The Site Mentor
Site Mentors are teaching professionals who mentor, guide, and support Teacher Interns on their path to becoming credentialed teachers. The goal of the Site Mentor and school placement is to provide the credential candidate with in-depth fieldwork designed to practice and hone their skills in instructional planning and development, instructional strategies, student assessment, and classroom management.
Site Mentors are extremely important for the development of a successful Intern Teaching environment. Site Mentors serve as models for dynamic teaching and effective classroom management. It is important for Site Mentors to allocate time accordingly to provide guidance and support to Teacher Interns.
Regular communication and collaboration with candidates are essential to providing timely feedback, guidance, and coaching that support the development and mastery of effective classroom practices. Conferring with candidates may occur before or after the school day or during a designated preparation period, when appropriate and mutually agreed upon. The credential candidate’s intern experience is a time of trial and error, success and failures, triumphs and sometimes, frustration. The role of the Site Mentor is to model, support, recommend, correct, counsel, and sometimes prod the candidate into “treading in unfamiliar waters”. The Site Mentor’s encouragement and support will provide the candidate with the special assistance needed for them to achieve success.
Site Mentors Roles and Responsibilities
- Provides a list of district/school Professional Development Opportunities to the candidate and emails this list directly to OEPP@usuniversity.edu
- Provides at least 5 hours of Direct Instruction on supporting EL students, as part of the 45 hours required by California Code of Regulations, Title 5, §80033
- Supports, models, and encourages the implementation of the California TPEs.
- Provides the Teacher Interns with an opportunity to ask questions
- Assists the Teacher Interns as they write and develop lesson plans, as well as a variety of class activities related to the course/grade level curriculum
- Assists the Teacher Interns in establishing methods of classroom control appropriate to the age and grade level of the students. Thereby ensuring that the candidate inspires the respect of students through productive classroom management techniques
- Provides the Teacher Interns constructive criticism, suggestions, and ideas
- Assists the Teacher Interns in identifying available instructional materials
- Participates in three-way conferences with the Teacher Interns and the University Supervisor to calibrate observations and ongoing progress
- Review and provide feedback comments on three observations per 8-week session in Sibme
- Completes and submits the Intern Teacher Evaluation Forms in Sibme at the end of each 8-week course period
- Completes and submits an evaluation of the University Supervisor and program