Position: Instructional Faculty (multiple positions)

Location: Boston, MA

Start date: Immediate. No later than July 2015

Do you believe that rookie teachers can be effective? Are you obsessed with the idea of making other teachers better? Do you like to ‘nerd out’ on the fine details of instruction? If so, read below:

Our Mission:

The Match Teacher Residency (MTR) and the Charles Sposato Graduate School of Education (CSGSE) have a dual mission: (1) to create unusually effective rookie teachers for high-poverty schools; and (2) to develop innovations in teacher education that can have broader impact on how novice teachers are trained and supported in schools across our nation. We accomplish these missions through operating a unique two-year master’s degree program that includes an intensive, one year “residency.” And we are about to embark on a ground-breaking randomized controlled trial of our approach to teacher preparation in partnership with Tom Kane from Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research.

More information about our work is available here: http://www.sposatogse.org/

Training Teacher Residents

The Match Teacher Residency launched in 2008 as a yearlong, highly practice-based teacher preparation program for recent college graduates and career changers who wish to teach in some of the best achievement-gap closing schools in the country (i.e. KIPP, Uncommon, Achievement First, Noble Schools, etc.). Teacher residents tutor or assistant teach full-time in schools, engage in course work and teaching simulations, and ultimately student teach — with a ton of individualized coaching every step of the way.

In 2012, we launched the Charles Sposato Graduate School of Education. CSGSE is one of only two graduate schools of education in the nation that’s based out of a K12 school. Unlike traditional master’s degree programs — where degrees are conferred primarily for completing readings, written assignments, and student teaching — degree recipients from CSGSE must also demonstrate that they are effective teachers who are capable of driving student achievement. Our “Master’s in Effective Teaching” is awarded only after we have strong evidence that graduates of our residency program are successful in their own classrooms. The core work of MTR/CSGSE has been featured in USA Today, EdWeek, the Washington Post, and the NY Times.

In 2015-16, we’ll begin an exciting new chapter in our grad school’s evolution. For the first time, we’ll begin partnering with other Boston area schools that have their own cadres of teacher residents who will attend CSGSE for their training. These partnerships will allow us to expand our impact and also increase the number of student teaching opportunities for the individuals who are doing their residency at Match.

The Teacher Induction Research Trial

Match was recently awarded a multi-year grant for a new initiative to bring MTR/CSGSE-style training to graduates of traditional schools of education who are bound for jobs in traditional district public schools. We will recruit a cohort of recent ed school graduates – individuals who have already obtained a teaching license, but have yet to start their first year in the classroom – to whom we will deliver a summer training institute and ongoing coaching program based on the best practices developed in MTR/CSGSE. The project will be carefully evaluated by a team of researchers at Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research to evaluate the efficacy of our approach to new teacher training. The goal of the research trial is to understand the degree to which our approach to training and coaching is effective with individuals who are more representative of the overall teacher workforce. The hope is that the findings will have a dramatic influence on how traditional schools of education and school districts prepare and support novice teachers.

Core Beliefs of MTR/CSGSE

1.) We believe that the most effective way of learning to teach is to practice, get feedback, and practice again.

As a program, we are very focused on practice and feedback. We don’t think good teaching can be learned sitting down. You have to do it, get feedback on it, and then do it again. We try to maximize “at-bats” of practice and feedback.

2.) We believe in being direct with our feedback.

In lots of teacher coaching situations we’ve seen, the coach kind of has to do a feedback dance. Lots of positive stuff has to be layered on before even a whiff of criticism can get in there. And then coach is forced to utter phrases like, “You might try…” and “I wonder if you could…” and “What do you think of…”

We are clear with the trainees from the beginning that they will be getting very direct feedback, and that a lot of it is going to be critical. We say stuff like, “Its ok to be really terrible at something when you first start out, and what counts is not whether you start out great, but whether you can take feedback and use it to improve.”

They hear a lot of this kind of talk, and they read and talk about Mindset, by Carol Dweck, and they are told again and again that teaching is one thing that they should NOT expect to be easy or failure-free. In fact, we sort of beat the dead horse of “you’re going to fail” lots of times, so they’re not surprised or upset when it happens.

So if you coach in our program, you can be very direct and specific. You can say things like, “When you were redirecting a student, you made a weird face like you just tasted something sour,” or “The kids were happy and engaged during your lesson, but your questions during Guided Practice were way too easy. Let’s go back to your lesson plan and rewrite all your questions.”

This kind of specific, direct, and actionable feedback allows trainees to change small things quickly and see success.

Job Opportunity:

We have several new faculty positions to fill for 2015-16 – some focused on the core teacher residency work, and some focused on our new teacher induction initiative. In both cases, faculty responsibilities will include the direct coaching of teachers, supervision of part-time coaches, managing relationships with partner schools, and designing and delivering PD for novice teachers.

Qualifications:

Our ideal candidate for these positions will have a strong track record as a classroom teacher in urban schools, as well as strong results as an instructional leader (e.g. a current or former principal, department chair, teacher-coach, etc).

The position could be a good fit for someone who is currently a high-performing teacher who has taken on leadership roles in their school, and is now ready to step up to assume a more robust leadership opportunity.

This position could be a good fit for someone who is currently in a school leadership position and is passionate about teacher development and wants to focus his or her work on that area.

For the positions involving work with new teachers in district settings, experience working in such an environment is a plus.

We’re also interested in candidates who teaching and/or curricular leadership experience at the Elementary level, as well as Middle/High School English and/or Math.

Most importantly, we’re looking for candidates who embrace our core values and have the kind of flexibility and entrepreneurial spirit that’s necessary to achieve ambitious goals in start-up environments.
How to apply

If you are interested in exploring this opportunity further, please submit an application via our online web portal at: http://www.matcheducation.org/join/application/non-instructional-staff. Please indicate in your cover letter if you have a preference for pursuing a faculty position working in our core residency program that’s focused on preparing teachers for charter and turnaround schools, or our new program that will serve novice teachers bound for jobs in mainstream district settings

If you have any questions about the role, please contact Min Ji, the Director of Talent, at min.ji@matcheducation.org.