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Career-long professional development for educators ensures that Every educator engages in effective professional learning every day

so every student achieves (National Staff Development Council, 2008). Through sustained professional development from pre-service teaching programs to educational leadership training, teachers reach high levels of efficacy, search to find better ways to reach and teach students, and seek opportunities to achieve mastery of their content area (Day, 2004; Feiman-Nemser, 2001, Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). As a professional development specialist championing for novice teachers, I focus my gaze on the experience of new hires during their first year in the classroom, knowing that the one factor having the largest impact on student achievement is the teacher (Rice, 2003; Wright, 1997). To support new hires in the district, a mentoring program was created 15 years ago. Four professional development specialists have overseen the program since its inception. Over the past six years, I have had an opportunity to review the program and build relationships with instructional leaders who presently serve more than 200 new hires. During my tenure I have asked many times, Why are we doing this? and Why are we doing it this way? The answers to these questions have led me to a theoretical framework that begins to define the space where novice teachers and mentors work. The space where novice teachers and mentors work can be defined using Vygotskys (1978) sociocultural theory and forms the foundation of my theoretical framework. This theory states that through participation in cultural, linguistic, and historically formed settingssuch as schooling and peer group interactionshumans grow and develop accordingly. The central concept of this theory is the space or Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). It is the area between what the learner is able to achieve in isolation and what can be achieved with the support of an expert providing guidance and assistance.

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While Vygotsky used his theory to explain early childhood development interactions between children and adults, his concept of ZPD has been expanded, modified, and molded into new concepts since its conception. One such example is Krashens (1985) input hypothesis, i + 1. This theory states learners make greater gains in their knowledge of a second language when they comprehend input that is more advanced than their present level of proficiency. Borrowing from Krashens thoery, I posit a novice teacher will make greater gains in their teaching skills and content knowledge when they have an instructional leader as a mentor, This relationship is referred to as: i +1, where i represents the novice teacher and 1 represents the mentor. As an example, the same could be said about playing tennis. One should play with those who have greater skill to ensure skill building. Playing tennis against someone who is not as skilled encourages poor habits and is not challenging I find myself grounded by Deweys (1904) philosophical stance that adults do not learn from experience, they learn from processing experiences and that a novice teacher should be

directed to getting the student (novice teacher, my addition) to judge his own work critically, to find out for himself in what respects he has succeeded and in what failed, and to find probable reasons for both failure and success (p. 27). This can be accomplished by making reflection a part of ones daily practice. From reflection upon what was successful and what might have failed, novice teachers are able to determine next steps while improving their instruction and content knowledge in the process.

When novice teachers begin their careers they often cling to the few strategies they know. Novice teachers may or may not have the courage to abandon activities that are not effective or find new strategies that improve their teaching style as well as match the needs of the learner. Moving novice teachers to a level of praxis that is intentional, situational, and thoughtful can only happen through processing experiences. Embracing reflection not just as an internal search, but with the capacity to attend to other ideas, work with other educators, and bring new ideas and

information back to inform their own practice is practical wisdom: phronesis (Latta, classnotes summer 2011). Embedding reflection into the space where mentors model for novice teachers reveals the importance of reflection as a special form of problem solvingof thinking to resolve an issue which involves active chaining and a careful ordering of ideas, linking each with its predecessor. Dewey (1933), If we knew just what the difficulty was and where it lay, the job of reflection would be much easier than it iswe know what the problem exactly is simultaneously with finding a way out and getting it resolved. Problem and solution stand out completely at the same time. Up to that point, our grasp of the problem has been more or less vague and tentative (p.108, emphasis original). The addition of reflection in the ZPD scaffolds how novice teachers and mentors work together with the notion that teaching appears to be spontaneous even though the teacher had taken great lengths to be prepared (Heaton, 2000). Based on my own experience as a military dependant who moved every three years in elementary and middle schooltaking the role of the newcomer with each move, finding my new peer group, teachers and communityI am drawn to Wegners (1998) Communities of Practice social learning framework as a theoretical layer of my inquiry. As defined by Wenger (2006), Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly (para.2). For the purpose of this paper, the focal community is teachers working to improve instruction. Based on an analysis of ethnographic studies of apprenticeship, Lave and Wenger (1991) developed a theory of learning to explain how context influences human social endeavors and generates practice, meaning, and identitylegitimate peripheral participation. This theory explains how, over time, newcomers (novice teachers) enter, learn from, and contribute to an established community of practice. Instructional leaders who serve as mentors in this context are considered

full participants in the community, and novice teachers are those who are apprenticing into the community. Wenger and Lave emphasize, legitimate peripheral participation is not itself an educational form, much less a pedagogical strategy or a teaching technique and that learning through legitimate peripheral participation takes place no matter which educational form provides a context for learning, or whether there is any intentional educational form at all (P. 40). It is for this very reason that being aware of the space in which novice teachers and their mentors work is carefully and intentionally created drawing attention to key aspects of learning experience that may be overlooked (P. 41). Although the ethnographic studies included in Lave and Wengers preliminary work do not include reference to classroom teachers, this theory can be applied to novice teachers.

New teachers begin to undergo an identity transformation at the time they join the teaching profession. Teachers become who they are based on social interactions in practice.

According to Wegner (1998), learning is not just an accumulation of skills and information, but a process of becoming (P.215). It is my intention to capture the process of becoming by observing classroom interactions and experiences of novice teachers as they learn their craft, join the community of the teaching profession and (hopefully) become instructional leaders who welcome the next cohort of novice teachers. Through this lens, the identity transformation and efficacy of novice teachers, as they work with their mentors and peers in cohort groups, is where I cast my gaze.

A cohort design to mindfully support novice teachers is the final layer of this theoretical framework. Based on my own cohort experience as a teacher and learner in more than one cohort, I posit a learning community cohort of novice teachers would provide emotional and intellectual support during a time of incredible growth and, at the same time start the foundation of instructional leaders who will eventually become the mentors for the future cohort groups of novice teachers. Cohort structures do not spontaneously occur, but require special attention to

group formation where peer relationships are created and nurtured. This part of the framework is a recent development and deserves more time and attention.

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