Apply & Reflect

Leah Dolan, who teaches first grade at Corrales Elementary School, dribbles some “oobleck” onto the hands of Finnegan Saunders, while recording the lesson on a small flip camera. Dolan is applying to be a National Board certified teacher. Photo Credit - Jim Thompson/Journal

Leah Dolan, who teaches first grade at Corrales Elementary School, thinks every teacher should have to apply for National Board Certification — a lengthy process of writing essays, gathering student work samples and showing mastery of the profession.

“It really makes you reflect on your teaching. It really just cuts deep, and you have to analyze, are you doing this for show, or are you doing this to improve learning for your students? If you are, prove it,” she said. “All teachers should have to do it.”

Dolan, 31, has been teaching for eight years and says the National Board process is the best professional training she has received, requiring her to think carefully about everything she does in the classroom and what purpose it serves. At a time when “teacher effectiveness” is a nationwide political issue, Dolan says she is confident the process will make her a more effective teacher.

She says that now. Rewind to early January, when she was sitting in a group of teachers, with silent tears rolling down her face as she faced the prospect of completely rewriting a section of her application.

“I, at this point, don’t recommend anyone do this,” she said then.

For teachers, getting National Board Certification is one of the top honors in the profession. The grueling process takes almost a full year, during which teachers devote hours to meeting in small groups, filming classroom lessons and writing analyses of their teaching. Essays, films and samples of student work are then sent to out-of-state judges. If teachers receive passing scores, they are held up as master teachers and receive a significant bump in pay. In New Mexico, the increase is about $5,000 annually, although it varies depending on how much funding is allocated to education.

New Mexico has 675 National Board Certified teachers. That number places the state in the middle of the pack nationally, but is high per capita. More populous Texas has just 711 board certified teachers. Just over half of New Mexico’s board certified teachers — 340 — work for Albuquerque Public Schools. Fifty-two of those APS teachers were certified last year, making APS a national leader in the number of teachers certified.

When Dolan began this process, she already had a master’s degree and was a tier-three teacher — the most advanced level in New Mexico’s three-tier licensure system. Tier-three teachers receive a minimum salary of $50,000.

Dolan said she decided to apply for certification partly for the money and additional job security, but also because she had heard it would improve her teaching. “Everyone I had spoken to had said, ‘It’s going to be hell, but it’s going to be the best professional development you’ll ever have,’ ” she said.

Dolan was stressed and discouraged in January, after her small-group mentor, Lori Hagen, gave her back an essay and told her it would have to be almost completely rewritten. The essay described a lesson Dolan had taught her class about states of matter, but Hagen told her that her writing was too dry and technical.

“Don’t just say the theme and say what was learned,” Hagen said. “Bring the lesson alive.”

Dolan was describing her classroom in abstractions like, “the students explored states of matter,” and Hagen helped her break it down. As Hagen asked questions, a clearer picture emerged. The students had worked with pipe cleaners, which can be bent to change shape, and discussed whether pipe cleaners are solid matter. And if so, how is solid matter defined?

Dolan, apologizing for her tears, explained that she had sent her husband and two young sons away from the house for several days so she could make some headway on her essays, which now had to be mostly redone.

Dolan has now sent off her application — she has a picture of herself holding the package at the post office. And although the lion’s share of the work is done, Dolan still must take a written test in June. She won’t find out whether she received passing scores until around Thanksgiving.

Research on National Boards is still inconclusive, but several studies have shown that students taught by National Board-certified teachers show more academic growth than peers taught by non-board certified teachers — although other studies have shown no significant difference. It is unclear whether the process makes teachers better, or whether better teachers choose to go through it. However, there is some evidence teachers improve their classroom practices as a result of the experience.

Dolan said she will change some of her lessons as a direct result of the National Board application. For example, one of the requirements for teachers in the early grades is to record video and write about a lesson that combines math and science.

Dolan recorded a lesson in which students made “oobleck,” a suspension of cornstarch in water that can have both liquid and solid properties. Dolan used oobleck, which is formally called a “non-Newtonian substance,” to teach students about states of matter, having them test various research questions to determine whether the substance is a liquid or solid. Only at the end did she reveal its non-Newtonian nature.

But after reviewing the tape and the lesson, Dolan realized it did not have a strong math component. Although students had to measure the water and cornstarch, they did not have to double the recipe or do any real computation. And although the lesson helped students explore liquids and solids, it did nothing to help them understand gases. She said the lesson is fun and has some useful qualities, but it isn’t the slam dunk she once thought it was.

“It’s more scaffolding and enriching rather than teaching,” she said. Dolan, who had already discarded one recorded lesson that did not have a strong enough science component, ultimately scrapped the oobleck video and recorded a third lesson for the math-science integration requirement.

So what does a first grade teacher do after she mails in her National Board application?

“I’ve been reading again,” she said. “I’m reading ‘The Hunger Games,’ and watching TV and going back to the gym and just really enjoying it.”
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal