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Redbook
Education Dive
Teacher mentoring still adds PD value in remote learning
Shawna De La Rosa
Nov. 16, 2020
Dive Brief:
When schools shut down in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, South
Dakota's statewide teacher mentoring program shifted to virtual
platforms like Zoom and Google Classroom so participants could continue
to benefit from the insight of their peers — both for virtual
instruction and mentoring, Waubay School District Superintendent Alan
Neville and school improvement specialist Janeen Outka write for
Edutopia.
Participants observed new teachers as they taught live remote lessons
by either adding mentors as students or including mentors as
co-teachers. Mentors were also able to collaborate on lessons with new
teachers and share strategies, tech tools, resources and feedback
online.
Additionally, mentors and new teachers said virtual mentoring saved
time and allowed for flexibility like meeting more frequently.
Dive Insight:
Ongoing professional development has been critical in facilitating
transitions to virtual learning amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. And
while mentoring had been a high-value method of teacher training prior
to the onset of the health crisis, shifting it to a virtual environment
can be as tricky as transitioning a classroom itself.
Some educators may need additional guidance to adjust to some
platforms, and the logistics of how mentoring activities are carried
out will need to be sorted. However, the virtual environment can also
offer payoff in opening teacher/mentor pairing options that may not
otherwise be possible.
Top strategies for virtual mentoring include weekly meetings through a
platform like Zoom or Skype, consistent scheduling, and working through
scenarios that provide teachers prompts, such as reflecting on their
past year through open-ended questions. Teachers and mentors can also
jointly plan and implement virtual lessons, which allow mentees to ask
questions and improve their own outcomes.
In a post-pandemic world, it will also be key for professional
development to center on trauma-informed instruction as students begin
to deal with the psychological repercussions of the previous year. Many
students may be suffering anxiety, fear, sadness and feelings of being
overwhelmed, and they need to feel they can connect with someone to
help alleviate that stress. Teachers need PD tailored to those
concerns, Mount Holyoke College Professor Megan Allen wrote for
Edutopia in June.
With the new remote learning landscape requiring frequent check-ins
with teachers, Los Angeles Unified School District's comprehensive
instructional technology program, which was in place prior to the
pandemic, can serve as an example to consider. When the shift happened,
the district revamped its 130 ed tech programs to make them more
suitable for distance learning.
“Right now, it’s critical that educators have a person to connect with,
even if it is on a computer screen, and ask questions to and get
immediate responses to help them as they set up their virtual
classroom,” Sophia Mendoza, the executive director for the district’s
instructional technology initiative, told Education Dive previously.
“But we’re not just converting 130 sessions, we’re being very
intentional on which ones are most relevant to today’s [educator].”
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