Each participant in the Relay Teaching Residency is hired by a partner school and placed with an RA whose classroom serves as a home base during the apprenticeship year. RAs can be current instructional leaders or strong teachers who do not yet have leadership responsibilities. Relay will work with schools to select each RA, though roles and selection will vary by program.
The RAs will fulfill several responsibilities to assist in the development of residents, including:
- Modeling and Co-teaching: Residents will spend at least one block each day observing instruction and assisting in the RAs’ classrooms. In addition to assigning the RA, partner schools may identify other effective teachers for residents to observe; Residents should observe strategically to see a diversity of teachers in action.
- Curriculum and Lesson Planning: The RAs will provide ongoing support by checking in with the residents for 30–60 minutes each week. In part, this time should be spent sharing and reviewing lessons and materials for that week, as well as outlining how residents will participate in upcoming lessons. Residents are expected to internalize the RAs’ weekly lesson plans, even when residents are not responsible for teaching them. During deliberate practice (DP) sessions, Residents will use the RAs’ lesson plans for DP simulations to help residents absorb instructional content and apply appropriate teaching strategies.
- Communication: The RAs will be the primary liaison between Relay and the school partners regarding an individual resident’s progress. As such, they will communicate about residents’ progress and performance at school. Relay’s faculty will keep the RAs informed about residents’ learning and upcoming Relay assessment requirements.
- Feedback and Gateway Scoring: The RAs should use weekly meetings as an opportunity to provide residents with instructional and professional feedback. As the primary coaches at the school level, RAs should observe residents in action and provide concrete action steps so residents are consistently pushed to grow as teachers. RAs will also be asked to formally score residents on the Gateway rubrics to give a school perspective on their progress to date.
Gradual On-Ramp to Teaching
The Relay Teaching Residency will provide residents with a carefully designed and structured on-ramp into teaching. Residents will teach more and take on increased responsibilities in the classroom as their skills develop and the academic year progresses. For example, after residents have learned about classroom culture, they will be asked to take on the responsibility of running transitions or setting the tone in the first few minutes of class to hone their skills. Proficiency and readiness to take on more teaching opportunities are dependent on school assessment of performance and the Relay Gateways. By spring, residents should be ready to move into more consistent teaching of at least one period a day in order to build stamina and demonstrate readiness for full-time teaching the following year. In the final weeks of the year, it is recommended that residents lead-teach for multiple weeks to acclimate to the schedule of a full-time teacher.
In some states, the spring term of the residency gradual on-ramp meets requirements for student teaching for certification/licensure-seeking students. In others, certification/licensure-seeking residents complete clinical experiences required for certification/licensure-program completion as a teacher of record in the second year of the program. See Appendix E for state- and program-specific details. In some cases, when all relevant certification/licensure requirements are met, if residents demonstrate proficiency, the partner schools may accelerate their on-ramp in coordination with Relay.
All programmatic supports are intended to work in concert with one another. Thus, residents learn about a concept during a core or methods class, then will both observe their resident advisor using this concept and apply it during deliberate practice. Through the gradual on-ramp, residents will take on additional teaching responsibilities, allowing them to put this concept into action and be evaluated for proficiency through the Gateway assessments.