Insight for Newbies

The comments were submitted by a previous summer cohort. They were asked to share insight and suggestions for "newbies".

Application Process

It is not to early to start thinking about the application process. Here are some key points to consider.

• Revise your resume to highlight work with students, planning, interaction with people, and teaching or presentations.
• Reflect on the type of job situation that interest you: urban or suburban, middle or high school, grade level, college level or students with special needs and travel time.
• Review different school profiles as you are to do for your classroom observation (link on the classroom observation notes handout).
• Start a file to collect artifacts you would present in an interview as part of a portfolio.
• Start logging reflections, teaching strategies, anecdotes from your experience that you would want to share in an interview and on an application - you want to include specifics in both!
• Be prepared to discuss the following
• How would you handle a wide range of abilities?
• How do you engage students?
• How will Common Core of State Standards (different from Common Core of Teaching) inform your teaching?

References or recommendations

In order to write a meaningful recommendation a reference would have to address effective strategies you have demonstrated in methods and student teaching. If you don't implement what we show you in methods then you aren't showing that you can take input and it is very likely you aren't using effective teaching strategies. In other words, we can't write what an effective teacher you will be if you aren't showing it during ARC.

Here's an anecdote to drive the point home. A recent graduate from ARC Math was asked in an interview how he ensures during a lesson that the students understand the content. He explained that he gives a very short pop quiz and quickly grades it while the students do subsequent classwork. The interviewer responded that this was the best answer he had ever heard to this question. You will hear A LOT about pop quizzes because it is an emphasis in methods. Yet, some candidates DON'T USE THEM!

Another candidate was recently hired after I served as a reference. The assistant principal asked about her strengths and I explained that the candidate was very receptive to input.

I hope you keep all this in mind.

Jonnson's Motivation

Choose a couple main points from this book and explain how they inform your concept of effective teaching.

• Be very concise. Make simple points. Address main ideas as opposed to trying to cover every point made by Johnson.
• Follow the rubric on blog posts.
• Original post is due Sunday, May 19 at 11PM
• Respond to questions posed to you and respond to at least one classmate by Sunday, May 26 11PM.

Johnson's Every Minute Counts

Choose a couple main points from this book and explain how they inform your concept of effective teaching.

• Be very concise. Make simple points. Address main ideas as opposed to trying to cover every point made by Johnson.
• Follow the rubric on blog posts.
• Original post is due Sunday, May 12 at 11PM
• Respond to questions posed to you and respond to at least one classmate by Sunday, May 19 11PM.