Institute offers resources, support for beginning teachers in North Carolina

Presenters Heather House and Lisa Becker lead a session on the importance of building relationships with students to create a positive classroom culture during the NTSP 2020 Fall Institute. (Contributed photos)

Beginning teachers across North Carolina were able to receive support during their first year of teaching through the North Carolina New Teacher Support Program (NTSP) Fall Institute.

This institute is one of the core services the NTSP provides, in addition to individualized professional development and face-to-face or remote instructional coaching. The university-based program is designed to increase teacher effectiveness, enhance skills and reduce attrition among beginning teachers with the goal of improving student achievement.

“The fall institute is an intensive conference designed to target the knowledge and skills most needed by beginning teachers,” said Dr. Beth Edwards, the NTSP director of curriculum and instruction. “Historically, the program hosts two regionally based institutes, east and west. This year, due to the pandemic, we have hosted the institute once spanning over four days.”

Through those four days, beginning teachers were able to attend a variety of sessions that focused on knowing students and identifying their strengths, providing feedback to promote learning, identifying evidences of learning, planning for understanding and teacher leadership.

For many beginning teachers, the NTSP fall institute will be their first conference.

“Session content is designed to meet the needs of a beginning teacher and will focus on one or all of the following: planning, instruction and assessment,” Edwards said. “The sessions offer beginning teachers new instructional strategies and further their content understanding.”

Edwards said that she hoped the institute would encourage networking and collaboration and promote teacher empowerment and retention, while also sharing new strategies and techniques. She also thinks it will help beginning teachers understand the importance of using assessment to inform their planning and instruction.

Presenters Okema Simpson and Vanessa Smart lead a session on Zaretta Hammond’s Ready for Rigor Framework during the NTSP 2020 Fall Institute.

Early results from the NTSP satisfaction survey are overwhelmingly positive. Participants said that hearing from other teachers was important and helped them build confidence. They were also happy with the amount of resources and ideas they received from the institute.

“I appreciated the example/practice via the breakout groups as well as the reminder that connection supports learning. Sometimes we get caught up in what students are or aren’t doing and need to address the why,” said one participant.

Conference registration was much higher than past events, although actual attendance remained the same. The key difference is that the session materials, videos and presentations will remain in the conference portal for registrants to access throughout the year.

“The institute supports and enhances the face-to-face/remote instructional coaching that takes place throughout the year,” Edwards said.