developing coherent, high quality learning opportunities and support for preservice and novice teachers. Collaborations among university faculty, pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade teachers and administrators, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, and the Professional Standards Commission are the core of GSTEP work and its success.

GSTEP Final Newsletter (6/5/07)

GSTEP …

• Curriculum Teams, Early Community Experiences Teams, and Induction Teams
• Kickoffs, meetings, retreats, and work plans that lead to…accomplishments
• A framework, a BRIDGE, and dual degrees
• Partnerships, collaborations, and critical friends
• Productive change
• Beginning teachers who grow into teachers of the year
• Mini-grants, collaborative research and presentations
• Teachers, induction coordinators, faculty in A&S and COE, administrators

Seven years! It’s hard to believe that the dreams we shared in the year 2000 have come to pass. This will be the final GSTEP newsletter, and we’ll be closing up shop. The GSTEP website will archived, offices move on to others, documents go into storage, and project leaders move into retirement and/or new career opportunities. But we hope you’ll indulge us in one final “project report.”

Since 2000, GSTEP partnerships have led to the very real accomplishment of the goals first set out in our application for Title II Partnership Grant to the U.S. Department of Education.

Goal 1: Partners will establish effective, seamless, high quality learning opportunities and support for beginning teachers (BTs), especially in Georgia’s high need schools.

Goal 2: Teacher graduates will increase P-12 student achievement within their contexts.

Goal 3: Partners will create effective systems for policy, sustainability, professional development, dissemination, and evaluation.

These goals have been met, and all of your hard work will be sustained in a variety of ways:

• The Georgia Framework for Teaching was adopted by the Georgia Committee on Quality Teaching (CQT). The Board of Regents, Department of Education, Professional Standards Commission, and state professional organizations thereby agreed that the GSTEP-developed Framework is the statewide definition of “quality teaching.”

As a result, the Board of Regents grounded their new Educator Preparation Principles in the Framework. Statewide Deans in EPAAC are exploring shared assessments based on the Framework. Leaders from GSTEP, PSC, and BOR provided workshops in the Framework for faculty in public and private colleges and universities, and shared statewide work on the BRIDGE Library. Sally Ross and a team of National Board certified teachers developed the Extended Georgia Framework, four levels of each framework indicator with student and teacher evidence for each level. And the UGA College of Education Assessment Committee adapted an Educator Preparation Framework to include all areas of educator preparation. These materials are all available at the BRIDGE Library.

Finally, the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education (GPEE), in their 2007 GAP Report on Teacher Quality, recommended full implementation of the Framework, suggesting that the state “transform the teaching profession in Georgia by complementing the Georgia Framework for Teaching with increased funding for high quality, job-embedded professional development.” (http://www.gpee.org/parameters/gpee/uploads/Gap%20Analysis%20Exec.Sum..pdf)

• The GSTEP BRIDGE (www.teachersbridge.org) -- both teacher-generated resources and learning community space -- is open and FREE to all Georgia educators. Under the direction of Fran Watkins (PSC), Linda Gilbert (UGA), and Julie Moore (UGA), the PSC will sponsor the BRIDGE in the coming year exploring the use of the BRIDGE to support TAPP alternatively certified students in two RESA programs. BRIDGE Editors in all content areas and all Framework domains continue to solicit submissions, seek reviewers, and maintain the quality of the BRIDGE resources.

The BRIDGE Library hosts a wealth of GSTEP materials including articles, materials developed by universities around the state, the Extended Georgia Framework with four levels and teacher and student evidence, and references related to the Framework. See www.teachersbridge.org/index.php?page=public_bridgeLibrary

• Several partner school districts now have one or more induction coordinators, and all have systemic programs to support beginning teachers. When we began in 2001, no system was sure who was looking after the new teachers!

For their outstanding development of TIP, a comprehensive program of induction support, Chris Franklin and Jean Anne Marra of Oconee County Schools won the very prestigious Magna Award, given yearly by the National School Boards Association. Oconee TIP leaders and their GSTEP friends, Lynn Hammond and the Barrow County R-Team, have been invited to present their work supporting beginning teachers across the state and the nation!

• Teacher education partnerships among A&S, COE, and K-12 faculty in many departments continue the work of curriculum teams with program improvements and a new generation of professional relationships. For example, the Math Curriculum Team was reconstituted in 2005 for work with an NSF grant. Math Curriculum Team members reviewed the Mathematics and Mathematics curricula in light of the new K-12 Georgia Performance Standards. Their work continues GSTEP curriculum development in the form of writing instructional units to help prepare teachers for integrated mathematics.

• Through the partnerships of K-12 schools and teacher education programs, Early Community Experiences continue to be part of some University of Georgia COE departmental admission requirements. Information and resources are provided to prospective teachers through a website developed by GSTEP.

• GSTEP products—especially the Georgia Framework for Teaching and the BRIDGE--have generated new funded grants. Betty Bisplinghoff and Julie Moore of UGA work through a Georgia Department of Education grant with Barrow County math and science teachers examined student and teacher work through critical friends groups, using the Framework and BRIDGE as resources. Likewise, GSTEP leaders work with Georgia State University, the Board of Regents, and the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) to create critical friends groups in four metro-Atlanta school districts as a means for supporting beginning teachers and their mentors. These cross-career learning communities use the Framework as a way to discover their goals for professional development and the BRIDGE as both resource and online community spaces.

Each of you can recall even more GSTEP stories, memories, and accomplishments. We believe that the real work of GSTEP has been the processes we developed, the unspoken progress of learning to work together across public schools and colleges of arts and sciences and education.

In early meetings, we struggled to understand one another and to grasp our very different perspectives about teacher preparation and support. Later, GSTEP-related meetings clearly felt different; most of us remember days when we looked at a calendar and said, “Oh, good! It’s a GSTEP day!” We all experienced the power of the intense collaborations and connections that led to our shared accomplishments. The same power is now evident in continuing shared work.

It has been a sincere honor to work with you—one and all! May your futures—and those of the beginning teachers we’ve sponsored—be bright and full of joy. As Margaret Mead once said, “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” Thanks for helping to change and improve an important part of the world of teaching.

Sally Ross, Frances Hensley, and Mike Padilla
UGA GSTEP, 2000 to 2007

Visit the BRIDGE (Building Resources: Induction and Development for Georgia Educators), GSTEP's online resource for teachers:
www.teachersbridge.org!

GSTEP is funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

315 Aderhold Hall
Athens, Georgia 30602
(706) 542-3997

gstep@uga.edu

Last updated 10/3/07