Johnston County Schools program makes national debut Administrators asked to share first year teacher program at national conference SMITHFIELD*First-year teachers in Johnston County may not have years of experience under their belt, but they have tons of experience at their fingertips. This year, Johnston County has been a pioneer in its implementation of Moodle, the platform being used to administer an online tool for beginning teachers. First-year teachers in districts nationwide typically participate in an orientation and then attend various workshops throughout the year to get help with issues encountered in the first year of teaching. "Education is the only profession that takes a person and places them in a room and expects them to do the whole job by themselves in the first day," said Terri Sessoms, Professional Growth Facilitator for Johnston County Schools. That's why Moodle was developed. So far this year, 221 beginning teachers have been signed up to use Moodle. New hires are being added continually. The site receives around 500 responses a month from beginning teachers who post comments to the site. The feedback has been positive. So positive that Sessoms and Patricia Hester, Executive Director of Professional Development Services, have been invited to share the program at the national Model Schools Conference to be held this summer in Washington, D.C. The two will share that Moodle is like an online induction course for new teachers. It provides resources such as classroom management, lesson planning, assessment, and parent communication. First year teachers are assigned a mentor and each month the two sit down and select a topic from the online course, Becoming Our Professional Best. The topic chosen is relevant to the needs of the mentee at that particular time. The mentor and the mentee explore the web resources embedded within the topic. Once the exploration is complete, the mentor and the mentee read and discuss an essential question at the bottom of the topic description. The mentor provides his/her expertise on the topic and the mentee composes a response to the essential question. This response is posted in the "Add a Discussion" box. The responses are read and evaluated each day. This provides virtual contact with every beginning teacher, along with insights regarding the types of support that a particular teacher may need. Emails or postings by the central facilitator provide the first-year teacher with resources needed. The old system proved to be costly in travel time and travel expense and often the topics presented were not relevant to every single participant. Now, teachers can choose which topics they need help with and they can skip those they don't need. Moodle also provides a calendar of important dates, a chat forum where first-year teachers can set up their own professional chats, and an open discussion topic forum where they can post questions to be reviewed and responded to by the central facilitator and other first-year teachers. First-year teachers can also "instant message" each other. The site contains an email address book for instant messaging. "I have my hands on them regardless of their location," said Sessoms. There were more than 8,000 participants at last year's national Model Schools Conference. According to Sessoms, the feedback from that session indicated that administrators need help retaining teachers after they attract them and they need help developing them and supporting them to become quality educators. "This new generation of teachers does everything virtually. They (organizers of the conference) were very excited about reaching teachers through technology," Sessoms said of the Moodle program. Part of the criteria to participate in the conference is that the program must produce sustainable results and it must be easily replicable. Sessoms and Hester will present the program so that other districts across the nation may be able to replicate it and use Johnston County as a model for first-year teacher success.
