Karin Klein writes in the Los Angeles Times about a new initiative funded by the Cotsen Foundation for the Art of Teaching that seeks to improve teaching and learning through intensive mentoring by master teachers. She writes:
Creating better teachers is more complicated — and more expensive — than claiming we can drastically improve education with pink slips. But in fact, pretty great teachers can be made. Finland does it, in part, by requiring not one but three levels of practical teaching experience for would-be educators, according to a 2010 Stanford University report, carefully overseen by master educators. (Finland also draws great teaching candidates because the society deeply respects teachers as professionals, on a par with doctors or lawyers.)
The Cotsen Foundation for the Art of Teaching is trying to create a similar benefit for Southern California teachers. School by school, it funds great teachers who can then be freed — as in completely released from classroom duties — to lavish time on the practical training of good teachers. Here’s how it works: At schools that apply, five to seven teachers who want to improve their skills are selected for two-year fellowships; one outstanding teacher is selected as their mentor. For two years, the mentor sits in on the other teachers’ classes every week, helping them see what they do well and how they could do better.
The foundation not only supports the mentor teacher, it pays for substitute teachers so that fellows can visit the classrooms of other greats in the profession in order to soak up their secrets. It videotapes the fellows, so they can literally see what they’re doing. And it provides them with experts in the subjects they teach to better their understanding of the subject matter.
This intensive mentoring is happening at 23 schools in L.A. and Orange counties this academic year, including a few in L.A. Unified. At least two-thirds of the schools selected to participate have large numbers of low-income students. Cotsen executive director Jerry Harris says assessments of the program show it’s working long term. Teachers cite gains in test scores among their students and dramatic changes in their classroom technique: “I’ve made most of my growth as a teacher in the last two years rather than in the last 13,” said a Long Beach elementary teacher from Long Beach about her fellowship.
For more information on the program, see http://cotsen.org/the-art-of-teaching-program/program-overview/
