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Mentoring, Leadership, and Change
Welcome to the October electronic newsletter of
the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center!
All of us are mentors. We are often called to formally
or informally mentor others. We mentor our students and young teachers
in our schools, we mentor new leaders in our organizations. Mentoring
is a form of leadership, which requires creating a vision and helping
others achieve goals. Mentoring and leadership are integral pieces
of our professional practice. Embedded in the mentoring and leadership
is the element of change. Understanding the concept of change and
its inherent complexity is an integral part of mentoring and leadership.
So we begin our 2003-04 newsletter by looking at the issues of
mentoring, leadership and change in
education today.
Cindy Kendall, Newsletter
Editor
Marcia Rosenbusch, Director, National K-12 Foreign
Language Resource Center
Next Issue: Technology
Focus on Our Alumni
During the 2003 summer a new institute
was developed: Mentoring, Leadership
and Change (MLC). This new institute brought together participants
of previous NFLRC institutes and others in the profession who have developed
expertise in a) action research, b) elementary school foreign language
education, c) technology, d) performance assessment, and/or e) thematic
planning to synthesize their knowledge and skills in all four topic areas,
to expand their perspectives on initiating and sustaining change, and
to acquire research-based techniques for creating effective change through
mentoring and leadership. Unique to this institute was the active role
each participant had in designing and leading a portion of the Institute.
The participants collaborated prior to the institute to lead specific
days, and the facilitators tied the daily foreign-language specific topics
to the concepts of mentoring, leadership and change. It was an exciting
institute with insightful, interactive experiences resulting in powerful
understandings of how mentoring, leadership and change can improve our
professional practice and how to use action research to document best
practice, improvement and change. The institute participants created essential understandings or beliefs for each of the
topic areas above. You may find these beliefs to be an interesting starting
point for discussion with your colleagues.
Featured Website of the Month
Leadership and change
are interconnected. Michael Fullan's book Change
Forces provided a conceptual framework for thinking about and
managing change for this summer's MLC institute. The Center for Development and Learning
has brief writings
by Fullan and other leaders in education. The topics are primarily related
to
general education and current trends.
Focus on Research
The University of California Santa
Cruz New
Teacher Center (NTC) has documented the effectiveness of mentoring
new teachers. Research at the New Teacher Center addresses three central
questions:
-What are the effects of mentoring on new teacher development,
practice, and retention?
-How does new teacher support affect student achievement?
-How do different induction contexts and mentoring conditions affect the professional
development of educators?
New Teacher Center research studies fall into four categories:
basic research on issues of teacher induction; evaluation studies
on NTC projects; secondary analyses of existing data; and contract
research for collaborating institutions. The NTC has been studying
teacher induction and retention for over 10 years.
Focus on the Teacher Level
Mentoring is more complex
that it appears. Laura Lipton and Bruce Wellman have created
an excellent
resource in Mentoring Matters: A Practical Guide to Learning-Focused
Relationships, 2nd Edition.
From the publisher: "An invaluable reference for mentors of beginning teachers,
this guide offers structures, strategies and tools for developing expertise in
teaching. Sections include specific information about the mentor’s role,
the needs of beginning teachers and the attributes of effective mentor-protégé relationships.
Tips for maximizing time and attention, an extensive resource section and blackline
masters to support developmental interactions make this book a must-have for
mentors." Available through the publisher, Miravia, and ASCD.
Focus on the Organization Level
Some
foreign language professional organizations have mentoring
programs. The
Northeast Conference, in collaboration with its 14 state association
members, sponsors a program designed to identify potential leaders in the profession
and to support the development
of their
potential. The
Central States
Conference has a leadership program to mentor organizational leaders.
Focus on National Level
New
Visions in Action is a project involving PreK-16+ foreign
language educators from every state in a collaborative effort
to improve the profession. Four Task Forces are working to address
the needs of our profession: (1) Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment
and Articulation; (2) Teacher Development; (3) Research; and
(4) Teacher Recruitment and Retention. All of these groups address
directly or indirectly mentoring, leadership and change in foreign
language teaching and learning. You can become involved by contacting
the Task Force chairperson
listed on the website!
Staying on Top with Technology
Mentoring is a topic
across ages and professions. Peer Resources
in Canada maintains an extensive annotated list
of Mentor Services
and Organizations
that Specialize in Mentoring that is global in scope.
Quotes to Ponder
“In the old culture, managers got their power from secret
knowledge: profit margins, market share, and all that. In the new
culture, the role of a leader is to express a vision, get buy-in,
and implement
it.”
Jack Welch, formerly CEO of General Electric
"I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become....Become
the change you want to see"
Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, July 2003, p. 186.
"Things do not change, we change."
Henry David Thoreau
"Know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change,
but pretty soon...everything's different."
Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes
Memories of Iowa
As we enter fall, the Corn Cam provides
us the final glimpse of the harvest season. What else can a farmer do with
a
corn
field?
Create a corn maze !
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October,
2003 Iowa State University, Ames, IA
