Sign up if interested in being part of the pilot program for 09/10

[Connie Weber]

Whether you'd like to be a mentor or mentee, please indicate interest by placing a response on this forum.

[Connie Weber]

Yes, I'm with Ian, wondering what "theoretical tapas" means.

Oooo, I'm getting excited. So many good people here, so much knowledge to pool and share. So much possible pleasure in the process of learning something all together, namely, setting up a viable educator learning space within a learning community. A pilot e-mentoring program. We'll take the best of what we can find going on elsewhere, even interlink with other initiatives as we can... But slowly, purposefully. This will be such a good experiment--I think we'll learn so much from this.

My idea is that the pairs work out what their goals are--maybe that could be in the first (of four) correspondences.

Maria, I love how you specified your greatest need in a mentoring relationship: renewal of energy and courage. Beautiful. BTW, I think that in many pairs the investment in the process (the investment itself) may well lead to boosting energy and courage, just the doing of it, the reaching for it. In a supportive collaboration.

I do hear the concerns regarding wanting a practical benefit coming out of the energy investment, like "what do I do right now," and I share that orientation. It's not about sharing theories we believe so much as getting good learning enacted right here and now, whether for one's self or for the students or both.

It makes me want to work with you, by the way, and I'm sure others would, too... I'd enjoy being a coach with those goals in mind.

My greatest need, hmmmmm.... I would like someone to help me lay out a giant systematic (and fluid) diagram of all the studies I'm endeavoring to undertake with my class this coming year, working with me to "theme" them according to "big understandings."

Oh, I'd add in a need: someone who can help me with the practical workings of ELGG, help me make the thought-structuring of that program that will be conducive to our class studies, which, by the way, is a project I find to be an absolute blast.

Ken, Mary, Maria, Jane, Ian, Laura, Nathan--so glad (and honored) to have you as inaugural designers and participants in the program. Let's make it work, let's get a lot out of it.

More people, please add in.

We're still scouting for a way to find early teachers (first through fifth year). How can we find ways to help them find us? Ideas needed!!! I thought about putting it out on CR2.0 but that just seems too big. I want to reel in the people who would take this seriously, contribute towards individualized professional learning--in a collaborative mode. Do you know what I mean?

I have had about four people write to me privately saying they want to be part of the program. They should sign up soon--I'm hoping.

Keep adding...

[Mike]

Hi All....

hope this finds you well and i would be honored to attempt to metor someone!

Teachers are messengers from the past and escorts to the future.
Albert Einstein


Count me in in anyway i can be of help.....

You guys that know me a bit...... here is a decent picture that may help:


FIRST YEAR TEACHING ( A ROUGH MAP )

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be well...mike

[Ian Carmichael]

Interesting diagram, Mike. It reminds me of the various 'stages of grief' models, which also reminds me of the refinement/criticism of these models, namely that these dimensions are running interactively and simultaneously, conversationlike. An interesting thought for M1/M2 relationships is to stir up the floundering dimensions.
ie
I'm running in parallel
Anticipation
Survival
Disillusionment
Rejuvenation
Reflection

If the rejuvenation 'volume' is high, likely disillusionment is low. If survival is high, most likely reflection is low. And so on.

A key idea in a conversation is, I think, is to be able shift focus.
Let's reflect on this process, if survival is drowning out all other signals, or let's do some rejuvenation, or let's do some future planning (anticipation) and leave the morass of the present for the moment.

Does that make sense? Is it too elementary? (And, even if it is elementary, do we actually do enough of it?)

[Maria Williams]

I think you're on target. Gaining greater ability to alter our own emotional state is key to survival in our job - and a shift in focus is the beginning of that process.

[Ellen Pham]

I like this diagram, Mike! I would add to it plain old fear to the anticipation stage. Showing up for the first day of class my first year of teaching was one of the bravest things I have ever done. I was so scared!

Thank goodness it has never been that bad again :D

[Maria Williams]

I intended "tapas" in the gastronomical sense - a tasty array of ideas to sample in bite-sized form. You've sent me scurrying to look up the Vedic application of the term! Which is one of the reasons I like this site.

[Christina Havlin]

Mentor: I am entering my 6th year in the classroom, now middle school formerly high school French. The foreign language classroom used to be so dull, with conjugations and translations. It's new face of communication through culture and content stimulates students and teachers alike. Technology and a focus on understanding help to frame this new and constantly evolving place in our schools. I will be mentoring Catherine, but I know that I will learn as much from her as she from me. I look forward to a rewarding and refreshing exchange of ideas about classroom practices and big ideas.

[Sarah]

Hi, I would love to be a mentee in this program! Please let me know if that is a possibility!! Thank you!
-Sarah

[Ken Messersmith]

Sarah,
Thanks for volunteering to be a mentee in this new pilot program. Do you see anyone in particular you would like to connect to?

[Catherine Menyhart]

I'm excited to be joining the pilot program of Fireside Mentoring as a mentee. Connie has thoughtfully paired me up with a fellow French teacher and we hope to offer a few reports of our shared discoveries in the mentor-mentee relationship . . . Cheers to all of you mentors welcoming new teachers like me into the field!

[Connie Weber]

I'm closing this discussion, just so there's a way of keeping track of who signs up after November 1st, 2009. Go to Work Progressing forum.