The TERI program held another mentor training on Thursday, December 5th. Each partner district invited a team to attend the training, which was facilitated by the TERI Induction Coordinator, Tiffany Moore. The focus of the day was the current state of induction programming in the state of Minnesota. Every year, MDE collects data from each school district to tell the story of statewide induction programming. Each team had the opportunity to work together to discuss the state of their own induction program by using the components of induction from the Teacher Support Partnership (TSP) handbook. TSP is a group of representatives from the University of Minnesota, MSNCU, MDE and EdMN, who have worked tirelessly to advance the work of induction in Minnesota. Visit http://teachersupportpartnershipmn.org for more information.
The afternoon consisted of discussion of mentor standards, including mentor recruitment, selection and assessment. The feedback from the partner districts show that the day was a great success, including one district saying that they have changed their entire vision of induction for the 2014-15 school year to include mentoring for all first and second year teachers. Research shows that mentoring and support for two years can affect student achievement, so this is a goal for induction programs.