Mentoring Ohio Assessment Educators (OAE)
- To assist teacher candidates with successful passage of the OAE, DREAM provides crucial mentoring.
- Mentoring has proven to be successful in helping individuals overcome barriers and successfully pass the exam and become licensed. .
Induction within the Collaborative
- Induction involves a formal orientation to the school building, district, community, and student populations for new teachers.
- Induction supports help new teachers understand expectations and become familiar with policies, procedures, and practices within a district or building.
- Strong induction processes help new teachers develop a sense of belonging.
- A positive peer culture that supports educators of color and equity is essential to acceptance and reducing isolation.
- Induction and mentoring are both critical to the onboarding of new diverse educators.
- The Collaborative will be working together on strengthening Induction processes for each district.
Mentoring–Resident Educator Program
Why Mentoring?
Physician residency programs assure that doctors receive hands-on mentoring after the completion of the medical degree. This strategy enables residents to receive critical on-the-job training that exceeds far beyond the field placements and the internship associated with the Medical Degree. While practicing as doctors, these residents are supported by experienced physicians as they gain skills in surgery, psychiatry, or other fields.
In much the same way, Ohio’s Resident Educator program includes a Program Coordinator that oversees the selection of experienced, high-quality teachers to be mentors. The Four District Collaborative wanted to ensure each district was able to offer effective mentoring strategies for novice teachers. Each selected and eligible mentor completes a two-day Resident Educator Mentor Academy. Through goal setting, conversations, questions, collaborative logs, self-assessment, and teaching/learning experiences, novice teachers accelerate their building of instructional practices and skills over a two-year period. The end of the two years of mentoring lead to the passage of an assessment and two more years of growing practices and leadership.
Studies show that mentoring positively influences teacher effectiveness and retention. This greatly reduces the learning curve for new teachers, ensures the use of effective teaching strategies, and provides critical peer support. Mentoring is a wonderful tool in supporting educators of color as well as strengthening the skills of all teachers.
The following resources are from the Ohio Department of Education and address the Resident Educator Mentoring Toolkit, information on how to start up or strengthen a mentoring program, information on standards, and ideas for program coordination.