CSMCE faculty member Wendy Smith, LPS educators Sue Graupner and Jerel Welker, and retired Papillion-La Vista teacher Linda Hayek had an article about the New Teacher Network published in the California Mathematics Project's Supporting Teachers to Increase Retention monograph "Mathematics Teacher Retention" in 2012.
This article, titled "Essential Elements for Building Community: The New Teacher Network," describes the efforts through NebraskaMATH to build a community of practice for new mathematics teachers across Nebraska. This grant funding allowed for a model to support teachers in their first three years of teaching through graduate coursework and other professional activities. This article focused specifically on teachers’ first academic year, in which a primary goal was to build a community of practice between new teachers and master teachers. They found five essential elements for building a community of practice: relationship building, frequent feedback, common purpose, structure of interactions with participants and trust.
To read the full article, visit: http://cmpstir.cmpso.org/monograph and scroll to page 124, or read the PDF here: http://go.unl.edu/ntn_bldgcomm
More details at: http://go.unl.edu/ntn_bldgcomm