NCTR's Annual Symposium: Driving Program Improvement || E-Blast 05.10.17

This week, NCTR is hosting its Annual Symposium, an event which brings our Network Partners, staff, education thought partners and supporters together to focus on efforts that deepen and advance the impact of teacher preparation and the residency movement. The three-day event gives Network Partners an opportunity to both work through problems of practice with fellow teacher residency programs as well as gain exposure to NCTR's new and updated tools and resources. These tools support the tracking and analysis of data, pedagogy and program management.

The focus of this year's Symposium is Driving Program Improvement. The content was designed to address the needs of our Network Partner programs in four specific areas: Competency Through Practice, Data for Continuous Improvement, Teacher Educator Effectiveness, and School & Community Needs.

NCTR kicked off the Symposium with opening remarks from NCTR's CEO Anissa Listak, then started day two with a fireside chat with Anissa and Jesse Solomon, NCTR's founding partner from the Boston Teacher Residency/Boston Plan for Excellence. Anissa and Jesse gave attendees a brief history of NCTR and the importance of the residency movement in creating a new generation of highly effective teachers across the country. We were also excited to unveil our 10-year commemorative logo, below. This year NCTR is celebrating its 10-year anniversary, and we look forward to sharing our work and updates on on how we are advancing the residency movement in the year to come.

In the coming days, Symposium attendees will:

Experience and examine new systems for collecting, analyzing and employing data with the goal of improving their programs. Session participants will also use information from teacher candidate performance assessments to develop plans to share this data with teacher educators.
Improve teacher educator practice by revising and updating role expectations for the development of teacher educators. Symposium attendees will also learn how NCTR will support its Network Partners as they build competency through practice.
Examine the principles of effective school and community partnerships in order to update existing residency/community partner impact goals. Attendees have the unique opportunity to leverage the model partnership practices of programs across NCTR's Network.

Featured News

Residencies and Teacher Shortages

In "Can Teacher Residencies Help with Shortages?" Education Week explored the merits of the teacher residency model and its value as a long-term solution to building a steady pipeline of teachers across the country. One researcher at the Learning Policy Institute (LPI), which published a report last September on the residency model and its potential impact, found "the most effective teacher residencies . . . were developed by strong partnerships between districts and universities, with preservice teachers' coursework closely integrated with their student-teaching." The article highlighted San Francisco Teacher Residency (SFTR)'s tactical approach to addressing the concern that residents risked adopting counterproductive practices if they are placed in underperforming schools during their preservice clinical practice. To ensure quality and culturally responsive teacher preparation, SFTR employs "rounds," which allow residents to experience a multitude of specific student populations and develop teaching plans based on those experiences. The article also noted that Boston Teacher Residency's teaching academies approach, in partnership with Boston Public Schools, has "more flexibility to adapt scheduling, staffing, and team-teaching to give teacher residents more experience."

The residency model's focus on addressing and meeting community needs, especially within the rural context is also noted. "By the time teachers leave the residency, they will have spent four years in a rural community and we hope will be more likely to stay than if they were simply parachuted into a place that they don't have any insider knowledge about."

In the News

We can solve teacher shortages. Here’s how.
The Huffington Post
LPI's Linda Darling-Hammond says research shows that teacher residencies and Grow-Your-Own models, and strong mentorship and induction programs are recommended approaches to combatting teacher shortages.

Study of Fairfax County schools finds discrimination against black teacher applicants
The Washington Post
A new study shows that black applicants were less likely to receive job opportunities in Virginia's Fairfax County despite having more advanced degrees and classroom experience on average.

Please note that the articles and events in the NCTR E-Blast do not reflect the opinions of our organization, but rather represent information that we believe will be relevant to you and your programs.

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