Professional Teaching Practice

Professional Development

Teaching Interns

Professional Development and Mentoring for Other Educators 

The Fenway faculty is a professional group that works in teams and determines its own professional development, as well as other major school initiatives. The content teams choose and/or create their own curriculum and materials. They meet every week for two hours to plan lessons and activities together. These meetings help to ensure that the three student cohorts in each grade, in each House, have equivalent learning opportunities and experiences.

Special and regular education teachers co-teach special education students, both in small separate classes and in regular classes where students are included. Because of the close collaboration among faculty, Fenway rarely brings in substitutes; faculty or teaching interns typically cover for an absent teacher.

The full faculty meets once a week. Upcoming activities and current issues are discussed at this meetings. Announcements are made, accomplishment applauded, requests fielded. It is a democratic gathering, in which every voice is heard and given equal respect. 
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Professional Development
During the school year, there are several professional development days in addition to the 180 days of instruction mandated by the state of Massachusetts: a half-day before Thanksgiving; two days for writing narrative reports; another day and a half for a mid-year overnight retreat. Faculty also participate in one professional development day at the end of the school year and five professional days before school starts. Members of each content team meet over the summer for several days to plan curriculum and professional development for the upcoming year.

Fenway’s teaching and learning committee, made up of the Head of School and faculty volunteers who represent different content areas, meets a couple of times a month before school to discuss major academic initiatives and to plan the agendas for faculty retreats and other professional development events.
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Teaching Interns
Fenway hosts two teacher training programs, one in collaboration with Tufts University, the other with the University of Massachusetts (UMass), Boston. Teacher candidates at both universities spend a year, fulltime, on site at Fenway. Both universities also conduct at least one evening course at the school, which is taught or co-taught by a senior Fenway teacher.

Interns play an important part in the academic and extracurricular life of the school. They co-teach classes, develop content units that relate to contemporary teenage interests, contribute ideas to faculty meetings, lead special projects, support students who feel more comfortable with them than with older teachers, and in the spring become responsible for some classes on their own. Fenway students benefit from the additional support and direction interns offer in classrooms. Fenway teachers benefit from the fresh perspective interns bring to pedagogy and student behavior, and from the need to reflect on their own practice in order to answer interns’ questions about it.
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Professional Development and Mentoring for Other Educators
Whenever possible and appropriate, Fenway supports its faculty in giving workshops and providing long-term coaching and mentoring for teachers outside the school. There are two reasons for enabling faculty to take on these extra teaching jobs. One is akin to the rationale for taking on interns, i.e., teaching and coaching others refreshes the practice of the mentor teacher. The other is that Fenway has always seen itself as a laboratory for developing and piloting innovative practices. When those practices are successful, it takes responsibility for sharing them with other teachers through its educational networks, including the Boston Public Schools and the Coalition of Essential Schools.
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Ph: (617) 635-9911
Fax: (617) 635-9204
fenway@boston.k12.ma.us