Center News: ACI's Center Receives $30,000 from ISBE to Fund Teacher Induction Academy's Pilot Program
In February, ACI received notice from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) that the Center for Success in High-Need Schools’ Teacher Induction Academy (TIA) Pilot Program would be funded in the amount of $30,000 to build an intensive mentoring model. The program will allow new pilot approaches to teacher induction in the Chicago area with the intent of growing the program to neighboring East Aurora, Waukegan, and Joliet communities over the course of three years.
Mentors and new teachers will have a variety of ways to stay connected over the course of a year. New teachers will receive a dedicated ninety minutes of weekly one-on-one communication with their mentor before or after school, or during a prep period.
Potential mentors will be nominated by a colleague and interviewed by a member of ACI Teacher Induction Academy Team leadership team and the school principal. Qualified mentors will be recruited from ACI member campuses and may be full- and part-time faculty, graduate education students who work as supervisors for clinical and student teaching experiences, and retired faculty, administrators, and teachers. Each mentor must hold, or have retired while holding, a standard or master teaching certificate, preferably in the same area as the new teacher.
Prior to mentoring, all new mentors must undergo a four-day training that will be customized for ACI’s TIA program. The training will be designed and implemented by a team of ACI campus faculty currently serving as TIA Mentor Online mentors in partnership with Chicago Public Schools. Mentors will be responsible for providing thoughtful and timely feedback to the new teacher and responding to new teacher questions and concerns. New teachers will be responsible for responding to observations made by the mentor. Weekly conferences will facilitate regular communication and a relationship of open dialogue and trust.
Mentors will be responsible for conducting classroom observations of new teachers. The mentor teacher and new teacher will set up a sequence of sessions with no fewer than three observations per year, all of which may take place electronically through videoconferencing, videotaping, or in person. Observation protocol will be developed based on Danielson’s Four Domains of Teaching and each observation will follow the Peer Observation Process currently adopted by the CPS G.O.L.D.E.N. Program.