8.9 Teacher Preparation

Shannon and Mary welcome Dr. Ellen Ballock and Julia D'Onofrio from Gordon College to talk about teacher preparation programs. Discover how they design and implement teacher prep programs focused on literacy instruction, the science of reading, and practical teaching methods. Our guests shed light on the importance of comprehensive training, common misconceptions in literacy education, and the roles of explicit instruction and evidence-based practices. They also delve into how their curriculum bridges gaps in teacher knowledge, ensuring future educators are well-equipped to foster student success.   This episode will likely remind you of your own teacher training and inspire you, making you feel hopeful about the future of our field and for new teacher candidates.

01:16 Meet Today’s Guests
05:10 Teacher Prep Shifts Nationwide
10:54 Data Language and Decision Making
14:36 Unlearning Balanced Literacy
18:06 Teaching Phonemic Awareness to Adults
22:06 Modeling Explicit Instruction
25:39 Morphology and Word Study
29:49 Curriculum Partnerships and Fidelity
32:01 Adapting Curriculum with Scaffolds
35:50 Redesigning for Comprehension
38:13 Gateway Checks for Think Alouds
40:39 Coaching Struggling Candidates
43:53 Writing Methods and Sentence Work
48:22 Sentence Composing Mentor Models
52:11 Practicum Pathway and Feedback
01:03:04 Doctoral Program for Change Agents
01:07:19 Closing Thanks and Takeaways

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES RELEVANT TO THE EPISODE:

1. Gordon College
2. Sentence Composing (Don Killgallon)
3. Grammar for Middle School: A Sentence Composing Approach by Don and Jenny Killgallon *Amazon affiliate link
4. NCTQ
5. Early literacy observation tool (Massachusetts)
6. Moat's Survey of Teacher Knowledge
7. How Spelling Supports Reading  article by Louisa Moats
8. Gordon College's Science of Learning Doctoral Program

Transcript

8.9 Teacher Preparation with Julia D’Onofrio and Ellen Ballock -

Shannon Betts: [00:00:00] Hey Mary, another episode of the Reading Teachers Lounge is here. 

Mary Saghafi: This season, Shannon and I are diving into new topics and insights about best practices, sharing more teacher tested strategies, and bringing you engaging conversations with fresh and possibly returning guests. 

Shannon Betts: Whether you, you're a teacher, tutor, or parent, you'll find practical ideas and real talk to support the readers in your life.

Mary Saghafi: Because teaching reading is tough, but you don't have to figure it out alone. 

Shannon Betts: Join the conversation and level up your teaching with us every episode in the Reading Teacher's Lounge.

Are you enjoying the Reading Teachers Lounge podcast? Since 2018, we have worked to bring you insights from literacy experts and strategies to help every child unlock the magic of reading. 

Mary Saghafi: If our conversations have helped you consider saying thanks with a small one-time donation through Buy me a Coffee.

It's a simple way to support our work [00:01:00] without any subscription. 

Shannon Betts: Just visit www.buymeacoffee.com/reading Teachers Lounge. You'll also find the link in our show notes and on our website. 

Mary Saghafi: We appreciate you and really value your support.

Welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge. We're really excited today to share a topic that we have kind of. Touched on and drifted in and out of, throughout all of our seasons. But today we are gonna talk a little bit about teacher preparation and the education that teachers learn in higher ed institutions.

And we are joined today by Dr. Ellen Ballock, who is the dean at Gordon College, and then also Julia Donofrio excuse me, Julia Donofrio. We're really excited to learn a little bit more about how you run your teacher prep programs so that we can, you know, build these amazing future teachers who are bringing forth amazing [00:02:00] citizens in our world.

So welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge. 

Ellen Ballock: Thank you for having us. Thank you. 

Mary Saghafi: Thanks. We would love it if you could just share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do specifically within literacy, and we'll kind of get this conversation rolling.

Julia, you wanna start? 

Julia D'Onfrio: Oh, yeah, I'll start. So my name is Julia. I'm really excited to be here, so thanks for having us. I started my career teaching kindergarten, specifically I loved teaching kindergarten, and then I moved into working with students and reading specifically I became a reading specialist and I worked in student support k pre-K through eighth for a number of years, and then started working in teacher preparation.

And my role is mostly. While I do a lot of things, mostly working with literacy instruction and supporting our teacher candidates with their literacy knowledge and skills. And I'm currently working on my doctorate at [00:03:00] Mount St. Joseph's with a concentration in the science of reading and I will graduate in May.

So I'm writing my dissertation right now. 

Shannon Betts: We just had a teacher guest on one of our bonus episodes that got her degree there and it sounds like a wonderful program. She was very inspired by the work she learned there. 

Julia D'Onfrio: It's been wonderful. Yeah, it's great. 

Shannon Betts: Mary Mary started kindergarten, teaching kindergarten as well.

Then I was reading specialist. So we already have a lot in common and then we wanna hear about your work, Ellen. 

Ellen Ballock: Sure. So I started my career also as I guess in ear, the the borderline between early childhood and elementary. Right. I was in I was second grade. Taught second grade for several years, and then I've been in teacher education for more than 20 years now, which blows my mind.

That was not really on my life trajectory at the time. But I I consider myself to be a bit of a generalist. And I think that serves me well in my role as Dean. But I, I really feel passionate about advocating for science of reading and the literacy space. It's something that I feel like was not reading, [00:04:00] learning how to teach.

Reading is not strong in my own teacher preparation. I think so often it's the pieces that we're missing. In our own experiences that then influence some of the life work that we do. And so I would definitely say that that's been an influence in the learning that I've done in the time that I've been a teacher educator.

In my role, I have opportunity to continue to supervise student teachers. Sometimes I and then I also am working on higher level projects in, in specific with literacy. One of the things that I've been most excited about in the last couple years is that I've been leading a collaborative team that has been working to develop our own doctoral program that is in a science of learning, but we'll have a reading science emphasis.

And so we are really excited that we are launching that program in Maine.

Mary Saghafi: Amazing. I love that. I am highly interested actually in the science of learning. I think that is just so remarkable and so really changing when you really teach others [00:05:00] how learning can be quantified and what are best practices and how those can be translated. That's fantastic. I'm excited for what's going on in your program.

So can you tell us maybe what are some of these big changes that have be, have come along and let's say maybe leave it in like the last five or so years. What, so if you could just let us know what's happening now in these preparation programs for our future teachers. 

Julia D'Onfrio: Yeah, so I think we can talk a lot about like what's happening in the Massachusetts kind of space in our own program, and I can kind of talk about what we're seeing, like shifting in terms of nationally.

There has been a lot of shift nationally in teacher prep, which is really exciting. It doesn't come without challenges obviously. But we're seeing shifts in programs where we're, they are aligning more to the research, specifically in reading instruction. And as you might have [00:06:00] seen the organization the National Council for Teacher quality, the NC ct, NCTQ looks specifically at teacher prep programs and really at the content knowledge that's being taught to teacher candidates.

And so the focus has been really on how do teacher prep programs align to the science of reading? How are they using coursework and material to really make sure that teacher candidates have the knowledge base in literacy? And that is really important. We know there's been many gaps in teacher knowledge around literacy.

I mean, we saw that in 1994 with Moatt's research article about, about the lack of, of knowledge that teachers have surrounding language and literacy constructs, and. We see a lot of research that recommends that like building content knowledge and teacher preparation is really important. And then we're [00:07:00] starting to move towards, I think the piece where we need to be focusing, not just on content, but also pedagogy.

So making sure that teacher prep programs are also teaching what you were just talking about, Mary, that science of learning. So making sure that there's an emphasis on evidence-based practices. And so that's been something that's happening slowly. I know like Ohio recently. Conducted a statewide audit for the science of reading.

And in that they actually included direct observations within teacher prep classrooms. And so they were looking not just at the content, but also at pedagogy in those classrooms. So that's something that's been happening, you know, across the country. And really also focusing on building not just knowledge, but practice and making sure that teacher candidates can implement evidence-based practices effectively and to fidelity.

So that's something we've been seeing across the country. It's, it's moving that way. We're making, [00:08:00] we're making progress. 

Ellen Ballock: I would say, I just, I, I feel like this is maybe the, in the last several years, maybe the first time that decisions about teacher prep have been. Not just happening in the local context, but we see we see states mandating or legislating guidelines around teacher preparation and K 12 schools both.

It's different. So here in the state of Massachusetts I think that our state is seeing teacher prep as one of the levers for change. And it is right, it is an important lever for change. And so I, I really see two big emphasis. Areas in our state as as our state is thinking about how does teacher prep help the whole K 12 landscape move forward?

And one is that our state has a new emphasis on curriculum literacy. So I think when I was learning to teach it was sort of, you learn how to develop a lesson. I don't, I mean, when I [00:09:00] was learning how to teach, we didn't even have standards, you know, but but you know, you, you, you used your creative processes and you came up with interesting, engaging lessons for that.

Definitely kept kids busy and sometimes really helped them learn important things. But I didn't have the content knowledge. I didn't have all the expertise needed. Right. And so I think the expert, the the emphasis now is on curriculum literacy. Like understanding what it, what are high quality curriculum materials, what does it mean for a curriculum to be based in evidence?

If it's not, how do you adapt it? And if it is, how do you implement it with fidelity? While also meeting the needs of your specific students in front of you. So I think that's a big, that's a big shift in teacher prep in our state, that the state is saying that it's not your ability to create your own lesson from scratch.

That's important, but your ability to understand curriculum and to interpret curriculum and adapt curriculum appropriately for students. So that's one big area where they're seeing, where I think we're seeing the [00:10:00] state emphasize teacher prep as a lever for change. And then the other area is in the evaluation process for beginning teachers.

There is a new early literacy observation tool. That is a part of the required assessment during the student teaching experience, that early literacy observation tools required for early childhood majors, elementary majors, and then those who are getting what our state calls the moderate disabilities license, which is special education.

And that observation tool is really looking at kinda across the board, foundational reading skills the ability to engage with complex text writing skills. So it's, it's fairly comprehensive and requires requires supervisors, all supervisors to have a maybe a deeper understanding of literacy than what might have been required in the past.

Mary Saghafi: I think that that is so fascinating especially because in my role as an advocate, I'm sitting in on [00:11:00] IEP meetings and one of the big questions is, is how strong is tier one instruction? And I feel like when I first started, you know, and even halfway through because things were changing so quickly throughout my career and I moved from one state to another state, I found that it was really difficult to really understand the curriculum and feel comfortable with what I, the expectations were.

I just didn't really feel very comfortable after, unless I was like a year, maybe two. That, that like second half of the year after I had really been teaching it. So I think that's great. And then the other piece that I'm constantly talking about with other teachers is what are these meaningful observations that you see from the child that's giving you a red flag that you can communicate to us as a team?

And, and then how do we find an appropriate intervention? So I'm so happy to hear that those are these two big areas of, of [00:12:00] teacher prep programs because I think that those are two hugely important areas where general ed teachers really have a lot of power in an IEP meeting for things like that, but not just in, in an IEP meeting.

It's also identifying children who have gifted abilities or children who you know, are, are right on track but may have some gaps in other areas and making sure that you can easily. Speak to those you know, behaviors and, and however they're demonstrating or not demonstrating the skills expected.

I don't see a lot of teachers having that language yet. I, I do think it's coming along, but we can't just use fluffy language with, oh, they're fine. What does fine mean? Please, please elaborate. So this is, this is really exciting. 

Julia D'Onfrio: Yeah, and I think I would add to that. I know. That piece of having that strong, like you were saying, that detailed [00:13:00] language.

We spend a lot of time in our school of ed here at Gordon focusing specifically on database decision making. And so really identifying what is the data you're bringing forward and how are you making targeted decisions about instruction. So I think that adds to what you're saying that teachers need to have that, that, that skill of being able to identify the needs of the student and then making decisions based on that information.

Mary Saghafi: The other really big thing that I heard you just speaking to is also that the supervisors or administrators or someone who has has the grand overview or even the power to make more decisions, really has a strong understanding of that as well, because that's another area where things can kind of fall through the cracks.

I see. Especially when important decisions need to be made, either what what interventions are being done or what is the best solution or situation for this. If those [00:14:00] key pieces are missing it's not always a productive meeting. 

Shannon Betts: Yeah. I could see student teacher placement assignments being just so critical.

I mean, they're always critical, but you've really gotta make sure they're in place in a classroom, in a school environment, that it's informed about the best practices and it support. I'm support of that. I have a, 

Ellen Ballock: and we've been fortunate, I think, to have a lot of fantastic partner districts in our local area who have been committed to the science of reading for, for longer than the last five years, which has been really an amazing opportunity for us.

Shannon Betts: That's fortunate. So I'm gonna shift a little bit. I'm thinking about the students that are actually in your program. They probably are the age of some of my first few classroom that I taught, you know, like in my early teaching career before I knew better. Okay. Because a lot of those kiddos in that generation probably went through balanced literacy curriculums themselves as elementary school students.

And so I'm very curious sort of what [00:15:00] unlearning they're having to do. Some aha moments that they're like, oh my gosh, this is how people learn to read. I wanna hear a little about that, especially from you, Julia, , since you're like really, you know, teaching those, those pre-service teachers. 

Julia D'Onfrio: Yeah, you're so right about that piece of where they're coming from in terms of their background.

They, the, one of the first courses they take during their time at Gordon is the introduction to the Science of Reading. And that's one of, actually one of the first literacy courses, not one of the, the first courses, but in that course, I think two of the big, I can say two, but some of the big takeaways for them are that learning to read is not natural because they think that, and a lot of us have thought that in the past, and that was a huge misconception and, and really the reason why we're here to today.

And then they really miss that piece of phonology and, and that and that written language was built on oral language. And so that we have to start with [00:16:00] sound and then layer that onto the symbol. And for students, that's hard. A because. They didn't learn that way, but b, because they are, you know, as college students, proficient readers.

And so to go backwards to like, what are the sounds in that word and how do I connect that symbol is difficult for them. So that, that phonemic awareness is, is a hard, that's something that they need more, more training in. Not to mention the phonics patterns, but I think just that kind of, those beginning pieces of, of reading is not natural.

And that we start with sound. I would say those are the two places that we always have to start. And that is, that is surprising to them. They feel like as proficient readers that they know what they need to know to be a reading teacher and they're shocked on the first day. 

Shannon Betts: Mary [00:17:00] and I have said so many times when we've talked about our own teacher prep program that like.

We were taught our own programs, how to make like maybe a decent reader better, but we didn't know how to take a non-reader and turn them into a reader. And we did not learn that until you know, into our own careers. And Ena wrote this down from what you said earlier. You said like, the pieces, the pieces we were missing from our own experience influence the trajectory of our careers.

I think that is, yes, that's exactly true for myself. So that, that was really relevant to me.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah, 

Shannon Betts: anyway, I don't know where I was going with that. Oh,

I guess I just, go ahead Mary. 

Mary Saghafi: No, I was just gonna say like, so when you do have like what are, what are some common questions that you hear these pre-service teachers saying? Be, or, or is there any like, you know, appropriate feedback that they're giving to you? Like. I'm confused about this. What does this mean?

Do you have any, [00:18:00] can you give any examples of things like that? It's a little on the spot. Hmm. 

Julia D'Onfrio: I know, that's a good question. I mean, I do think that it is, I would, I would say I have to really focus for them on that phon level things. And so they need a lot of feedback on the phony level. Like, you know, for our, that first class they take, they end up one of the big gateways is they have to take a phonics test by the end that's not the same, but has some similarities to Mott's survey for teacher knowledge.

And I think a lot of the feedback they need is even just like, what are the phone names in this word? And, and, and that is where I'll spend my time in terms of the foundational pieces. And that part, there's not as much out there yet in terms of like, there's more in terms of how do I teach a teacher candidate [00:19:00] phonics rules.

There's a lot of resources, but at that, at that phoning level that's beyond articulation, right? So we work on that articulation, even like place and manner of articulation. We go through all that and, and practice the phonemes , but being able to segment them in the word or blend those sounds is difficult for them.

And some of that is due to, and I think that's what can be challenging in terms of my feedback and support of them. Some of that is due to a lack of instruction when they were in elementary school. And some of it is due to they might actually have a deficit themselves that they're just realizing. And I have students come up to me after the first reading course that say.

I think I struggle with phonemic awareness. I think I always did. I think I struggle, right? They start to have some realization and so that's a place where I'm always trying to support students in terms of the feedback and then the coaching and modeling I do so that they can build them, those skills [00:20:00] themselves.

That's the example that comes like right on top of my head. 

Mary Saghafi: But yeah, no, absolutely. I feel like I definitely identified as one of those people who did not have really strong phon skills when I was younger. And it's funny 'cause then. After I was doing some my Orton-Gillingham training I had talked to my mom about what it was like when I was younger, and she said that I could not sound out syllables for the longest time.

It took such a long time. She would like walk down the stairs with me and do each syllable at a time. And then I think I also got a taste of that when I was trying to train the paraprofessionals in my classroom to do sound drills with some of my students and trying to break, for example, B doesn't say B, like, or R doesn't say r.

You need to b and clip it, and you need to err you know, change that, that sound so that you can actually slide the word [00:21:00] all the way through. I, I found those to be really challenging, so I can imagine that too. I was kind of curious to see what that would look like in a bigger scale. So that sounds about right.

Yeah. 

Julia D'Onfrio: Yeah. And I, I meet, like, I end up meeting with students individually, right. To work through, because we'll do it as a class. But then you can kinda see the students that are, that might be struggling. And so I just make sure that they get some of that support. But some of that is needed, you know, we make sure, and this is, I think another big piece that is important in teacher preparation is that we have to have the type of instruction that we know is effective for our elementary school, school students too.

We have to have explicit instruction, and that's a place that we. There's not as much research in teacher prep, but I, but I am hoping that's where we're moving because they need corrective feedback. Our teacher candidates need corrective feedback. They need that support. And, and that's one of our goals.

And what we do often is give the written feedback, give the [00:22:00] oral feedback, watch them teach, and give them feedback, right. So that they can make those adjustments to their practice. 

Shannon Betts: I love that. So you're saying you're not just lecturing and then saying in the background, oh, don't do like I'm doing where I'm lecturing to you right now when you're with your students, but you're actually modeling those best teaching practices.

That's really cool. 

Mary Saghafi: I love hearing that. 

Ellen Ballock: I think it's really great because we'll ha you know, every once in a while the college is updating marketing materials and they'll send in somebody to get video of an education class or to take pictures of an education class. And they're always stymied because they say, wait, you're moving around so much.

Mary Saghafi: Wait, you're doing so many things. We're not sure where to set up. And they're like, 

Ellen Ballock: but actually this is, I mean, we need to be, modeling best teaching practices, and, and if this is how human beings learn, it's like you don't suddenly magically learn a different way because you're in a different building.

Right. You know, we learn through through really clear explicit instruction through opportunities to practice, through opportunities to have feedback. [00:23:00] And yes, as adults we can do a little more self-directed learning. And, you know, even kids are gonna have places where they're doing self-directed learning, but like, let's not leave those basic essential foundations to just.

Do you happen to self-direct yourself to learning that? Right. Like whatever the things are that are most

Julia D'Onfrio: And a prayer Yeah. 

Ellen Ballock: Or an essential, those are the things that we really need to make sure we've got some explicit instruction. 

Mary Saghafi: It's so funny the way you're explaining that too, because I think a lot of you know, our, in, in my teacher prep program you know, we would say, well, you expose them to all of these things and they'll just automatically learn it.

But if you're not being intentional and explicit in the practices and, and what it looks like when you are teaching the methodology, the pe pedagogy of how it looks in the classroom I think that that's really important. If it's okay, I would like to shift and talk about another area. Can I. Oh, please.

Julia D'Onfrio: Can I say one thing? I'm thinking back to the question that you kind of started with, with the [00:24:00] common misconceptions. And I think if you focus on not just like literacy, but I feel like Ellen touched on this, the common misconception that students come in with is what learning is and what good teaching is.

Like what is explicit instruction? Because often they come and they think, I just talk and they learn and that's what it should be. And that's a big shift that we have. We have to, 

Ellen Ballock: well, I just ask questions and they will magically know the answers. 

Shannon Betts: I know I've tried to explain to every kind of early teacher I've ever worked with is like that.

There is a difference between teaching and learning, like just that is the first thing you need to know, but it does a, does not equal b.

Hey listeners, it's Shannon. If you're like me, you spend all day giving your best to your students and then by dinnertime, you're out of energy to think about prepping nourishing meals for yourself and your family. That's why I started using Green Chef Again. Green Chef offers quick, flavorful, and [00:25:00] nutritious meals that fuel my busy teacher life.

Wanna try a free box? Check the show notes for the link, or go to reading teachers lounge.com/quick links and use our link button to sign up and have your dinner handled, because you could teach to an empty room, right? I mean, but then learning's not gonna happen, right? 

Mary Saghafi: Ooh, that is so good. I think that that is you know, precisely why there's a lot of frustration when you're in the classroom and you say, I didn't learn any of this.

You know, I learned only, you know, trial by fire. I think that that's really. A great point. So thank you for that. I was going to shift towards another area. So Phonology would've been kind of tricky. The other one is morphology, because I feel like I didn't get a great foundation in really understanding morphology.

Shannon Betts: Mary and I both have been on a journey, even just in the last two years in our own practice, really, you know, bettering our methods with teaching them for students. 

Mary Saghafi: Yeah. So we're, we're, how do you [00:26:00] kind of help the teacher candidates connect the phonics and the morphology and the etymology of words so that they can really be like the word experts for their students?

Shannon Betts: And decoding and encoding? 

Mary Saghafi: Yeah. 

Julia D'Onfrio: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think one of the challenges that we're always. Having in teacher preparation is the amount of content and skills, right? They have the need to have the knowledge and skills. So we start with these foundational skills and then we move into these more complex.

So do I think I wanna continue to grow our program in this area? A hundred percent. But these are the things that we're doing now. Students do read Moses' article how spelling supports reading. And, and with that, I think she does a wonderful job bringing in all those aspects of the layers of language.

And that's kind of where we start. So that's the starting place for students. Something that added in one of our courses in the last couple years is some [00:27:00] activity that we do that I probably adapted from like Mo, Moats and Tolman and also kind of added my own piece, but is this word detective. So they're given a word at the beginning of class and it's something we do every week.

And there's, you know, someone that's the TA each week. So they're, they're the ones up in front of the class, but they are given a word and then they ask their peers, okay, you're gonna go through and tell me the layers. So the, everybody has their own moment to then think, okay, how many pH names, how many letters, how many graph themes, you know, what's the you know, what's the etymology of this word?

Like, do I know it? What are my, what are my clues? What, you know, how many syllables do I have? Do I have any prefixes, suffixes, right? All of those pieces. And then we discuss them as a class. And my goal in that is for them to start to like really start to understand those layers of language. And I think that a lot of where we see this in terms of their teaching [00:28:00] really is when they're in older grades and they're in their student teaching.

And so. Our literacy courses really ba build the foundation. But what I find is for those like you're kind of asking how to bring all those pieces together. We use I, I use the simple view of reading Go and Tumblr as a framework, as well as Scarborough's Reading Rope. And the way I think about it in teacher prep is that just like, you know, elementary school students, we're gonna be teaching those strands.

To our students, they have to become to our teacher candidates. They have to become knowledgeable. They need to build the skills to be able to implement lessons on each of these strands. And then they have to weave it together to integrate all those pieces, not just for their like elementary school students, but for them.

And so what I find is a lot of that integration is happening when they're in their they do like a part-time practicum and then [00:29:00] their practicum that's happening when they're in the classroom all the time after the literacy courses. And so we, as Ellen was noted, noting before we, the ones that are teaching the courses are going in and observing our student teachers and giving them that feedback when they're trying to integrate all those pieces.

So it's more of a coaching and mentorship in their student teaching that we are addressing. All of that integration. 'cause it is really difficult.

Shannon Betts: It is my own practicum. Second, I did second grade and fifth grade. Neither one of those had textbooks. And it was like, we just went in the practicum and it was like, what are we teaching today?

What are we teaching later this week? And I was in like constructivists, that was like my whole program. And so we had to do all these thematic units and things like that. But still I was, my question is, do you send teachers out with like a curriculum or Ellen, you had mentioned that y'all have these, these great partnerships already with these school districts.

Do they have really [00:30:00] strong literacy curriculums based on the science of reading already in their district? So the teachers can just sort of, you know, go into those practicum experiences and work with the classroom teachers and like immediately just start implementing those curriculum resources? Or how does that work?

Julia D'Onfrio: Ellen, do you wanna start with that? 

Ellen Ballock: Oh, I was gonna say one of the reason, one of the one of the factors that has been used in decision making about which districts that we'll have as partners in the past has been specifically what their literacy curriculum is or what approach that they're using. So not that we've never, I mean, not that we've never had students go to a district that we didn't think that their curriculum was a good one, but but, but the partnerships that we have really invested the most time in, I think are, are places where they do have a strong curriculum.

But I'm just gonna say, I, Julia, I would be curious to hear what you have to say about this, but I, just because there [00:31:00] is a strong curriculum doesn't mean that the student teacher well, doesn't mean that it's being implemented with fidelity in the school. And may not mean that the student teacher.

Knows how to use that well. You know, we find the, the student teachers will say to us, well, do I still have to write a lesson plan? It's just there in the curriculum manual. We're like, well, there's still so many instructional decisions that you're making and are you like reading all that background information?

And you know, and maybe there's, you know, most of the time there's probably more things there than what you can do in this short period of time that you have. And so how are you making decisions? And so so the curriculum is an essential starting place. And we really, we really want to be put sending our students out into places where they have a strong curriculum, but then they continue to need a lot of support both from, you know, certainly the classroom teacher that we're, that they're working with, we hope is, is giving them a lot of support.

And then you know, those who are supervising from the Gordon side, I feel like we are also giving a lot of support. [00:32:00] 

Julia D'Onfrio: Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. I think, as Ellen was saying earlier. It used to be the case that our students would be developing their own lesson plans like they were creating from scratch their lessons.

And as the state of Massachusetts has made that shift, even in teacher prep of like, our work is taking the curriculum and then, you know, making sure there's accommodations and modifications as needed. Our support has been, and for the literacy courses, we have really focused on, okay, this is a curriculum being used by the district and then I work with students to make those shifts to make sure that it is aligned when, you know, when there needs to be more alignment to evidence-based practice and to research.

And so the way that I do that in literacy specifically is like each week I'll bring in like I brought in, okay, this is from. Curriculum. Here it is. I print it out, I give it to them, and then I [00:33:00] model what I would do and I talk about what I would change. And then I have them practice and I give them feedback.

And so they're getting, just like we were talking about that explicit instruction, like, watch me now, let's do it together, now your turn. And giving them that feedback. And then they go and write the lesson plan the next week. So I really try to have that gradual release as well. Like, watch me make these changes and modifications, listen to my thinking and now you're gonna try it and get feedback because it is, it's a difficult skill and one that they will need.

And I think that changed by the state is really helpful because that's what the classroom teachers are doing. They're getting a curriculum and then they have to make those decisions. So it's helpful that we're able to support our student teachers with that. 

Shannon Betts: I love that you're doing that from the get go.

'cause like that's what I did with my teacher bestie down the hall, you know, like it was on the same grade level with me and we would kind of pre-plan before we planned with the team and we would make those decisions together. But that's just, that's what I [00:34:00] learned just on the job after teaching for years of how to look at all those different curriculum pieces, then no, oh, you know what, there's not, this isn't robust enough I'm gonna put to pull in additional resources.

These are the scaffolds I'm gonna need from English language learners and so forth. So the fact that from the get go you're modeling how to do that and guiding them through that I can imagine they would just feel so much more prepared than I did my first year. 

Mary Saghafi: I really hope so. And also really helpful I think, to have the model of what accommodations or modifications need to be made as well.

I think that that is one of the most challenging pieces when you still are a little bit like unsteady with what the full expectation of what the class should be doing. And then all of a sudden you have a student who is. You know, two and three grade levels below what that expectation is. Then you're like, who do I even teach right now?

And the answer is, you find the appropriate scaffolding. You work [00:35:00] to make sure that all the students are engaged at the level that they can be engaged at. But in those vague terms, that's not an appropriate answer. Right? You need to actually model and say, if you see that the student is unable to read the words, then what we need to do is figure out what those words would be ahead of time.

Highlight them and preview them before the lesson. That's a very different answer than saying, well, you gotta meet them and scaffold it. Right? So I think that that's a really good example of how you are, you know, working through those lessons with your students. So I'm appreciative of that.

Shannon Betts: I wanna know too, what y'all do to prepare for a language comprehension like that other.

You know, part of the simple view of reading 

Julia D'Onfrio: Another strand. 

Shannon Betts: Yeah. 

Julia D'Onfrio: The other side. Yeah. So you know, recently one of, so we were talking about earlier the, we have been so fortunate that our program has [00:36:00] been aligned with the science of reading. Before it was called The Science of Reading for just so many years.

Yeah. Before it was cool. Y'all already the trend. Yeah. So we, you know, I went through the program at Gordon and graduated in, in the early two, in 2001. And I was trained in, in, you know, it was, it was right after, or right as the national reading panel was coming out, and we, we talked through that and we learned about the five components.

But even though we've been doing that for so long and, and our, our you know, my professors were already doing this work, we've made a lot of changes as, as good teachers do. We've used our data to make just modifications and revisions. And so one of that, the big redesigns that we've done is we used to just have a standalone children's literature course.

And so we brought that kind of up under, into the literacy sequence and redesigned that to really be language comprehension. And we bring in texts, so [00:37:00] children's literature and informational texts and really bring in and utilize the text to support language comprehension. So that's the way that we've, you know, again, as I said, like they're gonna have to integrate all these pieces, but in coursework we kind of have separated them out to that.

There's one course that's really focused on the word rec side of the simple view and the other one that's really focused on the, the language comprehension side. So that's kind of the way we've designed it. Do you wanna add anything, Ellen, to that? 

Ellen Ballock: No, I just, I would just add that I just, I think that's a really significant and important shift that you've made, Julia, because I.

I, I, I fully think that there's value in teachers being aware of the wide range of children's literature that's out there. And I mean, I remember when I took a children's literature class, you know, I learned, I, I think I particularly learned about nonfiction authors, like really good nonfiction authors that I'd never learned about before.

And so that course was valuable. And that [00:38:00] course was really more like just, here are some great things to read. You know, instead of being instead of being a course that, 

Shannon Betts: and some creative ways to do book reports 

Ellen Ballock: and some creative ways to do book reports. Yes, yes. Res reader a response. And I think that to be able to leverage that intentionally to focus on developing vocabulary to focus on, some of the, the reading comprehension strategies. In fact, we have we, in our program, we have a variety of what we call gateway assessments that students need to be able to pass with a minimum level of proficiency at various points in our program. And one of those gateway assessments actually takes place in that children's literature class.

And it's, can they model, I think sort of do a think aloud? Can they mo can they model a comprehension strategy? Like that's really important. Can they do explicit instruction around comprehension strategies? And so we've taken a course that was, that used to be the creative book reports [00:39:00] and have really turned it into a course that, it has some really meaty content and then, then has sort of a checkpoint where we can say, are they able to do this? And if not, we develop we develop an, an additional learning plan for them to make sure that they're able to develop those skills. Our goal is that no one would ever start their student teaching experience without ensuring that there are some minimum skill sets that they've already been able to demonstrate.

Julia D'Onfrio: Yeah, and I, I'll just, I'll just add to that. I think the other piece with that activity and that, you know, that course is we're trying to find a, a place where we can also answer the question, so is, is children's literature not what we're doing anymore? Because often I think that's like a misconception about the science of reading.

Like, so we don't, we don't do this anymore. We don't think literature's great. Right? And so I, I really bring that to light for students. Like, you might hear this conception that like, oh, [00:40:00] science of reading doesn't use text or science of reading, just use de decodable text or, so that's another place that we try to address some of those misconceptions.

Sorry, I interrupted you, Mary. 

Mary Saghafi: No, not at all. I think that, I think that was sort of getting to like one of the point, like, like there are these misconceptions that kind of happen because as adults who are now learning to predict what children's thinking will be, it's very different. And you, you learn that minds are very different and kids make different types of predictions, and so you have to really become an expert on I'm guessing what that is.

So I was sort of just sort of imagining like, okay, so what are some of the like plan activities that you would do for a teacher who's struggling with, you know, doing, doing a think aloud with a text. Because I do think that there are plenty of teachers who are in the classroom now who struggle with that, but don't have a [00:41:00] mentor to kind of help.

So what are some of the ways that you would sort of address that as a ms. You know, not developmentally or not appropriate for the task.

Julia D'Onfrio: Alan, do you wanna start and then I'll jump in. Okay. 

Ellen Ballock: Well, I mean, so I think, I think it starts, you know, just like you're talking about tier one versus tier two, we're always talking about what does tier one and tier two look like in teacher prep, you know, so I think, I think it would be helpful, maybe, Julia, for you to even talk about how you even start providing a good foundation of instruction for how to do that initially.

And then as we develop learning plans, like we don't have like, another whole course that they can take or something, right? So we're often thinking about what are the, what are the resources that we can refer students to? And so we have sort of, here are videos of people doing that really well. And here are two more opportunities that you're gonna have to, to do this.

And somebody's gonna observe you and give you feedback and, you know, and, and make sure that they've talked through your lesson in advance. So it's sort of [00:42:00] a little bit of, initiative that they have to take to, to be learning and filling in some gaps and then some scaffolded support with, okay, you're gonna do another lesson plan.

Let's take a look at that together. And, and now we'll watch you do that and give you some feedback. So we we're really, it's we, the practice piece, right? You, you learn things by having great instruction to begin with, and then by having opportunities to practice with feedback. 

Julia D'Onfrio: Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. So I think initially in that like tier one as we would call it in the class, what I'm doing is modeling, like, what does this look like?

And so I'll model, I'll script it for them. Like oftentimes they need to see it and then they need to have it written in front of them. So even with like the other day I gave them sentence inserters. I did a vocabulary routine that they use for in that, in that, what was the literature course and I model it and then I write.

Sentence starters for them [00:43:00] and then they write it and then they practice it with a peer and I walk around and give them feedback and then they will demonstrate another lesson and write one on their own. So it is a lot of me modeling it is providing scaffolds for them and then it's the practice With that feedback, I mean, everything that Ellen just said, again, just like elementary school students, our, our teacher candidates need that explicit instruction they do for them to gain these skills.

Shannon Betts: It sounds like you'll really just value your reputation. Greatly, and that you just don't wanna send a teacher out into the field mm-hmm. From your program that's not prepared. So you're just not gonna rubber stamp a degree, but you're really gonna make sure that they have learned it, not that you've just taught it as a college.

I love that. 

Ellen Ballock: I love that you're hearing it that way because Okay. 

Shannon Betts: That's how you're describing it. I mean, it's like you're individualizing and you're not, you're leaving no candidate behind. Right. To, to paraphrase that phrase do y'all have any coursework about like writing instruction, grammar instruction?

That's something that, whew, I had to learn on the [00:44:00] job. 

Ellen Ballock: I love that you asked that question because you know, as we were preparing for this conversation, thinking about what gaps might there be or where do teachers sometimes feel under-prepared? I think writing is one of those areas where there has been minimal attention.

You know, again, if we think back to our own teacher prep programs, in mine, I had a writing course and I think I remember writing something in three genres and. I don't know. I mean, and we did like some kind of group presentation. I didn't really learn how to teach writing. But writing is an area that I I, that I personally feel really passionately about.

And, and I just, I remember so many conversations with student teachers who, as they sort of looked at kids' writing, it was like, oh, isn't it cute how they said that? Or where they would think it was good writing because they used first, next, then last. And you're like, but the thing that they had to say didn't mean anything.

And so I've actually done a lot of thinking about like, how do teachers, like interpret the writing that's in front of them because that actually really impacts the feedback that they give. So we, a [00:45:00] couple of years ago developed a writing methods course to add to our program because of this gap that we felt like there was that particular course focuses in on informational text and opinion writing.

Just because we don't have time for all of the kinds of writing. 

Shannon Betts: No. And that's what's mostly tested. So that, that's very powerful. 

Ellen Ballock: So we chose that really intentionally. Plus the time that they're taking that course is at the same time that they're taking a science and social studies methods course.

And so to be able to think, I think it's we're working towards thinking about how does that help us make those connections interdisciplinary. But the students, I think the thing that's really fantastic about. The, the woman who's teaching this course is that she she, I mean she brings in the resources, right?

The writing rope, the writing revolution. But she not only looks at the genre level, she does look at the genre level. Like, let's make sure that we have some idea of like, what is the structure of the genre. She not, she looks at that, she looks at like, do kids have something meaningful to say about this?

Do they need to read more before they're ready to write? You know, like, what does that look like? [00:46:00] But then she's really helping them think through the sentence level, like, what does it look like to write at the sentence level? Mary 

Mary Saghafi: is 

a sentence level. 

Shannon Betts: Y'all are speaking at Mary's level and we're gonna let her respond.

Mary Saghafi: No, it's incredible. And I do think that that is precisely what I was also missing too. But after a really careful observation of the students that I'm working with, they have not had enough sentence level practice because sentence level practice sometimes will stop at second grade. And as you increase in your grade level and the sophistication of your language, having a really lovely, intense, intentional sentence can dramatically change what you're trying to communicate.

And it doesn't always have to be a paragraph. So I, I'm just, I'm very passionate about that. I love the writing revolution, and I'm using that all the time. But I do think that it can be [00:47:00] really overwhelming for teachers because if the standard says that they need to be writing a good paragraph, well then I better focus on a paragraph.

But it's, it's not scaffolding to just work at a sentence level. Each sentence really needs to be dedicated to communicating the strong message. And I do think that the idea of doing sentence frames and modeling those good sentences multiple times, not just one sentence that you would then copy from the teacher, but really okay.

Now I want you to change my words around. And maybe it's cutting out words and actually like physically changing them around. Or you know who, here's your topic. I want you to write one now. Have your friend rewrite that same sentence. Using a different strategy. So anyway, I do think that that's, it's something that I was not taught and I didn't recognize as being so critical.

I mean, when I have my [00:48:00] students who are still working on remembering punctuation in a sentence and capitalizing appropriately, and they're still in fifth grade, it doesn't mean that I give up writing paragraphs with them, but I still need to come back so that they can focus on the multiple tasks that are required at just the sentence level.

So, all right, 

Shannon Betts: Mary, I wanted to show all of y'all, I've just started using this method called Sentence Composing. I learned about it from our most recent podcast guest, and it's basically saying that the, 

Mary Saghafi: in the, yeah. 

Shannon Betts: The Killgallon one. Yeah. So it's basically saying as humans, like we learned by imitation, right?

So we learned oral language through imitation. And so this whole method was developed by these college professors. About learning from the, the structure of written language, which is different than our oral speaking structure. And so looking at these model sentences from Tolkien and Lois Lowry and, you know, the Harry Potter books and things like that, and looking at the [00:49:00] structure of the phrases within the sentence, and then teaching students how to imitate that exact structure.

Like, okay, start with an ING verb and then do an aerial phrase and then do this. And this is, and I've started doing my tutoring students the last few weeks and it has been phenomenal. Like a byproduct of it is that their comprehension is better. Yes. But then their writing is getting better too, and their grammatical understanding is getting better.

It's kind of a big bang for the buck. 

Ellen Ballock: I love that. And I, I think it builds on, you know, that idea of a mentor text has long been out there in writing, but when you look, when you're looking at the text as a whole, it takes students, 

Shannon Betts: it's too big. 

Ellen Ballock: You don't have to be very sophisticated to be really able to analyze.

I mean, my daughter's taken an AP class on that right now. They didn't. It's, it's hard to like do the rhetorical analysis of like, what is an author actually doing that helps them accomplish their their purpose. And so to be able to bring it down to the sentence level is is a really interesting opportunity.[00:50:00] 

Shannon Betts: Well, I'm glad y'all are doing that in your writing methods. Course Julia, are you involved in that course or do you have any other information you wanna share about that one? 

Julia D'Onfrio: No, no, I'm not really, so my students go there after they take mine and then I often get to see them in the field teaching those lessons, which is wonderful.

But I'm not, I do not teach that course. 

Shannon Betts: Yeah. And do you, how do you support them too of like, like that, we mentioned this a little bit earlier, but putting those pieces together, like knowing how to set up the literacy block to just how much time is spent in the explicit reading instruction and explicit reading practice versus explicit writing instruction.

Explicit writing practice, you know, moving it cross curricular like y'all mentioned. How do you help teachers with that? 

Julia D'Onfrio: I mean, I think so much of it is in that, like it has to be housed in the, in the. In the field those conversations. So as Ellen's mentioned before, we have just some wonderful [00:51:00] partners.

And so a lot of those conversations are so specific to the curriculum, the district, it can't be hypothetical the classroom, right. 

Shannon Betts: It has to be like specific details of what is happening in this lesson today. Okay. 

Julia D'Onfrio: Yes. And so we have those conversations like we, you know, the state has us do this department of ed, but also it's highly effective for our students is our.

Post conferences with the supervising practitioner, the, you know, the classroom teacher and our student and us, and we sit and have those conversations. And not just of like how this lesson went, but also the planning for the future and where to focus based on data. And we, we, obviously as professors bring in a lot, but that classroom teacher is invaluable in that conversation.

They know the students, the elementary school students, we do not know them. They know the curriculum really well. We have some exposure to that curriculum 'cause we've been in the schools, but we're not teaching it every [00:52:00] day like, like the classroom teacher is. So we are just, I mean, so grateful for their expertise in, in, we support that conversation and really work together on, on those pieces.

Shannon Betts: What practicum experiences do y'all have? Do y'all have the, the traditional you know, last semester before you graduate student teaching practicum and other ones before then? 

Ellen Ballock: So yeah, we have a variety of field-based experiences. Our students begin observing in classrooms their freshman year. And we, we say the more often they can go, the better because let's prevent the person who says, wait, this isn't the career that I wanted know.

When they get to student teaching, but also because we really believe that like doing the work with feedback is how you learn and grow and get better. So you know, we talk about their sophomore years, the year of math and science, and so they go out and, and do field experiences primarily in math methods, but also a little bit some special education observations.

Then junior year is really the big literacy year where Julia teaches a [00:53:00] lot of the courses and then senior year, the writing methods, science, social studies methods, and the big full-time practicum. So like Julia's year that literacy year, they go every week out into a school and are practicing teaching the foundational literacy skills.

In one of our partner schools, Julia goes along with them gives them right in, you know, the just in time feedback. Sometimes she'll interrupt and say, let me just, let me just show this to you a little bit and then, you know, hand it back over to the student teacher. Sometimes she'll give them feedback afterwards.

But so our students, our students are getting a lot of opportunities to practice in different content areas as they go through the program. During the fall of their senior year, they have a minimum of two days a week that they're in schools and then they've got that full-time student teaching experience during their final practicum.

Shannon Betts: That's really, really valuable. I love that y'all are doing observations. Even freshman [00:54:00] year, I wish someone I had my first year teaching. I had such a heart. I mean I had just like the typical like awful first year where I did every single thing wrong you can possibly imagine. And emailed our principal at like three in the morning one night and was like, please don't regret hiring me.

I'll get this one day. But anyway, I went back and like pulled out all my old coursework from college and I went back and looked through all my observations. 'cause I was trying to find. The teacher behaviors. And unfortunately, what I had written in most of my observation was the student behaviors. Like the student got out the desk.

Well, did I write down what the teacher did when the student got outta the desk? No. And that would've been really helpful. 

Ellen Ballock: It's so interesting that we talk about how, I mean, there's a sense to which you go and you observe, and that's helpful. But I mean, I remember when I was going in and doing observations, I would like write down, I would like try and copy down what the bulletin board was so I could recreate that someday.

Or I would like write down the exact words that the teacher used. 'cause maybe those were the magic words that I, I mean, that's not helpful. Right. So I think we I [00:55:00] think we do students a disservice if we just send them out to observe without providing them with some specific scaffolding or frameworks about, here are some things to look for or without having some debrief opportunities of, what did you see?

And what does that mean and how does that mean something for the future? It, it's interesting that you talk about observing students. 'cause I would actually say observing students is probably more important than observing. Not more equally important, at least as observing teachers in those initial observations because it's like, well, you've been observing, you've kind of been observing teachers your whole life.

So like, now let's figure out who are these kids and how do you get to know those kids and what are, how do kids think and what can misconceptions do kids have? And you know, let's start to understand learners before we then come back and try to think about teaching behaviors. 

Shannon Betts: I probably was doing that, like I was already thinking like an interventionist way before I got hired as an interventionist of just like, where are the breakdowns of this kid's learning and things like that.

But I was, I did not have good preparation in classroom management, and so I needed more of I guess that [00:56:00] framework given of let's, let's get this first and then we'll do, then we'll observe for that. 

Ellen Ballock: It's so true. Like that's the foundation to everything, right? You don't have classroom management. No learning is gonna happen.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah, I echo that ab like fully and completely. And it's funny. Now this is just like a silly aside, but I have a student who I was tutoring with recently and he, he is new. He is come to me and he was having some like behaviors. You could tell that he was doing it because he didn't wanna be there and he was trying to avoid.

And I just kinda looked at him and it's different. It's a tutoring setting. I said, you can't even imagine some of the things I've seen. Whatever you're gonna do isn't gonna blow me away. And he was like, wait. Okay, let me just buckle down and get back down to business. But I mean, what a funny, you know, kind of thing because I'm telling you, I have lived through some crazy behaviors and I wish I knew what to do, but now I've even known enough to say like, [00:57:00] let me just call you out.

I know that what you're trying to do right now is this, and I know what I'm gonna do is going to work. And so, you know, it's just, it's kind of an interesting thing when you become a seasoned teacher. But I feel like I have to explain and justify too, why I said what I just said to that kid. And I don't think that that's always so obvious in a school setting because, you know, privacy reasons and, and other things.

And so I think that, you know, what, what it keeps coming back down to is how explicit can you be when you're teaching someone a really complex skill. Because when you make assumptions, we all know what happens. You know? And, and I don't think that teachers have to learn the hard way all the time. And I think that there are some really good, strong movements in the field that are, that are changing that misconception, I think.

Because yeah, if you're going to expect teachers to do you [00:58:00] know we do. I I do, we do. You do. You have to show them that. 

Shannon Betts: So yeah, it sounds like y'all are doing just your pre-service candidates such a kindness to not have the first year experience that I had and, mm-hmm. And I'm curious, like if you're willing to share like, what you've heard as feedback from graduates once they're in the field for two or three years, you know about, you know, they felt about their preparation.

Julia, you said you went through this program yourself and so, you know how you felt prepared. And then also like you know, we hear how many teachers leave within the first five years. Do y'all have like better you know, staying power because they've got that really good preparation? Asked a lot of questions there, but they're kind of all related.

Ellen Ballock: I'll start, you know, I think that you know, our goal is that every candidate is a hundred percent ready day one. And we don't wanna sort of sign off like Yep, ready for licensure unless they're really ready. And yet, I mean. It's [00:59:00] not the same getting into your first year class, and I, I really think that there's there's some level to which it's how are you prepared and then at some level of what's the situation that you're walking into and what support do you have in that school district?

So not to make it sound like we're not responsible, we're responsible, but I, you know, the, it's, it's complex, right? That this, this whole first year teaching experience is really complex. I think we have we have students that write to us or call us up and say thank you. You know, we've got the examples of students who are you know, in a school that is transitioning maybe to science of reading, and they say, and it's like, I, I mean, I'm a beginning teacher, but it's like I'm an expert because you already taught this to me.

Will have students who who. When appropriate, do what they know is an evidence-based practice instead of what they're being told to do and [01:00:00] then end of your data. Shows that something different was happening in that classroom and then the school's like, 

Shannon Betts: did 

you 

do 

Ellen Ballock: Well, actually, yes. So I think we have really exciting stories like that.

You know, I think it would be false to say that we don't have students who go out and struggle because we, you know, there are students who go out and struggle, but you know what, they call us up too and they say you know, can you help me work through this challenge? Or, you know, and so I feel like we have the opportunity to continue to be encouraging and mentors and problem solvers for them.

But I would say one of the things that we also are sort of imagining and dreaming is like, what if we had a more intentional induction support program? And so if, you know, if you think about what's on our dream list, one of the things that's on our dream list would be, you know some kind of support program that would be really aimed at years one to three in that transition into the profession as a way to sort of extend the support that they've been getting from [01:01:00] us and help with that, that handoff, so to speak.

Julia D'Onfrio: And I'll just add, we do, we have, as we've kind of alluded to, a master's program and now a doctoral program. So we have a lot of our graduates come back, not just to talk to us or call us about a specific challenge in their classroom or a specific thing happening in the district, but we do have students come back for our program.

So we get to coach them through their career, which is such a gift.

Mary Saghafi: I really love that. I think that kind of like leads me back to that, that question that I had originally asked, which was, you know, when you have a student who's struggling, can you give some examples of, you know, how you coach them through it? Because I think that there are so many teachers that are really craving a mentorship.

And when you have administrators who are overloaded with paperwork behaviors that are impeding the learning in the classroom and the whole laundry list of things that teachers struggle [01:02:00] with, it would be really nice to know what, what do I do in this situation? Or I really wanna change this. How can I change it on my own?

You know, or, or what are the things that I could ask a, you know, teacher bestie across the hall? Yeah, because sometimes I think that you don't even know what question to ask when you feel overwhelmed in a situation. Like you may find yourself in those first one to three years. So I love that as you know, an idea to help support.

'cause I think that would just be so special. I know that, you know, as a parent too, I hear other parents who say, oh no, we're gonna get this first year teacher as our new classroom teacher. What is that gonna mean? And it shouldn't really be that way, you know, it should be exciting and you should be trusting that they are well prepared for the needs that they're gonna be presented with in the classroom.

So anyway, just thought I would share. Is there anything else that you all think our reading teacher listeners should know [01:03:00] while we still have you?

Ellen Ballock: Well, not to sound like I'm trying to plug our programs, but I do, I actually do want your your audience to know more about the, the doctoral program that we're launching, because I think that they're the audience that we really have designed it for. You know, we're seeing so many people who say I, you know, I am, I am so passionate about continuing to learn in this area, or this is an area in which I really wanna be active in promoting school or systems change, or I wanna make sure that my students have what I didn't have, you know, all of those pieces.

And I think, you know, you can do that in certainly so many different ways. But some are in that space where they're like, we just, we wanna be able to grow as leaders. And so we're really excited about this doctoral program that we're launching in the Science of Learning. It brings together learning science, reading science implementation, and improvement science.

Really trying to help, position leaders to [01:04:00] serve as the next generation of change agents and problem solvers and advocates. You know, it's, it's a really practical program that's really trying to translate research into practice and just say like, how can we actually make change happen? And so that's something we're super excited about, 

Mary Saghafi: as you should be.

That's so great. And I think you're right. Our audience is definitely the people who need to hear about things like that, that are happening. 

Shannon Betts: So yeah, they're choosing in their free time to learn, to listen to, you know, professional chats between educators, so they wanna keep learning. Well, doctoral program is maybe on my bucket list, so I'm gonna have to look at y'all's at y'all's program.

Ellen Ballock: We'd be excited to share more with you. 

Shannon Betts: Thank you. We'll be sure to link a link to that and then also everything else we've talked about today in our show notes. Great. And I, I wanna just follow up on one point you said, I've always thought that in our field we should have like years of apprenticeship, like where you get, you know, you can start, you're graduating, you already [01:05:00] have your bachelor's, you can be earning a salary, but there's maybe apprentice year one, apprentice, year two, just like in the medical field.

Like, you know, I'm watching the pit and how well supervised those, those doctors are, and it's really cool, you know, and I wish that we could, it would be really nice if we could have that many people.

Ellen Ballock: One of the few professions where you're meant to just start doing the work of a 30 year veteran as a first year.

Shannon Betts: Right? Right. 

Ellen Ballock: Yeah. 

Shannon Betts: I just want no one to, Noah Wiley following me around and telling me how to teach. Yeah. Like, like he tells this doctors how to do their job. 

Mary Saghafi: When you first said that, Shannon, I, I heard Wiley and I was like, wait, Wiley Blevins. You wish Wiley Blevins would be following you around? 

Shannon Betts: Well, that too.

He knows. He's sort of in my head all the time after read 

Mary Saghafi: all this books. I love that. I know. Sorry, I had to, I had to segue to that. That's so funny. Let's see here. Is there, is there anything, Julia, that you wanted to add before we kind of close this? 

Julia D'Onfrio: No, I, I think everything Ellen [01:06:00] said is, is Yes, exactly.

We, we just want, I think our big piece is just like Ellen was saying prior. We really do believe that teacher prep and in the undergrad level, but at masters and doctoral level can be a lever towards change. And you were alluding earlier into just like the success of our, our teacher candidates in their first year and that we are really aware of the work they're doing the first year.

And I would say that a lot of us, that is really important, but what we're really thinking about is that el those elementary school students in their classroom mm-hmm. And the impact they make on those students. And so we're always thinking about the type of change. Yes, we have our teacher candidates, but like what impact are they having on those elementary school students.

That's why we are doing the work we do. 'cause we care about those students' proficiency in reading and the opportunities they get. 

Shannon Betts: Well, definitely. I'm glad you made [01:07:00] that point. Yes. 'cause yeah, we want the teacher's wellbeing, but also it's about all the students learning and Yeah.

Julia D'Onfrio: Yeah. 

Shannon Betts: Gosh, I'm haunted by the kids that I missed my first few years before I knew that.

Yeah. 

Julia D'Onfrio: I know. We all are. 

Shannon Betts: Right, right. So the, the more you can prevent that. 

Mary Saghafi: Mm-hmm. Yep. We do better. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It was really a fascinating discussion and I feel like I actually learned a lot too about, you know, the intentionality behind teacher prep programs. So thank you for preparing future teachers and for getting those teachers to help our little future citizens.

I love that. 

Ellen Ballock: Thank you so much for having us. It's been delightful to spend a little bit of time getting to know you and talking about our passion. 

Shannon Betts: Oh, we love, we love talking about literacy with everybody. But yeah, thank you for sharing your time and expertise with us. 

Julia D'Onfrio: Thank you.