The MAT program has offered a wide variety of opportunities over the past year. Along with these opportunities I was also provided with multiple groups of people to bounce questions off of, give recommendations and be there for general support and guidance. These groups specifically refer to the staff at Woodland Academy, the elementary MAT cohort, and the Clark education faculty. All of this support has allowed me to grow as a teacher, both in theory and practice. This has also been a great model of what mentoring a new teacher looks like, I hope to have the opportunity to mentor a budding teacher sometime in the future.
Woodland Academy Staff
The fourth grade team is an exceptional example of team work and healthy professionalism. This team of teachers shares lesson plans almost all their lesson plans and materials and then adjusts the plans to their particular classroom. These women (whether it be my mentor teacher or not) were always there to answer a question, give tips on great resources or give guidance on the next step in a tricky situation. During lunch time the teachers would share about their weekends ( and their days. No matter how frustrating the day might have gone the other staff were there to hear each other and possibly share a solution, without dissolving into gossip or disrespectful discussion as I have heard in other lunch rooms in other schools.
I felt very lucky to know that if I had questions about other peoples roles in the building or other peoples opinions on certain situations, that I was welcome to ask. This welcoming environment allowed me to interview and observe a few of the women who teach our english language learners. Again, opening opportunities for me to explore and learn.
Material Resources
Woodland Academy and my mentor teacher have provided me with many material resources as well as the previously discussed non-material support. Woodland does not have an official library for the kids to go to in their school, however there is an area with a large variety of leveled readers and some read to self books for the teachers to go through to find a resource for their student. Woodland takes one afternoon a month to send the students home early and conduct a school specific professional development. During this time the administration brought in a variety of resources from language experts to behavioral specialists. This opened another door for me to gain a variety of knowledge in a way those in another school may not have had the opportunity to do.
My mentor teacher was always ready to provide me with materials that either she thought were special for the students learning, the curriculum teaching resources or simply materials which I have not yet come to have yet as a new teacher. These resources were a huge part of making lessons, specifically engaging lesson, happen at all. The materials gave me ideas to plan around and enriched the plans already created. In addition to physical materials, my mentor teacher opened up a new world of lesson planning by giving my ideas of things that did and did not work in the past, adjusting the plans I was considering.
Elementary MAT Cohort and Clark Faculty
Courses:
During the year the elementary cohort takes all the same three hour classes, these classes begin right after our day as a teacher, this means we often see each other at our highs and lows. At times this allowed us to offer support by giving solutions or simply by hearing each other out. In addition to having peers the MAT program provides multiple Clark faculty to push, support and advise you.
Activities: On-site seminar and rounds
These people were not only part of guiding my journey emotionally, but they were of course part of growing and guiding my journey in theory and in practice. Part of this growth were rounds and on-site seminar. Rounds gave me the opportunity to become accustomed to being observed and analyzed while teaching. In addition to this it has strengthened my ability to have valuable discussion about specific aspects of a lesson. To see specific example of my rounds click here.
As a part of the MAT program we participate in a weekly meeting called on-site seminar. During this time we meet to discuss readings we have completed over the week or events happening specifically in Woodland Academy. This space was something that I looked forward to each week. It gave a specific time to ask pointed questions and discuss future event in the coming week.
Material Resources
Within the Clark University education department there is a curriculum lab and the “rainforest room”. Both of these rooms are full of books for the kids, lesson planning books, manipulatives, and the ever important printer. These resources were there for us to check out or borrow whenever we needed. For example I had a student who was reading the book in our classroom so quickly that we could not stay ahead of him with a new book he may like. When this wonderful issue arose I knew to go to the curriculum lab and look for a book special for him, sure enough there it was, the perfect match.
While my fellow MATs and Clark faculty were helpful in supporting me and making me think, they were also helpful with material resources. It was not uncommon for one of the other two fourth grade MATs to be completing similar lessons at similar times, in these instances we were almost excited to share materials amongst each other. Both sharing the material and giving advice as the do’s and do nots of using said material.