Context

Across the province, it has become apparent how pivotal the teacher and early childhood educator relationship is to the success of children’s learning experiences. At the core of Achieving Excellence: A Renewed Vision for Education in Ontario is a commitment to authentic, collaborative, continuous learning for all our learners. Fostering growth and development for all learners is a critical pre-condition for achieving excellence.

Mentorship fosters reciprocal learning and supports leadership through intentional sharing of knowledge and practice between colleagues. Dufferin-Peel has developed a Mentoring Plan for kindergarten educators.

Implementation

We began this journey with Jim Strachan, Education Officer, Ministry of Education, in 2015. Kindergarten teams and their administrators came together for a full-day to reflect on their current mentoring experiences and refine their mentoring skills via learning focused conversations.

Teams were very excited to participate, as the opportunity provided a time and space away from the busyness of the classroom and school, to engage in authentic, reflective conversations. As we began the journey, it was remarkable to witness that teams quickly came to the realization that mentoring did not mean that “one” educator, was mentoring another, it did not involve a hierarchy, but rather that each one of them brought strengths to the relationship, hence they began to see that their relationship could truly benefit from reciprocal mentoring.

Within that first year, we met with 165 educators. At our first interactive gathering, Jim lead the triad, (teacher, early childhood educator and their administrator), to collectively and intentionally explore relational trust, including mutual respect, valuing voices and shared leadership. Teams were asked to begin with the positive, highlighting where and how these were visible within their relationships and classrooms. In doing so, it was much easier, for teams to identify potential gaps, and next steps.

Lack of time is often a concern for many educators. Recognizing that this is a common problem, Jim invited participants to engage in goal setting conversation, to discuss even some of the simplest, yet crucial questions such as “What will our collaboration look like? How and when will we meet?” These conversations were very rich, as teams began to build plans, and discover key things about one another, that they had not considered.

Again through appreciative inquiry, we also spent time discussing the importance of empathic, attentive listening, and how to further develop skills to support this form of engagement.

Impact & Next Steps

Feedback from participants was extremely positive. Educators felt valued and that their relationship, and collective work was central to the success of the classroom and student achievement. Having the administrator present, further enhanced the importance of their roles. Participants shared that their practice changed, as they began to immediately use many of the strategies learned from the session. They also expressed that they wanted to continue the learning, and further develop their mentoring webs.

Below are examples of what educators shared with us through a survey.

“We have been debriefing about our own experiences in addition to debriefing about children’ s work.”

“I am spending more time listening, instead of fixing things.”

“We are taking the time as partners to reflect on the day and focus on the positives rather than the negatives.”

“We are taking the time to collaborate together to enhance student learning. We are learning how to listen to one another and to work as a team.”

“We have implemented the “stones in our shoes” discussions- what is working well as opposed to what is NOT working. And, most importantly, the significance of broadening our own mentoring webs as educators.”

Dufferin-Peel listened to the voices of those involved and in 2016-2017 continued the work with the 165 educators who began the journey in the previous year, and build capacity by supporting an additional 130 educators.

Those who began the journey in 2015-2016 year, were invited to a half-day gathering, and with the support of Jim Strachan, and appreciative inquiry, were able to recognize and be mindful of their successes, the challenges that continue to exist, and were provided with time develop and/or refine personalized plans.

The new group, who began their journey in the 2016-2017 year, were invited to experience a full-day session, similar to those who began the journey the previous year.

Dufferin-Peel also provided a half day job-embedded professional learning opportunity for both groups of educators. Kindergarten teams were invited to engage in collaborative problem solving to support and improve planning and student success. Teams used the time to co-plan and reflect on student growth and communication of learning and to plan appropriate instructional moves.

Teams were invited to share the benefits of the time provided. Below are a few testimonials:

“We valued our collaborative session together to share student inquires and samples of work as well as our collective observations to co-plan and further guide our practices.”

“We used student work and observations to guide our planning. Our release time allowed us to work collaboratively together to further plan to meet the targeted individual needs of each of our students.”

In April and May, both groups of educators were brought back again, to share the impact of this journey, to continue to revisit the challenges that still exist, and to develop action plans for the following year. As some partnerships would come to an end because of changes in assignments, we were also able to be proactive and invite new partners in preparation for the 2017-2018 year as well.

This has truly been an exciting and invigorating journey for all those involved. Dufferin-Peel will continue to provide layered mentoring opportunities, that support innovation in practice for this group of educators as they work together in the best interest of students’ academic and social-emotional well-being.