Novice Teachers’ Infusion into Pedagogical Activity at American Schools

Abstract

Abstract The article deals with innovations used in the USA to assist novice teachers with adaptation to professional activity. It has been found out that the experience in implementing support programs for novice teachers and introducing the position of a mentor at schools is an extremely innovative system of novice teachers’ adaptation in the USA. The analysis of pedagogical scientific works proves that novice teachers participate in different support programs: they attend seminars and conferences; they are offered to apply optimal approaches to student learning, attend lessons conducted by highly qualified teachers and analyze such lessons; a mentor is appointed for each novice teacher for the period of 2-5 years who assists him/her with writing personal professional development plan, lesson planning, teaches how to solve complicated pedagogical problems, analyze and define strong and weak sides of pedagogical activity that should be improved. Various support programs for novice teachers, organization and content of the educational process are different in American states, districts and schools, assist with improving knowledge obtained at university and serve as an intermediate stage between study programs and professional development during the whole period of teaching. We consider the abovementioned achievements to be worth further investigation. Moreover, positive aspects of such experience can be effectively implemented into the practice of secondary and high schools in Ukraine.