Welcome Mentors & Coaches!

As you arrive, sign in and make a name tag.

Think and talk about:

1. A celebration

2. An unexpected surprise

3. Something you are looking forward to

Share with tablepartners.

Resources

• Pacing Guide for CEL5D (I will get the link from Ashley in

Chimacum and send it to you.)

• Other frameworks? (If you find pacing guides for

Danielson or Marzano, please let me know and I will

spread the word. Thanks!)

• ECPE—Early Career Performance Expectations

published by CSTP and OSPI; available online at

http://cstp-wa.org/cstp2013/wp-

content/uploads/2014/02/3_ecpe-book_e_file.pdf

OSPI MENTOR ROUNDTABLE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE

GROWTH OF NOVICE EDUCATORS

WELCOME

Margaret Nugent

Today:

•Thinking about needs of novice teachers

•Planning ahead for mentoring

•Using questioning to focus mentees

Roundtable purposes:

• to connect with others in our region who do similar work

• to learn about instructional mentoring & induction

• to refine and develop our mentoring tools & skills

• to give and receive coaching around our work

• to improve through reflection

Logistics for Learning

• Advocate for your own learning.

• Tend to your needs.

• Be fully present.

• Be ready to move often.

• Give yourself permission to learn. It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time.

- Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way

6

Developmental Stages of

Beginning Teachers

Rejuvenation

Think about…

➔ Rejuvenation is not a given.

➔ Some evidence suggests state testing creates a second shallower dip.

Standing Partner Conversation (3 min. each)

Talk about…

➔ What stage(s) do you think your teachers are experiencing?

➔ What evidence do you have of their stages?

Silent Sticky Note Brainstorm

★ Write down at least 3 upcoming events or ideas that you

might plant a seed about/discuss with your teachers.

○Data collection

○End of course exams

○A unit of study or a unit test

★ Use a separate sticky note for each idea/event

All Around the Table Protocol

●Get ALL voices into

the conversation

● Practice listening

●Clarify our thinking

by verbalizing our

ideas

●Get ideas from other

mentors

Why: How:

1. Quickly go around the

table taking turns.

2. Each person shares ONE

sticky note, while others

listen.

3. Hold conversations

until the end.

4. After 3 minutes, table

groups discuss, ask each

other questions, share

unread notes.

Individual Reflection

What would you like to convey regarding the importance (or lack of importance) of each item?

How much time and energy do you think each might

require, and what influences your thinking about time

needed?

What might be some “need to knows” for each item? What

might be the “nice to knows” for each?

How might your mentee‘s current developmental stage

influence your approach and decisions about these

conversations?

Transition

• Set aside the sticky notes.

• You may want to use these ideas later in the coaching

conversation.

• To prepare for the coaching conversation, we are going to

review invitational questions and learn about another type

of questioning.

“I still don’t have all the answers,

but I’m beginning to ask the right questions.”

Lee Lorenz

New Yorker Cartoon

Published February 27, 1989

15

Two Types of Mediational Questions

According to Lipton and Wellman in Mentoring Matters:

• Inquiring/invitational questions – “open thinking, invite

multiple responses, and are generally asked from a

collaborative or coaching stance...communicate a desire

to explore…”

• Probing questions – are “intended to focus

thinking…elicit examples, criteria, and details that support

precision in verbal responses.”

• “Both types of questions contain verbal and nonverbal

elements designed to invite thinking.”

Questions that promote thinking

Real – You don’t know the answer to it.

Honest – No advice hiding as a question (Have you thought

about . . .?)

Open-ended – Require more than a yes/no reply

Prompts for thinking – Not descriptive, research, or retell

(What happened? What did they do?); but higher level

instead (What were you noticing? What options were you

considering?)

17

Invitational Questions

Use Plural Forms ideas, options, reasons

Suggest Possibilities hunch, some, might

Eliminate Why what, how

Are grounded in Positive Presuppositions:

* As you think about ways you might check your

students for understanding, . . . ?

* What structures are you considering that might

help students . . . ?

Invitational Questions

Like good paraphrasing, strong invitational questions include:

Invitation + Topic + Cognition(There is no set order to these.)

19

“Go To” Invitational Questions

As you reflect on _______ today, what are some

successes that _______ experienced?

What are some things you did to make that happen?

What is a challenge that came up?

What are some things you might do to address that

challenge?

Probing Questions

• Sometimes mentees will seem to be spinning and

lost in their own words or feelings. They may be

repeating stories, making vague generalizations

over and over, etc.

• Questions that probe for specificity are one way

to help mentees focus, get clarity, and stop

spinning.

Say Something:Mentoring Matters: bottom of page 59 to bottom of page 61

Partners: Silently read & stop at the end of the first section

titled Vague Language.

Each partner Says Something. Please keep to ONE to TWO

sentences each.

Continue reading silently, stopping, and saying something at

the end of each section.

If you finish early, go back and have a deeper conversation

about any areas you want to discuss.

Practice Probing for Specificity

• Activity on page 62 in Mentoring Matters lists some vague

statements.

• Create one or two questions for each that you could use

to probe for specificity if faced with these statements.

• Practice with a partner at your table. Have one partner

read a statement from the page or create a vague

statement of their own. The other partner responds with a

question for specificity.

Let’s Practice Our Learning-Focused

Conversation Skills

Form New Pairs

• Find a new partner by making eye contact with someone

not at your table.

• Arrange yourselves side-by-side, knee-to-knee.

• Decide who will coach first and who will speak first..

Preparing - Note some changes

• Coach – Create an invitational question to start your

conversation around one or more of today’s topics. During

your learning-focused conversation, notice places where

speaker is vague and probe for specificity.

• Speaker – Allow the coach to start the conversation, talk about

whatever is important to you right now and enjoy receiving this

gift of coaching.

2 Minute Debrief

• As a team, take two minutes for a short debrief regarding

the use of questions and any other topics that seem

pertinent.

P. S. Reflection

Principle—What’s a big idea you are carrying

away with you today?

Skill—What specific skill for this work will you be

practicing and refining next?

You Can Earn Clock Hours for Mentoring