Corbin ISD was one of ten sites in rural Kentucky’s Southeast South-Central Educational Cooperative (SESC) region participating in NTC’s federal Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant, Catalyzing Innovations in Teacher Leader Development in Rural and Urban Settings.

Prior to NTC’s partnership, Corbin ISD did not have coaching staff or an infrastructure for job-embedded professional learning and teacher support. We worked with district leaders to establish a clear vision and approach for building a cost-effective and sustainable coaching program.

Beginning with one staff member participating in NTC coaching training offered through SESC, the district now has 22 trained coaches providing teacher support across the district, resulting in what staff describe as a system-wide “culture of coaching.” The district’s goal is to continue to scale coaching capacity to reach all teachers through professional learning communities (PLCs). District staff report significant improvement in state working conditions survey results and a positive impact on teacher practice and student learning.

PLCs can be a powerful lever for collaborative professional learning IF they are implemented with intention and fidelity.

We’ve supported our EIR grant partners to reconfigure how their PLCs operate — from a compliance and administrative orientation to providing opportunities for invigorating professional work. As one NTC program lead observed: “When they realized what a PLC could be, they were eager to make the shifts.”

We’ve all seen the headlines — our schools are understaffed, and enrollment in teacher prep programs is down. Public perceptions about our education system and the narrative about teachers and teaching can only be described as depressing. In short, the teaching profession is in trouble.

While what to do about it is being debated in state houses, think tanks, and prep programs across the country, at New Teacher Center, we believe the future of teaching depends on a reinvigorated vision for teacher mentoring. In the short term, mentoring is a critical bridge for teachers entering the profession right now through diverse and non-traditional pathways. It also needs to be integral to the design of longer-term efforts to reshape what teacher preparation, induction, and professional learning and collaboration look like.

Twenty-five years ago, NTC came into being because Ellen Moir and her colleagues said, and the field agreed: We can’t accept the teacher turnover problem — the loss of all that talent, the harm it does to teachers and the kids they serve. Instead of feeling isolated and ill-prepared, we need to ensure that every new teacher has the opportunity to collaborate with a quality mentor. To improve retention and teacher effectiveness, induction should be normalized, formalized, and grounded in the best research on how new teachers learn to teach.

In defining what this could and should look like, we spelled out three things:

• the nature of the relationship between mentor and mentee (highly personalized, trusting, power-neutral, teacher-led)
• the focus of mentoring interactions (a job-embedded teaching and coaching cycle to guide instructional conversations)
• the concrete details of the induction infrastructure (trained mentors, a prescription for the frequency and duration of support, meaningful school leader engagement)

These fundamentals are still foundational as we consider a new vision for mentoring based on the talents and needs of our potential new teachers. While the next generation of educators is still driven by the same sense of purpose, they come from widely varied preparation experiences. They also have different expectations for their careers. They want a job where they have opportunities for advancement. They are not interested in entering a profession that people talk about in terms of survival idioms — make or break, sink or swim — and where it feels difficult to make a difference. They have other options.

Our job, then, is to help think about what we can do differently to make our schools places where teachers (and their students) want to be and where they can flourish. It is within our sphere of influence.

NTC is looking at the future of mentoring as the key to a revitalized teaching profession built for the long haul. We are talking to all our partners, conducting empathy interviews with new teachers and teacher advocates, looking at the research, and watching with deep interest the exciting movement in talent development strategies — in apprenticeships, for example, and school staffing and team teaching models. In all of this work, we know that mentors will serve in lynchpin positions in support of new teachers coming through myriad pathways to serve a wide range of school communities.

As we face whatever the future is going to bring to the field of education, if we are going to invest in one sure thing, we believe it should be a quality mentoring experience for every new teacher. In the coming months, NTC will be convening educators, organizations, and researchers to talk about the role mentors can and should play in the transitional spaces within and between teacher preparation and in-service induction. If we want to expand the pipeline, we also have to ensure that the pathways to the classroom offer the quality of support that aspiring teachers and their future students deserve. We need everyone’s best thinking as we talk about how mentoring can make the difference for the generations to come. It’s critical for the profession and for the future of our schools. Join us.

NTC designed tailored pre-service professional learning and mentor training to support aspiring teachers in M-DCPS’s Grow Your Own (GYO) pathways, aligning with the district’s vision for teacher recruitment, retention, and development.

Our partnership with M-DCPS recently focused on enhancing district teacher recruitment efforts through custom professional learning for candidates in its Clerical to Teach (C2T) and Paraprofessional to Teach (P2T) programs. These initiatives provide pathways to full teacher certification for eligible staff, offering comprehensive support and the necessary resources to prepare candidates for the Florida Teacher Certification Exam.

Participants in the programs already play a crucial role in students’ lives, serving as vital liaisons in the classroom and between the school, families and caregivers, and the community. The C2T and P2T programs aim to strengthen the workforce by leveraging candidates’ deep community knowledge and school-based experience.

NTC developed targeted pre-service professional learning and mentoring to support aspiring GYO teachers’ transitions to new roles in the classroom.

Historically, Clint ISD did not have a system-wide instructional framework, and staff reported the need for greater instructional rigor and coherence to close learning gaps. Having aligned curricula enables districts to compare outcomes across schools and student subgroups to identify areas for improvement as well as effective strategies to build from.

Using the state grant “levers” of strong school leadership and planning, high-quality instructional materials (HQIM), and effective instruction, NTC first conducted a comprehensive instructional audit to develop recommendations and co-design a plan for building a coherent system-wide instructional framework for the district. This included support for curriculum and HQIM adoption and professional learning and coaching training for school principals and other school leaders to guide implementation. The goal was to develop strong instructional leadership teams at each school to support teachers in using HQIM associated with district-adopted curricula.

New Teacher Center (NTC) began its collaborative partnership with HIDOE over a decade ago to establish one of six “new teacher centers” in some of the largest districts in the United States. This work started with a partnership with the University of Hawai’i to provide professional learning for mentors of new emergency-hire special education teachers.

Over the next few years, NTC provided programmatic consultation, conducting focus groups across the state to assess existing induction practices.

The state’s induction program is now viewed by Hawai’i’s education leadership as the “heartbeat of the department.” NTC has supported the growth of a state induction program that reflects NTC’s induction model’s key principles and components.

Research on teacher working conditions indicates that collaboration is critically important to teachers and a key indicator for retention. Professional learning communities, when implemented and facilitated with intention, can provide structured opportunities for professional learning in which educators work together to collaboratively improve instructional practice and student outcomes.

The Effective Professional Learning Communities framework is designed to support PLC growth and development in four key areas: Structure, Culture, Focus, and Facilitation. Key implementation guidelines help teams assess conditions for PLC function and maximize effectiveness.

We spoke with Principal Brooke Will about how her experience as an NTC-supported mentor informed her role as a school leader.

The research on teacher retention and working conditions is pretty clear about the importance of having a mentor or coach. We also know that a thoughtful and comprehensive induction experience is a key factor in teacher retention and a stepping stone to continued professional growth for new teachers. This critical transition period into the classroom can’t be left to chance. Beginning teachers need support not only to manage the nuts and bolts of the day-to-day but also to accelerate the development of the skills and confidence they need as professionals.

And the impact of mentoring goes well beyond new teacher support. For many mentors, it’s a pathway to teacher and school leadership. Brooke Will, former principal of Madelia Elementary in Madelia, Minnesota, is just one example. After receiving intensive training in NTC’s comprehensive, relationship-based, instructionally focused induction model, she subsequently served as a mentor for new teachers then as an instructional coach for veteran teachers, a university supervisor for pre-service teachers, and a professional learning designer, before moving into administration.

Brooke said that mentors are key to helping new teachers focus on the foundational mindsets they need to become the educators their students need them to be — knowing who their learners are and building a practice of reflecting and analyzing what happens in the classrooms that helps them grow. She also observed that quality mentoring can have a ripple effect throughout the whole school, serving as the cornerstone of the kind of deeply relational instructional culture teachers deserve and that helps them do their jobs and do them well.

“As a former mentor myself, I’ve seen firsthand the impact quality mentoring can have. You see new teachers growing more confident, learning to succeed, becoming professionals, and moving into leadership roles. As a principal, it’s an understanding and a responsibility I brought to my position. Mentoring influences the entire school community, building an ethos of collaborative professional learning and a peer culture that embraces improvement.”

Bringing a mentoring mindset to a leadership role

According to Brooke, her experience as a mentor bolstered her effectiveness as an administrator and instructional leader. “I gained considerable knowledge about keeping new teachers in the classroom and coaching educators at different career stages to continue their development. As a mentor and coach, I worked collaboratively alongside teachers to encourage them to do the thinking rather than being the giver of knowledge. As a professional learning practice, mentoring taught me the skill set of how to sit with a teacher, ask the right questions, and guide conversations so that teachers analyze their own practice and come up with their own answers and solutions.”

Brooke said that after becoming a school leader she continued to use her “mentor muscles” in her principal evaluator role, a practice she’s proud of. “I think my teachers would say my leadership style is one of respect and trust. I truly believe it’s the key to affecting change in teachers. When you come down harsh on a teacher — you’re doing this wrong and this wrong and this wrong — they get defeated. With my instructional coaching background, I always start with, ‘Hey, here are some great things I saw you doing. Here are some areas of growth. How can we work on this?’ Then I create the space for them to develop those ideas, providing support and resources as needed. Yes, I do have to evaluate them on a rubric, but we use it as a form of co-assessment to talk through where they are and how to get where they want to be. Nine times out of 10, they take the feedback and actually apply it. They know I’m not there to judge them. I’m there to help them get better.”

With my instructional coaching background, I always start with, ‘Hey, here are some great things I saw you doing. Here are some areas of growth. How can we work on this?’ Then I create the space for them to develop those ideas, providing support and resources as needed.

Mentoring to center students and build reflective practice

One of the hallmarks of NTC’s mentoring model is its emphasis on knowing students, guiding and encouraging teachers to learn who their students are in order to design better instruction. Another emphasis is on developing a habit or mindset of reflection, not just moving on, but circling back and asking what worked well in a lesson, what didn’t, and building that practice as part of a teacher’s instructional toolset.

Brooke said the focus on knowing students was particularly important in her former elementary school, which served 300 students, a third of whom were multilingual learners. “For the most part, my teachers didn’t speak their home languages. So that knowing students piece was huge. Building an academic learner profile is like an iceberg. There is the little bit we see, but a lot we have to work harder, dive deeper, to understand. For our multilingual learner teachers, understanding this holistic view of students not only improves lesson planning but deepens trust and relationships — it’s ground zero for establishing the conditions every student needs to engage in rigorous instruction.”

This knowledge of students also supports teachers to more effectively reflect on their practice in alignment with their students’ needs. They can dig into what happened during a lesson and look for instructional impact or alternative strategies to try. Or, as one of Brooke’s new teachers put it: “I know what to ask myself questions about.”

No one develops these practices overnight, Brooke shared. “A mentor is a powerful partner in supporting teachers to cultivate the habits of mind to return to these processes to design and improve instruction until it becomes second nature to their teaching practice.”

Mentoring to support a strong instructional culture

Brooke was adamant that each new teacher deserves a formalized induction process, expressing gratitude for the opportunity to participate in Minnesota’s pilot induction and mentoring program, which provided NTC training for mentors in her building. She said that it was critical that mentors and other staff supporting new teachers have a shared language and approach. She also observed that mentors were eager to learn and practice with their colleagues. “We’re all mentoring each other, building solutions together, learning how to be reflective practitioners, how to use data and professional knowledge to continuously develop our instructional practices to meet the needs of our kids.”

She continued: “Teacher induction should be so much more than a couple days of orientation. It should be an embedded, multi-year plan integrated with all teacher development initiatives and professional learning. Induction is the first several steps of a lifelong process for professional teachers, and it all starts with good mentoring that has a ripple effect over the course of their careers and across the school.”

NTC provides contextualized professional learning and instructional coaching for local curriculum. Since 2019, we have deepened our work on curriculum-based instructional coaching and professional learning through partnerships with Expeditionary Learning, Odell Education and Illustrative Mathematics 6-8.

Tennessee has undertaken a comprehensive math adoption process, which includes new math standards, a new instructional practice guide and curriculum implementation across all districts. Districts were awarded a grant for a two-year partnership to support this work.

• Year one focused on strategic planning and capacity building with school and district leaders.
• Year two focuses on supporting implementation and bringing to life each district’s vision for excellent math instruction under a statewide umbrella.

NTC supported seven districts — urban to rural — statewide with its proven relationship-driven personalized coaching approach to bring beginning, mid-career and veteran teachers through the change process. Teachers, instructional coaches, school and district leaders were able to unpack and roll out their districts’ adopted math curriculum, the TN Math Instructional Practice Guide and the TN Mathematics Instructional Focus Documents.

This webinar, presented in partnership with Results for America and Grant Wood Area Education Agency (GWAEA), highlights how to build effective, sustained, and well-supported induction programs. As part of GWAEA’s induction programming, new teachers in participating school districts receive two years of job-embedded professional development. At the core of these supports are induction coaches, who guide beginning teachers in improving their practice. These coaches, who are identified through a rigorous selection process, receive intensive training and coaching to ensure they can effectively support new teachers. Presenters make a case for what drives induction programming success, the critical importance of diverse stakeholder collaboration for buy-in and efficacy, and how to design program evaluation that yields evidence that supports continuous improvement while demonstrating the program’s credibility.

Key takeaways included:

Induction supports multiple benefits, some less visible.

• Supporting new teachers in evidence-based practices that build optimal learning environments is crucial for enhancing student outcomes and experiences.
• Nurturing teachers’ sense of success through job-embedded coaching and collaboration accelerates development, fosters persistence, and creates meaning…all key indicators that lead to improved teacher retention.
• Targeted professional development for beginning teachers is a strong recruitment strategy. It supports higher-quality talent pipelines while creating a supportive instructional culture.

Stakeholder engagement is imperative for long-term success.

• Treating school principals as true partners by involving them in joint program design efforts and aligning induction programs with school goals enhances support for new teachers and promotes program sustainability.
• Understanding district priorities and challenges while providing regular data updates, relevant learning, and voiceovers of program impact ensures district-level buy-in and sustainability.
• Establishing a multi-stakeholder steering committee with diverse representation fosters collective decision-making and ensures program alignment.

Collaboration is a cornerstone of setting instructional culture for new teachers.

• Intentional communication structures, such as triad conversations between principals, instructional coaches, induction coaches, and new teachers, do more than get everyone on the same page and demonstrate the level of investment in new teachers. These interactions facilitate alignment, continuous improvement, and support rooted in concrete growth and development goals.
• Bringing together the valued perspectives of new teachers and students (alongside other stakeholders) creates a collaborative mindset around how an engaged community is self-assessing and self-shaping program improvements.

Evidence is a foundational lever to collect support.

• A multi-pronged approach to program evaluation blends together multiple data points. Reach and implementation data (quantitative data, such as the number of teachers, coaching time, observations, etc.) helps assess program fidelity and implementation. Impact Data — the “so what” data — combines qualitative and quantitative measures to showcase the program’s influence on mentor/coach and new teacher practices, enabling ongoing reflection and adjustment of program actions. Student outcomes data draws direct lines between program impact and improved student outcomes, telling the complete story of student learning experiences in real-time alongside teacher development.
• Be practical in establishing an evaluation plan, first by clarifying program outcomes and intentions to determine what implementation, impact, and tangible non-survey data will provide readily actionable insights.

Speakers:

• Kimberly Owen, Regional Administrator, Grant Woods Area Education Agency
• Anna Selk, Associate Superintendent, Benton Community School District
• Ellen Hur, Vice President of Solutions, Results for America
• Ross Tilchen, Director of Economic Mobility, Results for America
• Ann Wenzel, Vice President of Program & Partnerships, New Teacher Center
• Jennifer Iacovino, Director of Program and Partnerships, New Teacher Center

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