[Math TOSA Network Series] Starting Your Network (2 of 6)

This is part two of a series of six posts on how to create a mathematics teacher specialist network.  Find the entire series here.

Now that you’re interested in starting your own math teacher specialist network, the next question is, “How do you get started?”  The basic plan will be to create a way to collect and share contact information and then spread the news far and wide.  Additionally, a key component of making this all work will be transparency.  All information needs to be shared to build trust.

We began by creating a simple Google Form with fields including:

• Full name
• Email address
• What school district or county office of education do you work for?
• What grade levels do you primarily work with?

As a form, it looks like this:

Now with the form created, the next step is getting it to as many other math teacher specialists as possible.  The tricky part here is that to some degree, if you knew who your colleagues were, then you’d likely already have your network!  So, there may be some detective work involved.  Depending on where you work and the organizational structure, consider reaching out to:

• County offices of education (there is likely at least one teacher specialist there and he or she may know others)
• Local and state math teacher associations (many either have member lists including positions or send out a newsletter you can put your info on)
• Local and state math conferences (same as above)
• District websites (you may be able to find the email addresses for teacher specialists or the equivalent on their website)
• Twitter (consider sending a tweet to the #MTBoS looking for other math teacher specialists and make sure to include the hash tag #k12mathcoach)

When sending out the email, make sure to explain why you want to form this network.  It may even be helpful to share a link to this series of blog posts.  Most importantly though, don’t forget to include a link to the responses when sharing the form with others.  People will be interested to see who else has already joined, and as your membership grows, you will find that it gets even easier to convince others to become a part of your network.

Next week I’ll talk about what needs to happen before you have a meeting.  Each of the next parts of this series will come out on the following four Mondays.