What is Teachers Pay Teachers

In this reflective narrative vignette, the author shares the struggles of a first-year teacher. She highlights the importance of strong, collaborative, and supportive mentors. Sharing several helpful hints she learned in the field, the struggling first-year teacher, now academic coach, shares her story to inspire other educators to preserve and to make meaningful classroom experiences for students. This work focuses on elementary math instruction and points to both mentoring and instructional strategies that may be used to support student learning in the classroom.