McHarg Clinical Faculty Blog

Most of us have a story of that intern with Marginal Performance. Instead of reading case studies off the Clinical Faculty web site, let’s share our own.

The first part of the assignment is to share your story of working with an intern with marginal performance, but leave us hanging! Don’t tell what the outcome was - we will use your cliff-hanging case studies for part 2 of our assignment.

The second part of the assignment is to come back to the comments, find a marginal performance story that you connect with and give us your best mentoring advice in a reply. To do that, click on the reply button of the comment you are choosing to give advice about. Your reply will end up nested underneath that comment. See the illustrating photo below.

Don’t choose a story that someone else has commented on… one per customer!  That way every problem gets a solution!

So you will essentially do this assignment twice. Write your story, come back  later and give advice to a colleague.

Don’t forget to mark your progress in the Google Docs form.

Tags: assignments

Minimum Expectations of Student Teaching Interns

Use the ten categories below to brainstorm a list of skills that beginning teachers should be able to demonstrate in the classroom and as a professional.

Respond to at least three categories. Don’t forget to mark your assignment as complete on the Google Docs form. Assignment #9 is on the second tab of the Google Docs… look at the bottom to click to the next page.

1. Instructional Methods/ Strategies
2. Parent/Community Outreach
3. Work Habits
4. Professionalism
5. Administrative and School Culture
6. Classroom Management
7. Assessment
8. Differentiation
9. Cultural Differences
10. Theory

Tags: assignments

Read the five common mentor problems presented below. Respond to 2 of the situations.

1.  I can’t find the time to meet with my mentee. Elementary school is so demanding of teachers’ time! Between Book Buddies and Staff/Grade level meetings, we just don’t seem to connect for any meaningful length of time.

2. Some of my colleagues seem to think that my mentee is having some significant problems of one kind or another. They approach me as if they expect me to fix the problem. I’m not even sure I see what they are talking about; his performance in the classroom seems to be developing appropriately.

3. I don’t know what to think! My mentee seems to be spending more time with another teacher. They seem to be engaged in meaningful conversations and I guess I have some mixed feelings about that.

4. My mentee seems to be unorganized and a little disengaged with the realities of the classroom. I don’t see her following through with what I have asked her to do. What is the next step?

5. My mentee seems to be having problems with boundaries in the classroom. What do I say to help him/her keep things professional, and find that balance between being kind to students versus ‘overly friendly’?

Tags: assignments

Think about your first year of teaching. (No, that is not my first class photo…)  ♥

What were the problems of teachers new to the profession?

What problems did you encounter?

creative commons

Now, fast-forward to 2009. How have things changed? Have things changed?

For Assignment #5, you will list your top 5 predictions of what the most common problems of beginning teachers (not student teachers) are today. Place them in order from 1-5, with 1 being the most prominent problem.

Leave them in a comment on this blog post and I will compile the results.

Don’t forget to mark your assignment on the google doc.

Tags: assignments