MCPS/MCEA NATIONAL BOARD NETWORK E-NEWSBE INFORMED, FEEL EMPOWERED, GET ACTIVEFALL 2010 |
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In this IssueYou are receiving this e-newsletter as a National Board Certified Teacher in Montgomery County Public Schools. Each issue will provide you with news and information highlighting the many faces, ideas, and networks of NBCT’s in MCPS. National Board Steering Committee
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Upcoming Events
Please consider paying it forward to our newest candidates on one of the scheduled dates. This is your chance to try your presentation, collaboration, and networking abilities to help your fellow teachers to achieve Certification. Please email Jess Bain at jessica_bain@mcpsmd.org if you are interested. |
Monthly Support Sessions 2010-2011 ScheduleCoaches Corner |
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Debbie Firestone – Coaching Coordinator CSP Training and Contacting CandidatesRegister for Candidate Support Provider (CSP) Training to better understand your role as an NBPTS Coach. Training will take place at MCEA on Thursday, October 14th (substitute provided) and Friday, October 15th (Professional Day for MSEA Conference). There are still spaces available as this was a Targeted High Needs Initiative (THNI) Grant.Email Lesley at lesley_c_johnson@mcpsmd.org if you are interested. All 2010-2011 coaches should contact their candidates within the first few weeks of school to schedule meeting times/expectations with them. Email Debbie at deborah_c_firestone@mcpsmd.org with any coach/candidate questions. |
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NBCT’s Paying it Forward |
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Shalini Komal- Sargent Shiver ES Shalini has been teaching for 7 years. She recently switched from a Third Grade Focus Teacher to the K-5 Gifted and Talented Teacher at Sargent Shriver. The thing that most excites her about teaching is…“knowing that what I’m doing does have an impact on my students. The kids are counting on me to be there to make a difference.” Shalini is “Paying it Forward” through the MCPS/MCEA National Board Network. She volunteered her time as a guest speaker and presenter at both 2010 Summer Launches for Candidates. In her presentation “Facilitating Discussions for Video Entries”, she offered suggestions on how candidates could encourage student discourse for their videotape entries. You might see Shalini recruiting candidates for National Board Certification or Take One!in her role as a NBPTS Dream Team Consultant. One piece of advice Shalini would like to send out to all MCPS-NBCT’s…“MCPS NBCT's are leaders and can be catalysts for change in our educational system. We need to set and maintain high expectations for not only ourselves, but with the colleagues we work with and the students we teach. We need to use our experiences and actions to inspire others so they may learn more and stretch their leadership skills to greater limits. We achieved, we believe in the National Board process, now it's time to Pay it Forward!” |
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Teachers Helping Teachers |
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Collecting Resources for HaitiSome MCPS graduates are helping to build up the Gethsemane Scholarship Institution in Fond Des Blancs, Haiti. Since the January earthquake, many people have relocated to Fond Des Blanc from Port-au-Prince increasing the population by 30%. The school, established under Maryland state laws in 1993, is in need of clothes (especially shoes), books, and monetary donations to help pay for building materials for the new wing. The MCPS/MCEA National Board Network is collecting these items and needs your help. Please contact Jacqui McCloskey at jacqueline_c_mccloskey@mcpsmd.org for more info to get involved. Future drop off sites for the school will be located at various MCPS schools. |
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Photo Gallery: 2010 Launch for Candidates |
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Idea Exchange: Elementary |
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Peggy McLain -Meadow Hall ES-NBCT Early Childhood Generalist ‘01 Working with Councils on Teaching and Learning (CTL)Peggy McLain has been a member of the Councils on Teaching and Learning (CTL), representing all Kindergarten teachers in Montgomery County since the inception of CTL. Peggy is very proud of her work on CTL and views it as a way to advocate for children. "Going through the National Board process helped me realize the necessity of reflecting on all of our teaching activities, be it academics, curriculum development, or classroom management. National Board Certification gives us validation; we can speak to the issues as we really see them. At the end of the day, the children are our reason for being here, the reason we keep coming back. Our mantra and sole focus must be ‘What’s best for the children?’ National Board Certification, combined with CTL, gives me the platform to advocate for programs we know are best for the children. Their feelings of safety, security, and being nurtured are of equal importance to academic goals. If we follow this mantra, we will individualize our instruction and approach to the children so they can succeed and function in a world that is continually changing ." If you would like to run for CTL, check with your grade level or specialist CTL Representative or check out mcea.nea.org/about/CTL/ctl.php for more information. |
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Idea Exchange: Middle School |
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Chris Lloyd-John T. Baker MS-NBCT Early Adolescence through Young Adulthood Career and Technical Education ‘05 Finding a Balance: Professional Leadership and Personal Life It's been said that leadership is not based upon position, but rather on our community's ability to shape our future and to have the energy to maintain that focus for change. Being a National Board certified teacher allows us to engage in such leadership, and to gather our community and our network to lead within our schools, our association, and our school system. As a teacher at Baker Middle School, I have sought to maintain my leadership in the classroom, since it is the instructional core that is the heart of a school system's work. As Coordinator of the Teacher Professional Growth System, I have sought to apply my National Board certification to support all teachers within the PGS. And as Vice President of MCEA, I am part of a larger effort to lead our efforts around teaching and learning. Each of these is important work, and balancing them is indeed tricky on any given day. But as we all do, we seek to find that balance in our work, so that we can be productive, yet enjoy a personal life.As we start the year, please be sure to set aside time for leadership within your school. We need teacher leaders, and we need them now more than ever. But also set aside time for yourselves. We need to have balance. |
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Idea Exchange: High School |
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Steve Dubrow-Walter Johnson HS-
NBCT Early Adolescence and Young Adulthood World Languages ‘06 The National Board Assessor in You"There are many important upsides to assessing. For example, working in your own certificate area, you are first trained to recognize what evidence of effective teaching is and how to recognize this evidence in the entry or in the examination you are assessing. The repeated task of assessing entry after entry or exam after exam anchors in the assessor's consciousness that effective teaching is standard-based and, indeed, what the relevant standards are. Assessors get to know their "competition," as it were: in other words, you get to "observe" (literally, "observe," if you're assessing either entry two or entry three) your peers, to be inspired and educated by them and their work so that you can identify their best practices and, yes, adapt them to your own needs. In one two-week assessing session, an assessor comes into contact with more peer practice than a teacher normally encounters in years of school-based peer observation. Assessors gain an insider's deep and practical familiarity with the National Board's criteria for effective teaching: future candidates can use this acquired knowledge as they write their entries or take their examinations, and coaches can bring their assessor-experience to getting their candidates to home in on providing the clearest, most consistent, and most convincing evidence of effective teaching. "Having been an assessor in the summers of 2005, before I began my candidacy, and 2007, as a newly achieved NBCT, I have experienced the above "upsides." Moreover, having been a small part of the process, I have used my assessor experience in working to recruit participants for "Take One!" and candidates for NBC. I focus on how rigorous and fair assessing is, how assessors are trained to recognize their own professional and personal biases and how to guard against them, how assessors are constantly monitored to assure that they are being true to their training, how a single assessor never serves as the sole judge and arbiter. Part of my recruitment effort, in other words, emphasizes that the candidates' immense investment in their professional development through the National Board process is validated by peers trained and committed to the full understanding of the evidence presented of standards-based teaching. "All NBCTs -- whether they have worked as NB assessors or not -- can serve as role-models for their peers who are considering being Take One participants or candidates for NBC. The overriding message, I believe, is to point out the positive difference that your work in the NB process has made to you day-to-day as a teacher. In your contacts with colleagues, your "evidence" of the on-going benefits will be, I posit, what will have the greatest impact. Weigh in with just one fellow-teacher (or counselor or administrator), and you will see how soon there is a new candidate or participant. Please join the many, many colleagues who are building the cohort of NBCTs one teacher at the time."
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Resource Roundup |
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National Board Network“Attaining National Board Certification must not be the end for those who achieve this status, but rather the beginning. Our intent is to bring together the voices of NBCTs and promote recognition of their leadership role.” |
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National Board Link“NBCTLink is an interactive, online learning community designed exclusively for National Board Certified Teachers” |
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National Board Daily News- Smart BriefsAccomplished Teacher® by SmartBrief is a FREE daily e-mail newsletter to help keep you abreast of the latest educational news. Sign up for it today and have the most current issues, trends, and educational research findings at your fingertips. |
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National Board and MCEAThe Montgomery County Education Association is located on 12 Taft Court in Rockville, MD 20850. All meetings supporting the National Board Network and the National Board Certification process are conducted here. Mary Pat Spon is the NBPTS Program Support Specialist mpspon@mcea.nea.org |
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| Send all MCPS/MCEA National Board Network E-News correspondence to: jacqueline_c_mccloskey@mcpsmd.org or lesley_c_johnson@mcpsmd.org | |||||
