The Power of the Cohort

At Thursday's meeting a candidate exclaimed, "I feel like this meeting and the last meeting have been so amazing!  They've brought everything together for me!  Next year you should start with these two meetings!"  This is the power of the cohort in National Board certification, and it's the "aha moment" we've needed.  You all are doing it!  :-)

The power of these two meetings were the investment of the candidates who brought their videos and their feedback to the discussion.  In the first meeting, referenced above, we dissected the instructions for our Component 3 (the notes from that meeting are here.)  The second meeting was on February 8th, where two candidates showed their videos and asked for feedback.  The group as a whole watched the videos and took turns comparing each video to the rubric.  We then brainstormed tweaks to the video (use of different technology, what level of engagement we could see in the video, etc.) as food for thought to the candidates.

Another candidate said, "You know, I wanted to start my video, but I didn't even know where to start!  But now I understand how to begin."

Facilitators and mentors are not allowed, ethically, to show you our videos, but candidates helping each other with feedback is not only allowed, but encouraged.  You are not going to reproduce what others do, but you are going to have insights into your own teaching as you apply ideas you've discussed.  At this point your understanding of the process and of teaching strategies and student engagement have become exponentially deeper.

One of the candidates who brought his video is very close to his "a-ha moment."  It was easy to see the light in his eyes as he began discussing his teaching and his classroom in the context of the feedback from his cohort members; because of his cohort members, he is now ready to leap tall buildings!

I want to mention that none of this would be possible without the mentoring of the advanced candidates from cohort class #1.  They have shared feedback from their process and helped your facilitators understand the new process in important details and the scoring.  They are the ones that held steady during the agonizingly slow roll-out by the NBPTS and braved the first wave of scoring.  They are the ones (nationally) who have helped NBPTS make the tweaks to the process just last month.  In danger of losing the superhero theme because I'm switching to Star Wars, now:

“Never tell me the odds!” — Han Solo

Those were our brave first class of candidates who had to go into this blindly--no one in the nation had yet completed the process.

So, with all this information and learning under our belts (would those be superhero belts or Jedi utility belts?) we prepare for our Component 4 intensive--to make it just as amazing!

And before that, we have a second meeting (with the same content as the one that began this blog post) on Thursday, February 15th, at BHS.  You're doing it!

Stay Awesome!