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Program Overview

Our teacher preparation program treats you as a professional from the very first day.  Start your middle and secondary (grades 7-12) school teaching career by working and learning in small schools designed to foster the habit of answering important questions.

Our program offers:

► A year long path to teacher certification.  For two summer sessions and the academic year between, you join the faculty of a small public middle or secondary school in central Massachusetts or southern New Hampshire - collaborating in a program guided by the principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools.
 
► A stimulating peer group.  Participants come to the program with strong college backgrounds in mathematics, science, the arts, English, the humanities, history/social sciences, or Spanish.  Some are shifting into teaching from other careers.
 
► Professional inquiry and collaboration.  You work with experienced teachers, usually on small teams, meeting daily for planning, support, and curriculum development.
 
► Coaching and mentorship of the highest caliber.  Program faculty, including Clare Ringwall, Director, as well as Theodore R. Sizer and Nancy Faust Sizer, are closely associated with the collaborating schools.
 
► Financial benefits.  Participants pay no tuition and receive a $15,000 stipend and essential benefits.  Modest out-of-pocket expenses are associated with books and materials for the summer sessions.

Timeline

We are currently accepting applications for the 2009-2010 year and making placements on a rolling basis.

The New Teachers Collaborative begins with a summer seminar (four days in June, and four days mid-August) during which collaborating teachers begin to explore issues of teaching and learning.  In addition, Collaborating teachers participate in summer planning at their respective schools.

During the academic year, collaborating teachers teach four days per week, supported by an assigned mentor as well as a team of colleagues.  Two Wednesdays of each month, the collaborating teachers meet in a full-day seminar. Alternate Wednesdays are spent teaching, observing classes, and/or participating in faculty meetings and other professional development activities.  The weekly seminars incorporate sessions on pedagogy, classroom management, observation skills, discipline-based methodology, history and philosophy of education, adolescent development, and special education.  The seminars are structured to mimic the collaborative culture of the partner schools. They also allow time for presentation and examination of teaching dilemmas and student and teacher work.  Every effort is made to have collaborating teachers visit classes in the partnering schools as well as others in the New England region.

The program director visits candidates in their classrooms regularly and completes three formal observations during the school year.  Each mentor teacher completes five formal observations during the school year.

Each collaborating teacher is expected to collect a full range of teaching material - curriculum unit and lesson plans, assessments, and examples of student work - as well as classroom observations (60 hours), weekly journal entries, a bibliography of readings, and a record of the seminar work all of which become part of his/her final portfolio.  The final portfolio which provides evidence of demonstration of all state standards is presented during a final two-week seminar following the close of the school year.

New Teachers Collaborative is based at the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School and Regional Teachers Center in Devens, MA. For more information about the participating schools, see the School Profiles link.