Step 4: Improve Your Teaching Skills

Mentoring Program

During your first year of teaching, you will receive ongoing support from a trained teacher mentor in your school and/or subject area. The mentor will observe you in the classroom, provide feedback, and work with you to improve your teaching skills. Mentors are trained to provide you with a personal action plan based on areas needing improvement identified during the observations.

My Teaching Partner

Developed by the University of Virginia Curry School of Education, My Teaching Partner (MTP) provides high-quality, evidence-based teaching tools and support for your work with students. The MTP website will give you access to an extensive collection of teaching tips, activity demonstrations, and video clips of excellent teachers.

You will complete MTP’s Quality Teaching training which features video-based teaching challenges that encourage reflections and problem solving about common classroom issues.

Teach & Inspire Support Network

You will be part of an elite corps of highly effective teachers committed to ensuring success for all students. With access to an online support network, you will join a forum discussing ways to help difficult students, improve lesson plans, and work with parents.

Prepare to Teach Workshops

The American Board’s Prepare to Teach Workshops will not only help teaching candidates prepare for the Professional Teaching Knowledge Exam, but will also provide sound, practical advice to help teachers succeed once they are certified and in the classroom.

In total, workshops consist of over 300 pages of content divided across ten topics, each with high-quality video case studies that demonstrate and reinforce the concepts discussed. These workshops are available online at any time so candidates can move at their own pace.

New Teacher Hotline

The New Teacher Hotline provides free online access to podcast where you can get advice from teaching experts at www.newteacherhotline.com. The two hosts, Dr. Glen Moulton, a supervisor of instruction and lifelong teacher trainer, and Michael Kelley, the author of Rookie Teaching for Dummies use their knowledge and experiences to provide straight-forward and practical tips and strategies to new teachers.