Design a New Teacher Residency
With NCTR’s help, you’ll understand and work towards implementing a high-quality teacher residency in your community.
Teacher residencies are the most comprehensive model of teacher preparation in the nation. New teacher residencies play a critical role in recruiting teacher candidates of color to the profession and in improving district and university goals around teacher diversity, impact, and innovation.
What is a Teacher Residency Program?
Residency Design Academy
Residency Design Academy (RDA, formerly known as New Site Development) is NCTR’s nationally known consulting service to design and launch a high-quality teacher residency program aligned with NCTR’s Levers for Equitable Teacher Residencies. With three consulting service options, programs can explore whether a teacher residency program meets their needs or fully work toward building and launching a high-quality teacher residency model in their own context.
As a participant, you will:
- Build a shared vision: Programs will identify the needs of their local community and design the teacher residency to address teacher shortages, diversity, quality, and retention.
- Build efficacy: NCTR’s research curriculum and programming, consulting, and evaluation will provide scaffolds to ensure that design teams achieve their vision.
- Build a movement: Programs pivot from design to launch with RDA, and as a new teacher residency, participants have the opportunity to join and learn from the NCTR Network of effective teacher residencies committed to advancing the teacher residency model.
Consulting Services
Three consulting service options are available to support school districts, charter schools, and/or institutions of higher education (IHEs) on their journey to design a teacher residency program:
Residency Foundations (RF)
An exploratory phase designed to help school districts, charter schools, and/or IHEs determine if a teacher residency program meets their needs.
Includes:
- Five virtual, monthly consulting sessions
- Participation in cohort-based learning
- Learning modules include:
- Landscape Analysis
- Value Proposition
- Partner Selection and Strategy
- Staffing Roles and Responsibilities
- Designing for Financial Sustainability
Residency Design Academy Prep (RDA Prep)
A preparatory version of RDA that lays the groundwork of the process toward building a high-quality teacher residency program.
Includes:
- Up to five virtual, monthly consulting sessions
- Participation in cohort-based learning
- Up to three learning modules that include:
- Partnering and Designing for Equity/Residency Leadership
- Resident Recruitment and Selection
- Residency Year Experience
- Mentor and Training Site Recruitment and Selection
- Mentor Support
Residency Design Academy (RDA)
Full immersion of our nationally known consulting service with access to a full suite of codified tools and systems designed to build and launch a high-quality teacher residency program.
Includes:
- Eight virtual, monthly consulting sessions
- Participation in cohort-based learning
- Learning modules include:
- Partnering and Designing for Equity/Residency Leadership
- Resident Recruitment and Selection
- Residency Year Experience
- Mentor and Training Site Recruitment and Selection
- Mentor Support
- In-person RDA Kickoff
- Site Visit (paired with the Residency Year Experience module)
- Consulting support to become a teacher registered apprenticeship program
- Program Showcase (during NCTR’s Symposium)
- Two complimentary seats at NCTR’s Symposium
RDA Programming Overview
NCTR consultants meet monthly with program leadership to provide framing for upcoming sessions and gather understanding of program context. Participants will surface challenges, collaboratively address dilemmas with input from expert and experienced consultants, and leverage the teacher residency model and wealth of NCTR data to apply learning in service of impact goals.
Programs will participate in NCTR’s curated curriculum, which includes collaborative exercises, targeted resources, promising practices from NCTR Network partners, informational videos, and facilitated learning experiences. The curriculum is delivered via consulting and during monthly learning institutes facilitated by NCTR consultants. Institutes can be delivered virtually or in person and include all partners who are contributing to the teacher residency program design.
The customized learning progression of institutes includes consulting on foundational elements of the teacher residency model:
- Partnering and Designing for Equity
- Residency Leadership
- Residency Year Experience
- Financial Sustainability
- Resident Recruitment and Selection
- Mentor Recruitment, Selection, and Support
- Training Site Recruitment, Selection and Support
- Graduate Support
The Site Visit is an annual, facilitated visit to a Network residency in which partners observe and reflect on promising practices and implementation of the teacher residency model.
NCTR collects:
- Annual data as an ongoing record of program growth. NCTR provides access to visualization and analytics from survey data, including comparisons to Network averages, which can be used to show programs’ collective and individual impact.
- Annual surveys of programs’ shareholders, including mentor teachers, teacher residents, principals, and graduates, then collects the data, presents visualizations, and supports goal-setting related to program effectiveness and teacher resident preparedness.
- NCTR’s policy and advocacy team engages lawmakers, foundations, and other education policymakers with a focus on advocacy efforts to sustain and scale the teacher residency model.
The Residency Design Academy curriculum embeds support to prepare clients to apply with their state or the federal U.S. Department of Labor to become a teacher registered apprenticeship program. As emerging programs design and prepare to launch their teacher residencies, consultants share essential information about how to align residency elements to apprenticeship requirements, so that all RDA members are eligible and prepared to apply for registered apprenticeship status by the end of the engagement, providing options for extended federal support and funding.
Annually, program leaders, educators, and advocates who work with the teacher residency programs in the NCTR Network come together for a multi-day convening to share ideas, successes, and to learn from one another in a professional learning community. During the convening, Network partners engage in hands-on working sessions to build knowledge and skills on a particular theme or topic area of critical importance. Experts from multiple areas share the latest research and promising teacher preparation practices.
Looking for Additional Consulting?
NCTR offers opportunities for consultants and teacher residency programs to collaboratively develop additional consulting that directly meets programs’ needs.
Discover the Best Service For You
Not sure what consulting service will work best for your needs? Contact us for guidance and to learn more about each consulting service option.