Try to meet with them before they start teaching to go over lesson plans and strategies for starting out the year and setting the tone of the classroom. Make sure you are available to answer her questions, especially during the first few weeks. Once she feels more comfortable with her students, go for your first observation. I don’t suggest videotaping unless she is really ok with it. Some people get so nervous in front of a camera that they completely freeze up. She will already be nervous enough being observed. Also videotaping the class might require paperwork sent home to notify parents that their child might be taped (privacy issues). Make sure you focus on the positives when you give your first evaluation and only give her one or two things to work on. If she asks for more advice, then give more, but try not to overwhelm her at first.

For the most part, give tips as the situation comes up. Don’t worry too much about her not having had lots of education courses at college. They are usually about as useful as the average day of inservice training (you get one useful idea for every 6-8 hours of training). She will benefit more from your recent experience than from a class with a professor who hasn’t seen the inside of a classroom since the 1970’s.

Expect that she will not be perfect and focus on progress, not what still needs work. Meet with her as soon as possible and find out what her personality is and how much help she needs.

I hate that states allow people to do this. They don’t know anything about teaching! This person’s biggest problem is going to be management. I suggest if you have any of your old textbooks from college you let this person read them because they don’t know anything about methods. There is a good site about instructional strategies you could reference them to also:

http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/index.html

When you observe this person write down everything you can. If you can videotape them, do that because it will be easier for them to see what they are doing wrong.