Essential concepts, tools, and practices

How long will it take to complete the Certificate of Teaching Mastery?

10 months, generally. The courses are active for one year from the moment you begin.

Key concepts

Focused Freewrite

The term "Focused Freewrite" is often used in your assignments. A Focused Freewrite is when you use a phrase or sentence fromsomething you've read as a trigger for free-form writing; that is, you write any thoughts, questions, or stories that come to mind as it relates to thetrigger phrase or sentence. Sometimes you'll stick to the trigger topic and sometimes your mind will wander into seemingly unrelated places. Giveyourself permission to move between "wandering" and coming back to writing about the topic.

Giving Feedback

As part of your assignments, often you'll be asked to respond to your Learning Circle's work. A response could include: aphilosophical question that is triggered by another person's writing; an anecdote or experience that you'd like to share with them; or any otherthoughts or questions that come to mind. You might start your response with the words, "I wonder..." or "That reminds me of..." The idea is not tocritique their writing for grammar or style of writing, rather, to use the content of their writing as a springboard for dialogue.

Receiving Feedback

Sometimes your assignments will tell you to "share feedback from your Learning Circle." This means that you will send yourwriting to your Learning Circle using WebBoard and receive feedback, so that you can develop your ideas further. When you receive feedback from yourLearning Circle, choose 1 or 2 ideas from all of the responses you receive - talk about the ideas that inspired you to think more about what you are doing.Tell specifically what the feedback was and what further thinking or ideas it sparked for you.

Tips for writing

Below are some guidelines for good writing. Please know, however, that the quality of your thinking - what you say - is the most important part of the assignment.

Six Traits of Good Writing :

• Ideas - the message is alive and strong. There is a clear theme.
• Organization - the writing follows an order by engaging the reader and drawing the reader into the story in an understandableway.
• Voice - the flavor of the piece is consistent and connects with the audience.
• Word Choice - the words meet the correct situation.
• Sentence flow - the reader can follow what is going on in each sentence.
• Conventions - the grammar makes it clear.

Be aware that your mentor wants to hear you:

• Thinking on paper;
• Wrestling and playing with the ideas presented in the course;
• Describing the ways in which you apply the ideas to your actual classroom practice.

Electronic teaching portfolio

A portfolio is a powerful assessment tool, and includes evidence from your work on major topics - successes, challenges,and questions. The key word is evidence that can show - far more than tests - what you know and what you need to do in order to improve. Portfolios are aprofessional way of demonstrating your competence and showing employers your achievements.