Mentorship and New Teacher Support
Metropolitan Institute for Teaching and Learning | College of Education

The New Teacher and Mentor Support Team
Report Filed by Ellen Kelly

The New Teacher Support and Mentorship Team was formed as a result of the first Metropolitan Institute for Teaching and Learning (MITL) Forum held on May 12, 2000. Its purpose is to provide support for recent Roosevelt University Education Graduates during their first few years of teaching. Its members are all Elementary Education Graduates of the Class of 2000. They are Ellen Kelly serving as Team Leader, Debbi Diesing, Leslie Stavnem, and Sandra Vukelic. This team will grow in membership as the grant project continues to revise each area of teacher education. By May of 2001 the team will include four new Secondary Education graduates.

July 17, 2000: 6:00-8:00 PM
The team first met on July 17, 2000. All members were present, including grant administrator Dr. David Campos and RU graduate Marlene Brown '00. The meeting generated many areas of which the team could best support new teachers and enhance their professional development. The following are the ideas that were generated:

• Professional development workshops were planned to enrich areas of instruction that were lacking during their formal instruction at Roosevelt. They would be sponsored by the grant and offered free to any RU graduate.
• Newsletter was discussed as a means of communication for workshops and other related teachers' news
• Teacher Support Meetings were discussed to provide students an opportunity to network with other graduates.

July 23, 2000: 6:00 - 7:30 PM
The team met to discuss plans to implement the above areas of support. All members including grant administrator Dr. Campos, and Marlene Brown were present. The following went into effect.

The first series of Professional Development workshops were planned

• August 5, 2000: Reading Workshop: Reading Diagnosis and Strategies: presenter Dr. Carol Scatena, Ph.D.: Education Professor from Lewis University
• August 19, 2000: Behavior Management Workshop: How to Manage and Redirect Students Counterproductive Activity: presenter Tracy Crawford¸ Superintendent of Recreation, Northern Suburban Recreation Association.
• August 29, 2000: Dealing with Parents Workshop: presenter Tracy Crawford
• September 9, 2000 Technology in Your Classroom Workshop Series I: Methods of Graphic Manipulation: Print Shop use; projects making printable magnets and newsletters: presenters Ellen Kelly and Debbi Diesing: members of the MITL
• October 21, 2000 Technology in Your Classroom Workshop Series II: Digital Camera Use with Integration of Content Areas Language Art, Mathematics, and Social Science.
• Workshop duties and set up were discussed and agreed upon.
• All members of the team will be present for all workshops sponsored by the MITL

Newsletter Design and Assignments

• Newsletter designs presented by Ms. Kelly: Members selected design and were given assignment to think of a title: suggested title by Ms. Kelly Teachers' Notes.
• Newsletter content was discussed and individually members volunteered for job assignments
• Newsletter assignments due on July 21, 2000

July 21, 2000: 12:00- 8:00 PM
Members Kelly and Vukelic met with Dr. Campos to proof and fine-tune Newsletter draft for final copy. Newsletter name was selected as first suggested "Teachers' Notes" and acquired team's email address (teachersnotes@yahoo.com).

July 25, 2000 First Newsletter Sent
See the Teachers' notes link to view each issue

August 5, 2000: 9:00-4:00 PM
"Reading" workshop held. All members were present.

August 19, 2000: 9:00-12:00 PM
"Behavior Management" workshop held. All members were present.

August 29, 2000: 6:00-9:00 PM
"Dealing with Parents" workshop held. All members were present.

August 27, 2000: 9:00-3:00 PM
All members met at Ms. Kelly's house received training on computer graphic manipulation and print shop usage. A discussion was held regarding the first newsletter and the poor quality of paper that was issued from the RU print shop. Newsletters were destroyed during delivery and the copying quality was poor. Member Kelly suggests purchasing a quality color printer (HP Desk Jet 1500 series) to insure better quality printing. Kelly also suggested purchasing heavier weight paper (24lbs) to prevent damage to and from mail handling. These issues were agreed on by all members and presented by Ms. Kelly to grant administrator Dr. Campos. Dr. Campos conceded to the idea and the printer was purchased and will be used for future newsletters and other grant projects as well as for the Technology in Your Classroom workshop Series.

September 9, 2000: 9:30-12:30 PM
"Technology in Your Classroom" workshop held. Members Present: Kelly, Diesing, and Stavnem.

All workshop were videoed and copies of handouts are available through the MITL New Teacher Support and Mentorship Team

September 13, 2000: 6:00-7:00 PM
Phone conference: Members Kelly and Stavnem layout dates for a second reading conference and discuss the possibility of a Science Language Workshop with presenter Mike Roach. Tentative dates drawn up for the New Year.

September 24, 2000: 9:00-5:00 PM
Members Kelly and Diesing met at Ms. Kelly's house to draft second issue of Newsletter.
New color scheme was designed and implemented for the second issue.

September 25, 2000: 6:00- 9:00 PM
Member Kelly met with Dr. Campos to review Newsletter draft and content. It was decided that a combination new teacher support dinner would coincide with the student teacher reception in November. Speaker Dr. Kathy Fad, Ph.D. was selected to speak at this dinner and tentative dates were set.

October 2, 2000: 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Members Kelly and Diesing met with Dr. Campos to do final editing of newsletter.

October 3, 2000: 3:30 - 9:00 PM
Member Kelly set up newsletter for print. Newsletter printed.

October 18, 2000: 4:00- 5:00 PM
Members Kelly and Diesing met at RU to prepare for second Technology in Your Classroom Workshop.

October 21, 2000: 9:30 - 12:30 PM
Technology in the Your Classroom Workshop II held. All members were present.

October 25, 2000 Second Newsletter Sent

November 9, 2000: 9:00 -3:00 PM
Members Kelly and Stavnem attended and reported on the activities of the New Teacher Support and Mentorship team at the IPLP Forum held at Wright College.

November 18, 2000: 12:00 -3:30 PM
New teacher and student teacher recognition luncheon held. ADHD presentation with Guest Speaker Dr. Kathy Fad, Ph.D. held. Members Kelly and Stavnem in attendance.

December 2, 2000: 9:30-12:30 PM
Reading Strategies workshop held. All members were in attendance.

January 4, 2001 3:00 -3:30 PM
Phone conference between members Stavnem and Kelly to finalize date of Science workshop: presenter Mike Roach. Workshop date March 24, 2000

January 15, 2001: 10:00 - 4:30 PM
Members Diesing, Stavnem and Kelly present at Ms. Kelly's house to work on first issue of Volume II newsletter: Teachers' Notes. Member Vukelic presented her material via the email for submission.

January 26, 2001: 4:00-6:00 PM
Member Kelly met with Dr. Campos to discuss newsletter and semester goals of the MITL New teacher Support and Mentorship team. The following was outlined:

• All team members would participate in proactive move to update RU's records of recent graduate teaching positions and address. Dr. Campos will supply the team leader with recent phone list by date of graduation of 00 and 99 El Ed grads.
• Expansion and broadening the newsletters content and quality was discussed. The data gathered from this the graduate pole will be used to solicited articles for future issues as well as increase graduate participation and enrichment.
• Brief discussion held on the dates and content of new workshops.

January 27, 2001: 3:00- 4:30 PM
Members Vukelic and Kelly held phone conference regarding membership responsibilities and tentative date for graduate pole to be conducted. Members Vukelic and Stavnem will be responsible for contacting graduates and updating the MITL's database on their teaching location, continuing education, and needs for continued support via Roosevelt University. Saturday, February 17 was set as the date begin the initial update. Members Vukelic and Stavnem will make arrangements between themselves to arrange time to meet at Roosevelt to conduct the pole.

January 29, 2001: 4:00- 4:45 PM
Member Kelly held phone discussion with Dr. Campos regarding the possibilities of offering all day workshops during school hours to and extending the invitation to Chicago Public School (CPS) teachers. Non-Roosevelt graduates would be expected to contribute to costs. Tentative costs ten dollars and fee to cover lunch. This was purposed to allow more graduates time to attend workshops as professional development days. The first workshop that will be worked on will be offered on the June 11th professional development day as scheduled for the CPS system. Member Kelly will talk with CPS advisors to see if formal arrangements must be made with CPS to release teachers with pay for professional development purposes.

January 31, 2001: 6:00- 8:00 PM submitted for posting on the website 2/2/01
Members Kelly and Diesing held phone discussion regarding the February Newsletter and Diesing was briefed on the minutes. Diesing will meet with Kelly on Sunday to proof Newsletter and prepare it for print.

February 2, 2001: 8:30 - 4:30 PM
MITL mini-Forum held at Roosevelt University to begin planning secondary education revision. Member Kelly was in attendance. Kelly met with the Arts and Humanities team.

For detailed information regarding the proposed changes and adaptations addressed by the Arts and Humanities team, please return to the MITL home page.

The major area of concern expressed by this team was content knowledge and classroom management skills of new teachers. Kelly spoke with Fran Baumgartner (member of the Arts and Humanities team) regarding the possibility of our team extending peer support starting at the student teacher level and extending it through the first year of teaching. She expressed concern that this was not met the needs of mentorship since the support would be given after school hours. Kelly expressed to Ms. Baumgartner that mentorship is not a possibility from the team since its make up is all new teachers. She agreed that the support was in the right direction. Kelly gave the background on how the initial approach for peer support failed due to the lack of attendance at the support meetings. She agreed that this was a common problem. Kelly also purposed this plan to Dr. David Campos. He agreed that the plan should be placed into effect and should begin on the elementary level for next fall.

The following will be presented to the entire New Teacher Support and Mentorship team for revision and implementation:

New Teacher Support:

• Each term a team member will partner with a group of student teachers interested in the program.
• Each team member will build a rapport with at least one student teacher seminar group. They will continue to provide support for the members of this group after graduation.
• The each team member will meet at least twice with a group of student teachers during their seminar time.
• Each team member will follow up on his or her group after graduation at least twice the first semester of teaching. These meeting times will be proactive. We will come to them. Each team member will arrange to visit the school and help the new teacher with room arrangement, or just simply provide positive feed back on the teacher's room arrangement. These meeting times will be after school hours.
• To meet the concern of Ms. Baumgartner the team will discuss a mentor visit from one of the University staff, who would be able to spend a day in observation to aid the new teacher. This will be dependant on the availability of the RU faculty and the urgency/importance of the concern express by the new teacher.
• Each team member will meet with the new teacher at least once during their second semester teaching.

It is our hope that this proactive support will help to foster the importance of peer support. We hope that after the second (perhaps) the first meetings that our new teachers will gather for regular monthly meetings to share accomplishments and to seek advice or support from their colleagues. We hope that as this group develops that we can invite different student teacher groups to attend a meeting as part of their student teaching seminar. Eventually we would like to eliminate the individually visits from MITL team members.

Kelly also spoke to the entire MITL team to express the goals and accomplishments of the New Teacher Support and Mentorship Team. The need for ideas and speakers for future workshops was addressed to the group at large. Mr. Alonza Everage (from the College of Education) made a proposal to work with the four members of the team and collaborate a math workshop. Kelly accepted this on the behalf of the team. Ms. Connie Gallard (College of Education) offered to conduct a writing workshop. Kelly accepted on the behalf of the team.

Kelly met with Dr. Campos to go over newsletter notes and information. Final layout was planned and articles were edited. Kelly will meet with Dr. Campos when all changes have been made.

Kelly and Campos discussed that the first workshop to present to CPS would be conducted by RU faculty members and the mentorship team. Workshop will be held on June 11th. It theme will be "Building Real Life Connections in the Classroom." Dr. Campos will ask Dr. Barbara Dress from the college of education if she will be the keynote speaker and present an integrated workshop on Social Studies and Reading. Ms. Gollard confirmed that she would present her writing workshop on this day. Kelly will ask Stavnem to confirm things with Mr. Everage regarding this date. She and Vukelic will work with Mr. Everage regarding the presentation of the workshop. Kelly and Diesing will work on a Technology presentation. Kelly will follow through with CPS to get the ok to offer workshop on that date to allow teacher release for the day.

Dr. Campos requests the attendance of members Kelly and Diesing on February 13, at 4:15 to meet at Loyola University for an audit session. Meeting time will be 4:15 PM. Kelly will connect with Diesing on Sunday, February 4, and confirm if she will be able to attend.

February 13, 2001 4:00 -6:00 PM
Members Diesing and Kelly meet with Dr. Campos, Dean Lowery and the IPLP audit members at Loyola University's Wilmette Campus. A discussion was held regarding the implementation and future plans of the New Teacher Support and Mentorship teams goals.

Team members Diesing and Kelly verified team time and date for team meeting on February 19, 2001 at the Downtown Roosevelt Campus. All members will be present. The meeting's agenda is as follows:

• report findings of graduate phone poll conducted by members Stavnem and Vukelic
• discuss the scheduled workshops for this semester,
• present ideas on summer projects,
• set goals for June's Newsletter and member expectations and assignments,
• establish the implementation plans and schedule for phase one of the new teacher support group.
• Open discussion by team members for problems, concerns, and or ideas

Febuary 19, 2001 4:30 - 5:45 pm

Members Kelly, Diesing, and Stavnem met with David Campos and covered the above agenda. The following is a list of the outcomes of the meeting.

• Working list of good phone numbers for recent graduates presented by Stavnem. It is agreed that both Stavnem and Vukelic will continue to reach all graduates that had numbers, but no contact for three more attempts
• All final details and layout of this semester's workshops were amended
• No workshops set for the summer
• Summer plans for team are 1) all members will meet for technology lessons taught by member Kelly (times and dates to be arranged later) 2) that all team members will meet with new secondary team members to set goals for a combined network and support of new teachers
• Member Diesing will contact the Golden Apple Awards to get list of all RU grads
• Member Vukelic will contact CPS regarding June 11th workshop date
• Member Kelly will continue to monitor email, finalize all newsletter aspects.
• Areas of concern were addressed by all parties and new date set for additional meeting

Final copy of newsletter approved and set for print

Newsletter Vol2 sent to targeted group
Newsletter Vol2 sent to all listed RU grads