UBC Investigating Our Practices Conference (Call For Proposals)

Posted on January 11, 2013 by

IOPlogoPROGRAM DESCRIPTION:

“On May 11th, 2013 UBC hosts the 16th Annual IOP Conference where practicing teachers, university educators, graduate students and student teachers from different educational contexts (schools, universities and colleges) come together to share their questions, investigations and understandings about their practice. The conference stresses dialogue among participants; presentations are intended to provoke and inform discussion.

Teaching is demanding and complex work, made more difficult if we try to do it in isolation or without sharing and exploring our understandings together. In order to better understand and improve our practice, many of us engage in classroom, program or institution-based investigations focusing on the what, the how and the why of our practice.

Conference proposals are being accepted until February 26, 2013.

For more information, go to the Conference website at:

http://pdce.educ.ubc.ca/events/investigating-our-practices-2013-conference

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BCTF Research Report Explores the Future of BC Education

Posted on January 11, 2013 by

Charlie Naylor’s recent publication, “It takes a village to raise a child”: Educational futures in the troubled ‘village’ of British Columbia”, attempts to:

“1. continue the exploration of educational futures which includes but is not limited to consideration of the BC Education Plan.
2. consider how to change the context of BC’s education system so that environments for students’ learning and teachers’ work are improved, and parent/community perceptions and satisfaction are increased.”

Support for new teachers is set within the context of ongoing curricular and policy conversations occurring in British Columbia:

“BC is also greatly lacking in its support for new teachers, though a preliminary step towards developing a provincial mentoring approach was taken in July of 2012 by the government with a grant of over $300,000 for mentoring in three BC school districts (Haida Gwai’i, Kootenay- Columbia, and Kamloops-Thompson). Quite separate from the recent government initiative is the excellent networking of the Teacher Mentorship Network created in 2009. This predominantly-lower-mainland group has met regularly for three years, built a website, shared resources, approaches, and ideas about mentoring, and could be the foundation of building better networks to support new teachers through induction and mentoring. The knowledge and the potential capacity exist in groups such as this, but they are not systemically supported in BC; instead, the Teacher Mentorship Network’s impressive efforts are maintained by predominantly middle-level leaders in districts and unions as they do this work ‘off the side of their desk’ because they see the value of networking. This is exactly the kind of skilled and capable networking that could be expanded if there were a new level of investment in professional learning using those existing groups like the Teacher Mentorship Network as foundations. ” (p. 17)

For the full report, including analysis of Michael Fullan, Ben Levin, and Andy Hargreaves, click here.

 

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OECD New Teacher Brief

Posted on January 11, 2013 by

 

A recent OECD Teaching in Focus brief discusses international survey findings regarding new teachers. Among them:

  • Schools are providing support for new teachers in the form of mentoring and induction programmes, but nearly one third of new teachers report a high level of need for professional development around student discipline and behaviour problems.
  • According to the countries surveyed in the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), new teachers spend less time on teaching and learning and more time on classroom management and report lower levels of self-efficacy than experienced teachers.

Click here to access the full summary of OECD findings.

OECD

 

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Next TMBC Meeting January 21st, 2013

Posted on January 11, 2013 by

Snowflake

Teacher Mentorship BC Meeting

Monday January 21st, 2013

8:30am-12:00pm

Schou Education Centre

4041 Canada Way, Burnaby BC

For inquiries and agenda: Anne_Hales@sd42.ca

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October 22, 2012 Teacher Mentorship BC Network Meeting

Posted on October 19, 2012 by

Our next TMBC meeting will take place:

October 22, 2012

8:30am-12:00pm

Schou Education Centre

4041 Canada Way, Burnaby

For more info contact: Anne_Hales@sd42.ca

Posted in Uncategorized

May 14th, 2012 TMBC Meeting Notes Now Available….

Posted on June 7, 2012 by

Click here to access agenda and meeting notes from our recent Teacher Mentorship BC network meeting .

You will find updates about the UBC/BCTF provincial mentoring pilot, links to Dr. Charlie Naylor’s guest presentation, and information about networks plans and volunteer committee opportunities for 2012-13.

Thanks to all who attended, and to Burnaby School District for hosting us throughout 2011-12.

Next TMBC network meeting will be Monday October 22, 2012 at Schou Education Centre, 4041 Canada Way, Burnaby, BC.

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Mentoring: The BC Context

Posted on May 16, 2012 by

Monday May 14th Charlie Naylor presented at the Teacher Mentorship BC network meeting hosted the Schou Centre in the Burnaby School District.  He addressed key issues related to teacher mentorship in BC.  Here is the link to his presentation.

Some of the issues that Charlie raised include:

  1. There is an increase in the number of teachers who are > 60 years old.
  2. A significant number of female teachers are joining/rejoining the professional in their late 30′s and early 40′s.
  3. Young teachers are overwhelmingly female.
  4. The number of children in BC is projected to increase dramatically in the next few years.
  5. As a group, administrators are younger and for the first time the number of female administrators is greater than the number of male administrators (by FTE).
  6. School & district culture had a significant impact on the efficacy of mentorship.  Richmond & Ontario were given as examples.
  7. The tension between BCPSEA’s tabled language & the professionalism of teachers.
  8. The ten most stressful factors as reported in Ch. 6 of the 2009 BCTF Worklife study.
  9. The nature & characteristics of teacher leaders.
Posted in Mentoring Resources