New Teacher Center partners with Singapore Ministry of Education to create Skillful Teaching Enhanced Mentoring (STEM) prototype
New Teacher Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers and school leaders
Thirty schools across Singapore have started on an initiative called Skillful Teaching and Enhanced Mentoring (STEM) launched in July 2011 by the Singapore Ministry of Education, school improvement organization Research for Better Teaching, Inc. (RBT), and the New Teacher Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers and school leaders.
Singapore, ranked one of the world’s best-performing school systems by McKinsey & Company, is committed to continually building a strong school system. To this end, one key lever is the professional development of teachers. The new STEM prototype orientates the teachers’ focus to the classroom, and will create a formal and comprehensive system of new teacher support and mentoring for about 240 new teachers within 30 carefully-selected schools, and build on the Ministry of Education’s efforts to maximize the potential of their students and teachers.
“My New Teacher Center colleagues and I are incredibly honored to be invited to expand our global reach by partnering with the Singapore Ministry of Education,” said Ellen Moir, founding CEO of New Teacher Center. “We look forward to contributing to Singapore’s efforts to support outstanding education for every student, to learning from each other’s expertise and to applying what we learn to our work at home in the United States.”
To achieve the goals of STEM, New Teacher Center will work with the Academy of Singapore Teachers (AST), a division of the Singapore Ministry of Education. New Teacher Center staff will act as consultants and trainers to the AST to design the system, prepare about 120 accomplished educators to provide one-on-one, job-embedded mentoring to new teachers through New Teacher Center’s research-based trainings and innovative, online mentor forums, and consult with the Ministry on evaluating the work.
The focus of New Teacher Center’s work will be on instructional mentoring based on the classroom context and will be linked to the characteristics of effective teaching as defined by RBT. RBT will focus on introducing and building a deeper understanding of these characteristics and the impact of leader and student beliefs on learning, while New Teacher Center will focus on ensuring school leaders, mentors, and beginning teachers have the skills, knowledge and systems in place to implement them. If successful, this prototype initiative will be scaled into additional schools across Singapore.
“RBT is also honored to have been selected as a partner with Singapore to collaborate on this important project. We share similar visions and philosophies as NTC, enabling us to offer the best of each organization’s expertise through practice-based learning,” said Jon Saphier, RBT Founder and President.
Contacts:
Jane Baker, Director of Communications
831.600.2234 (o) 831.278.1043 (m), jbaker@newteachercenter.org
Tracy Kremer, Senior Manager of Communications
773.553.6652 (o), 773.849.5556 (m), tkremer@newteachercenter.org
About New Teacher Center (NTC)http://www.newteachercenter.org/
New Teacher Center seeks to reduce the achievement gap in our nation’s schools by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers through comprehensive mentoring and professional development programs. NTC partners with school districts, policymakers and leaders in education to implement programs that build leadership capacity, enhance working conditions, improve teacher retention and transform schools into vibrant learning communities. Founded in 1998, NTC headquarters are in Santa Cruz, California.
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