J.P. Prezzavento - The Bits and Bytes of Education:

I am excited to say that I have been given the opportunity to mentor a new English teacher in my building .  Since I found out the good news I have been thinking back to my first  year in the classroom and what helpful hints my mentor gave me, what additional help I needed, and how I can help a new teacher have a smooth transition from student teaching to having his own classroom. http://bit.ly/p81udg The purpose of this post is to share my ideas for my mentoring program and get feedback on my ideas and suggestions from experienced teacher mentors and new teachers who are adjusting to the teaching profession. My Mentoring Plan Introduce the new teacher to all of the building's faculty and staff member. Introducing new teachers to their colleagues is important so that they can  begin to make the valuable connections that will benefit them for their entire career in the building.  Ensure the new teacher is able to access his email, district web portal, a...

For a few months, my wife Kim and I have been discussing adopting a dog.  After a lot of careful thought and reflection we decided to adopt Molly a 3 year old puggle.  Between the time we decided to adopt Molly and when we brought her home, I did a lot of reading about how to welcome a new dog into our home.  While reading information from the web and talking to employees at the Open Door Animal Sanctuary I realized that bringing Molly home for the first time wouldn't be all that different from starting the school year with a new group of students. Here are five ways that adopting Molly has helped me prepare for the upcoming school year...and vice versa: 1.  Each day will not go as planned.  After we got home from the animal shelter, we decided to take Molly for a walk.  We tried to put her new harness on her, but no matter how hard we tried, Molly wouldn't put on her harness.  After about 20 minutes of trying to put on her harness and...