The first day of school for a teacher new to the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in New Jersey takes place away from the classroom, the curriculum, and the students. As part of our district's induction process, teachers spend four intense days in August in an orientation program that immerses them in the district's vision for learning. This purposeful experience has contributed to our ability both to attract prospective teachers and to retain teachers who have a shared understanding of the district's culture and expectations from the outset.
While there is a long history in our district—more than 20 years—of hosting a summer orientation for new teachers, in the past three years we've made a conscious shift to focus this training more on the culture and vision of the district rather than merely procedural information. Our orientation reflects a culture that embraces personalized learning; engages students in global challenges; and balances their physical, social, emotional, and academic needs. We ground the content and structure of these first four days by framing the teachers' work in authentic learning experiences, collaboration with colleagues, and exposure to the expertise of a diverse group of district stakeholders, including students.
In our orientation, we treat our new teachers the way we would like them to treat our students. Our district's vision for learning is modeled after John Hattie's (2009, 2012) meta-analysis of influences on student achievement, and each of Hattie's best practices is incorporated into our new teacher induction. Following are Hattie's conditions for learning and how we use them to help our new teachers understand our mission to create a student-centered classroom:
Students deserve to learn in a safe, supported, and challenging environment.
"A positive, caring, respectful climate in the classroom is a prior condition to learning. Without students' sense that there is a reasonable degree of 'control,' sense of safety to learn, and sense of respect and fairness that learning is going to take place, there is little chance that much positive is going to occur" (Hattie, 2012, p. 70).
We remind our new teachers that every student has a story; it is our responsibility to invite them to share that story with us. We do the same at new teacher orientation. Each teacher is greeted and gifted with a West Windsor-Plainsboro tote bag. Their names are on their folders, and on the first day they sit with colleagues from the same school so they can begin building relationships. Each new member of the district is welcomed by name by their building principal in the presence of the entire district administrative team, including the superintendent of schools. Next, teachers get to know other colleagues, circulating around the room with ice-breaker questions. They partner with one colleague and create a "secret handshake," which is how they then greet each other each subsequent day. By the fourth day, they can produce it with ebullient efficiency.
There is an old proverb that says, "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." In that spirit, we introduced another activity at our orientation: teachers have to work together to create an object out of Legos. The trick? They must do it without speaking. Afterward, we discuss how students' voices can be lost and then found in certain situations and consider the importance of teaching soft skills like self-regulation, reflection, and turn-taking.
From there, teachers are shown four prompts: share an unpopular opinion, ask for help, stand up for yourself, and try something new. We ask them to take a risk and stand next to the prompt that makes them the most uncomfortable. They are invited to share with their prompt group why this makes them uncomfortable and how their favorite teacher created a culture that made risk-taking safe.
In order for learners to take risks, they need to feel safe and valued. These experiences are constructed around an idea that we want each of our staff members to take back to their classrooms—that establishing a safe and comfortable climate is a precondition for any subsequent learning to take place. Our goal, as Hattie notes, is to collaboratively create a learning environment where productive struggle is celebrated, process is prioritized over product, and differences in readiness are acknowledged and addressed. To do this, teachers have to know their students. To enable teachers to know their students, districts have to know their teachers.
Students deserve to be engaged in real-world problem solving.
"One of the domains that separate expert teachers from experienced and non-expert teachers was their focus on cognitive engagement with the content …. It is what teachers get the students to do in the class that emerged as the strongest component of the accomplished teachers' repertoire …. Students must be actively involved in their learning with a focus on multiple paths to problem solving" (Hattie, 2009, p. 35).
Learners demonstrate true understanding when they can apply what they know or what they can do in a new situation. Unfortunately, many state assessments merely require students to memorize sets of facts or follow a fixed set of procedures. Transfer of understanding happens only when we teach and test for application with real-world problem solving.
In a four-day orientation program, modeling this kind of real-world problem-solving experience for our new teachers can be a challenge, but we have found a solution. We designed a multi-day task that has teachers investigate different borrowers on Kiva, a nonprofit organization that allows volunteers to lend money to people in developing countries for a specific project. A potential borrower may want to open a small business, fund their education, or improve their access to clean water.
Although all the borrowers on Kiva are worthy of being funded, the teachers' task is to investigate and analyze multiple proposals and select one or more borrowers whose proposals they believe will have the most meaningful impact on the borrower's family or community. On the last day of the orientation, small groups of teachers present their "pitch" to each other and then the larger group collectively decides which borrower is most deserving of the funding. The district then provides a $25 credit on Kiva for the team to award to the "winner."
This experience demonstrates several of the district's philosophical underpinnings: designing activities and assessments that require students to incorporate essential 21st century skills, allowing students to work on clearly defined tasks with clear expectations, conducting group work that requires true intellectual collaboration, and having an authentic audience for learners beyond the teacher or the proverbial refrigerator door.
Students deserve to have clear expectations for their performance.
"Two powerful ways of increasing impact [are] to know and share both the learning intentions and success criteria of the lesson with students. When students know both, they are more likely to work towards mastering the criteria of success, more likely to know where they are on the trajectory towards this success, and more likely to have a good chance of learning how to monitor and self-regulate their progress" (Hattie, 2012, p. 67).
As Hattie indicates, clarity of instruction has an impact on student achievement. In our new teacher orientation, we establish our expectations for classroom instruction. We spend time unpacking Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching evaluation rubric by looking at exemplar videos of instruction. Our new teachers discuss aspects of the lessons, student actions or comments, and teacher decisions that made the lessons successful. Because we include all new faculty in this experience, we create a shared vision of the expectations for learning regardless of the curricula or the role of the teacher.
In addition, the teachers receive an overview of what the district expects in terms of lesson planning. They get time to work with their discipline-alike peers and content-area supervisors on designing the first week of instruction for their respective courses. They also take part in a Socratic circle discussion based on selected readings and videos on cognitive engagement and effective feedback. This discussion across grade levels (K–12) leads teachers to develop distinctions between engagement and compliance and between quality feedback and guidance. It also supports cross-district dialogue and strengthens relationships among the cohort.
Students deserve to be able to make choices in creating their own learning pathway.
"Expert teachers' understanding of students is such that they are more able to provide developmentally appropriate learning tasks that engage, challenge, and even intrigue students without boring or overwhelming them—they know where to go next" (Hattie & Yates, 2014, p. 107).
An EdCamp or "unconference" is an open, participant-driven conference in which the content is proposed and provided by the participants (Barnett, 2014). On the last afternoon of the orientation, we give teachers the space to hold their own EdCamp. Teachers are surveyed about the topics they'd like to continue to discuss as well as the areas in which they may have expertise. Several different sessions are then identified, organized, and attended by teachers based on their specific interests or needs.
When we ask for feedback on what makes the EdCamp session effective and engaging, teachers say that the format shows respect for them as learners—allowing them to identify their own needs and to attend sessions that make the most sense for them in terms of interest and position. We then pivot to how they, as teachers, can provide these kinds of opportunities for students to create their own learning pathway. We discuss how offering meaningful choices and recognizing a variety of talent can be powerful tools for a teacher.
Students deserve to have relationships that make them feel part of a larger community.
"Building relationships with students implies agency, efficacy, respect on the part of the teacher for what the child brings to the class (from home, culture, peers), and allowing the experiences of the child to be recognized in the classroom" (Hattie, 2009, p. 118).
How do we train teachers, nurses, school counselors, child study teams, therapists, and administrators to enable our students to embrace their challenges with compassion for others? How do we get to know who these students are, what inspires them, challenges them, defines them? What tools do they need, what structures can we use, and what entry point allows them to access their full potential?
We understand that our new teachers need to reflect on these questions, and not just at a four-day training. The August orientation is about getting to know each year's cohort and letting them get to know each other, so that as they begin teaching in the district, they have relationships with other colleagues who they can turn to for assistance or guidance. Our welcome to new teachers is a model of the kind of culture that we want them to collaboratively build with their students. The networks they create and the relationships they build are just as important to us as their knowledge of content.
In order to facilitate those relationships, team-building activities are integrated throughout the week. We want the cohort to recognize they can work with colleagues across the district, so these activities group teachers across grade levels, departments, and schools. We also involve key stakeholders in the process. The West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Association hosts a luncheon for the teachers and their mentors. This year we also invited a team of middle school students from a mindfulness group called NüYü to talk about the student experience in the district and lead the orientation group through a mindfulness activity.
We are transparent when we debrief on the activities; the expectation is that teachers will use these activities, or ones like them, to uncover and celebrate the unique experiences each student brings to their class.
Beyond Orientation
Just as students deserve sustained support in their growth as learners, so do our teachers. In their first year, teachers meet as a cohort twice for professional development. In June, we come together the day after classes end to reflect on and celebrate the first school year. In their second year, the cohort continues its collaborative learning in book study groups, which mirror the same values as the EdCamp; teachers self-select their books based on their needs and interest. These cross-district study groups, which are facilitated by supervisors and building and district administrators, emphasize relationship building and collective efficacy. As the cohort moves into the third and fourth year of the induction process, the experiences are tailored to meet the teachers' individual goals, which further encourages a culture of inquiry and reflection.
"Be the change you want to see in the work." Modifying this famous quote a bit, we believe that all professional development should model the kind of instruction that we want teachers to implement in their classrooms. Creating strong, lasting relationships within a supportive community, engaging in real-world authentic problem solving, and setting clear expectations with meaningful opportunities for choice are essential instructional techniques that allow for impactful learning to take place. Sustained professional development has helped our district develop and retain our top talent—teachers who understand and embrace our mission and values and can provide our students with the learning they deserve.
