student work, identify goals, and commit to new learning. She does this by listening, paraphrasing, asking clarifying questions, and summarizing - all skills she learned in Cognitive Coaching training over the summer.

Ideal Mentoring Support

The first few days and weeks of my first year have been a blur. For any teacher, there’s a lot to learn and a lot to do, but for me, it’s also been challenging to teach two different grade levels and subjects. I’d plan lessons that were too easy, and then I’d plan lessons that were too hard. I also found out quickly that the grade levels were completely different, and that I needed to treat them as such. Shifting gears back and forth between them multiple times per day has been an adventure, and establishing classroom management procedures has been a learning process. However, I love working with the kids. I am really grateful to be part of this staff, and I know in time I’ll get there.

Something that has helped me tremendously has been having a mentor teacher. One of my seventh-grade assignments did not yield the results I had hoped. I came to my mentor for help, thinking it was one issue. However, after talking through it with her, I realized it was a completely separate one. The conversation was super helpful, as she posed questions and strategies I hadn’t thought of on my own. To me, that is what ideal mentoring looks like. We discussed the situation, explained the original goal versus what transpired, analyzed it and came up with tangible ideas to try.  So much in teaching is situational, and the only way to learn is to go through the experience. I appreciate having someone to help me navigate some of those experiences and learn from them. I also appreciate that our conversation was focused on the students and helping me better teach and help them. That’s why we’re here, after all, and that’s why I wanted to be a teacher.