Development Of Novice Teachers Research Articles

Navigating the First Years: Newly Qualified Teachers’ Experiences with Professional Learning Communities

AbstractDrawing on a mixed-methods evaluation of the New Teacher Induction Programme of the South African Department of Basic Education, this paper examines the role of Professional Learning Communities in enabling the transition of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) into their professional roles in schools. The article focuses on one of the four components of the induction programme, namely, the participation of NQTs in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and examines the experiences of newly qualified teachers as members of their respective professional learning communities. It begins by examining the range of typical early career challenges and, thereafter, shows how the social capital fostered through their collaboration in communities enables to overcome a range of challenges they face. As the results of the study show, PLCs provide safe spaces where new teachers experiment, share experiences and engage in collective reflection and problem-solving. The new teachers reported a range of professional and personal benefits, including their professional growth, expanded peer networks, and a stronger sense of belonging. Moreover, their responses show how their participation in PLCs contributes to developing their self- and collective efficacy, increasing their resilience, and enabling their transition into the teaching profession. As a participatory action research study, the paper shows the dual benefits of the PLCs – both in supporting the personal and professional development of novice teachers and in informing the development of broader educational policy. The results of the study led to the expansion of the New Teacher Induction Programme and the national adoption of PLCs – illustrating how teacher experiences can inform policy in bringing about meaningful change.

The impact of training provisions on novice English language teachers in Hong Kong: A systematic review

AbstractThe early years of learning and the transition period are important for novice teachers. This systematic review investigated the influence that training provisions for novice primary and secondary English language teachers in Hong Kong have had on their initial workplace experience. From a large body of literature dated between 1980 and 2023, a final set of 20 articles that met our inclusion criteria was analysed using Kumaravadivelu's (2012) model of second language teacher education (consisting of the five modules of Knowing, Analysing, Recognising, Doing and Seeing). The findings were condensed into three thematic strands: (i) teacher authority: novice teachers can feel lost among different authorities (including ideological conflicts between university and school authorities) and their desire to establish their own teacher authority, but must eventually learn to think from the students' perspective to improve teaching, (ii) teacher socialisation: whether obtaining sufficient colleague and mentor support or not would lead to their diverse experiences, and (iii) two weaknesses in teacher preparation that require attention across both university preparation and in‐school training: the novice teachers were under‐prepared in procedural knowledge and in learning to theorize. These findings provide internationally relevant theoretical contributions that can advance the understanding of both novice teacher development and primary and secondary English language teacher training. From a practical perspective, the findings point to areas that need attention in novice language teachers' transition to the workplace and this may be relatable to international audiences. Context and implicationsRationale for this studyThis systematic review aims to reveal how the training provisions in Hong Kong have influenced early‐year primary and secondary school English language teachers' initial workplace experience.Why the new findings matterOur findings will reveal what impact training provisions for novice English language teachers may have on their initial workplace experience and what gaps may exist in such provisions.Implications for researchers, practitioners and teacher educatorsThe findings in this study can be applied to many other contexts like Hong Kong where English is used as one of the official languages or as a second language. Our recommendations can inform English language teacher education, by highlighting: (a) how novice teachers can feel lost between two different authorities: the school and the university; (b) how novice teachers can undergo a range of positive and negative experiences in their socialisation process; (c) how novice teachers struggle to develop their procedural knowledge; and (d) that novice teachers may not have received enough support in theory‐building.

The Relationship between English Open Class in Junior High School and Novice Teachers’ Professional Development

As an emerging teaching and research activity, open classes have attracted more and more attention from educators, and a series of studies have been carried out. Previous studies have pointed out that open classes have many functions such as communication, research, demonstration, assessment, and competition, and are key events in teachers’ professional development. This paper connects the relationship between junior high school English open courses and teachers’ professional development, and explores the role of open classes for novice teachers. From the perspective of novice teachers, the author first analyzes the research background of this paper from three aspects, Combined with the literature method, this paper analyzes and summarizes the existing research on open classes and the professional development of novice teachers. Then, a questionnaire survey was used to investigate the relationship between open classes and the professional development of English teachers. On the basis of clarifying the relationship between the two, this paper affirms the positive value of open courses in the professional development of novice teachers from the aspects of promoting the accumulation of professional knowledge, improving professional ability, enhancing professional affection, and improving the awareness of professional self-development.

Learning silence and passivity: Novice teacher's participation in teaching community

This study investigates novice teachers' perceptions of the teaching community in Korea, and how its context shapes their participation in schools. Interviews were conducted with four primary school teachers who were in their first three years in the profession. The analysis revealed that schools neglected to create an environment conducive to the professional development of novice teachers by maintaining a power structure that favours senior teachers over educational values. Furthermore, the age-based inequality challenged the novice teachers’ autonomy, and forced them to remain passive and silent. Facilitating their voice is key to promoting constructive change in the community.

Unleashing the Power of Love, Passion, Creativity, and Humanity in Novice Teachers' First Year

Purpose: This study explores the transformative impact of novice teachers who employ innovative methods and approaches to forge deep, meaningful connections with their students during their first year of teaching.
 Methodology: The present study employed a qualitative methodology. Seventeen novice teachers participated in comprehensive, in-depth interviews. After transcribing the interviews, a content analysis approach was employed to identify and define meaningful units pertaining to the symbiotic relationship between novices and their students.
 Findings: The findings reveal an extraordinary depth of educational passion, creativity, and empathy that significantly contributes to students' academic and emotional development. The study highlights the profound, empathetic bonds formed between teachers and students, transcending traditional educational outcomes. The novice teachers' success in fostering an inclusive and stimulating learning environment is underscored by their innovative methods and ability to harness personal narratives and cultural sensitivity as pedagogical tools.
 Contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: The research enriches the global body of knowledge on teacher education by showcasing the power of love, passion, creativity, and humanity in the teaching and learning process. It emphasizes the potential of novice teachers to effect significant, positive changes in their students' lives, even in their formative years of teaching. The study's findings underscore the importance of fostering supportive environments for the growth and development of novice teachers and call for reevaluating support structures in teacher education programs worldwide.

Exploring Mentor Teachers’ Experiences and Practices in Japan: Formative Intervention for Self-Directed Development of Novice Teachers

Exploring Mentor Teachers’ Experiences and Practices in Japan: Formative Intervention for Self-Directed Development of Novice Teachers

Rate your coach: exploring ratings of coaching skills throughout teacher induction

ABSTRACT This quantitative study explores novice teacher and coach ratings on coaching skills. Annual surveys were collected from respondents throughout a two-year programme to learn more about their induction experiences. We run a series of t-tests to identify differences between respondent groups and over time as well as multiple linear regressions to predict for characteristics that are associated with respondent ratings of coaching skills. Results from this study indicate that novice teachers’ belief that they were well matched with their coaches as well as coaches’ beliefs about induction complimenting surrounding support separately predicted for higher ratings of coaching skills. Additionally, novice teachers rated their coaches’ skills higher than the coaches did and all ratings increased over time. The findings have implications for creating more nuanced induction programme curricula to better support coaching interactions for novice teacher development.

Provoking novice teacher development: Cognition-and-emotion in learning-to-teach

Recently, increased attention has been drawn to the crucial role of emotions in developing language teacher cognition. Arguing against the secondary role of emotions in cognitive development, a Vygotskian Sociocultural Theoretical perspective views cognition-and-emotion as basic components of human consciousness, the dialectical relationship between them being captured in the concept of perezhivanie. Building on recent expansions of Vygotsky's concept of perezhivanie (Lantolf & Swain, 2019b) and distinguishing between affect, feeling, and emotion, this article explores the complex interplay between cognition-and-emotion and its link to provoking the psychological development of two novice teachers as they progress through their teaching practicum during their MA TESOL Program in North America. Utilizing multiple data sources, including each novice teacher's dialogic reflective teaching journal, professional development plan, and final reflective essay, we qualitatively analyze instances of cognitive/emotional dissonance that emerged and the working over of these instances with the responsive mediation of the practicum supervisor. Our findings reveal how the practices of second language teacher education have the potential to create mediational spaces for novice teachers to work through and make sense of their emotional experiences as well as to foreground affect, feeling, and emotion as a shared social endeavor.

Supporting mentor teacher learning and reflection through audio recordings in professional development

ABSTRACT Mentor teachers of student teachers play an important role in novice teacher development, yet rarely receive training or support. This study investigates five mentor teachers during the 2021–2022 school year as they participated in monthly mentor professional development meetings. It asks the question ‘How can recordings of mentor/mentee conversations be used within mentor professional development to support the development of educative mentors?’ This qualitative analysis used interviews and video recordings of meetings to understand the mentor teacher experiences. It finds that audio clips in mentor meetings worked to support mentor teachers’ learning as mentors and teachers and worked to deprivatize the work of mentoring. Findings from this study can help inform mentor professional development facilitation and can help inform decisions regarding how to prepare and support mentor teachers.

Collaboration: Exploring the path of novice teachers' growth in teaching and research activities

For novice teachers, collaborative teaching and research activities are an important way to enhance their professionalism and realize their aspirations as teachers. In diverse collaborative teaching and research activities such as teacher-apprentice systems and group listening and evaluation, teachers are able to find their own breakthroughs in imitation, practice and reflection, shaking off the pain of identity change in a short time and moving towards the goal of teacher excellence. However, existing collaborative teaching and research activities are generally characterized by formalism, lack of teacher initiative and utilitarian outcomes, which hinder the development of novice teachers. Therefore, based on the above background, this paper proposes an effective path for novice teachers to achieve growth in collaborative teaching and research activities from two dimensions: extrapolation and endogenization, with the aim of using teachers' endogenous motivation as the source and efficient and diverse collaborative teaching and research activities as a scaffold to help novice teachers achieve growth and transformation.

Unspoken teacher conflict: uncovering female novice teachers' conflict experiences in professional learning community

PurposeThe professional development of novice teachers is receiving increased attention. Although conflict is regarded as an essential factor affecting the effectiveness of the school professional learning community, it is often hidden unspokenly. This study uncovers the conflict experiences of female novice teachers in an Asian cultural context and investigates how such experiences influence their professional development and emotions.Design/methodology/approachThe case study approach was adopted. Four participants were selected according to specific criteria, and two rounds of semi-structured interviews were conducted in five years to identify the conflicting parties, conflict types, coping strategies and resulting impact.FindingsLongitudinal qualitative data have revealed that female novice English language teaching (ELT) teachers mainly reported conflicts with their female colleagues. Goal, task and relationship conflict are the most common types of conflict encountered, while the strategies of avoiding, dominating and obliging are the most popular. This study also discusses the impacts of such conflict experiences.Originality/valueThis study identifies the influence of culture, particularly a culture of high power distance and an emphasis on “precious harmony”, on novice female teachers' conflict coping and offers insights into how conflict can be utilised to enhance novice teachers' professional development in the school professional learning community.

Dropout of Young Teachers from the Education System: Motivations, Risk Factors and Possible Solutions

Abstract: This article discusses social, pedagogical, and managerial aspects of young teachers’ integration into the education system with a research focus on the issue of “young teachers dropping out” of the school system in the first years of their careers. This article further analyses the motives and risk factors which influence the process of teachers’ integration into the school environment. Possible solutions are sought to mitigate the risk of teachers permanently leaving the educational system. The need for developing a comprehensive system to support the successful professional adaptation and development of novice teachers - from their academic preparation and teaching practice, to their active period of professional consolidation and career development - is outlined. This article is based on up-to-date data of the implications of the issue within the education system of Israel. A mixed methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative research approaches, is used for the purpose of this research. The quantitative data aim to provide a macro-level picture of the process of attrition in the teaching profession in terms of teacher and educational institution characteristics. The qualitative part of the research includes an analysis of a number of documents on the policy of the Ministry of Education of Israel on teachers leaving the profession. Keywords: Teacher preparation and qualification; Teacher's career development; Adaptation of novice teachers, Teacher-mentor, Mentor.

Формирование профессионального мастерства учителя через организацию системы наставничества

The modern education system assumes certain mechanisms for the entry of a novice specialist into the profession, providing assistance for him at the initial stage of his professional development. Effective adaptation of a novice specialist to the conditions of an educational organization is possible only if an effective mentoring model is created in this institution. The article examines in detail the phenomenon of mentorship, the mechanisms of its implementation in a general education organization, and also presents the results of a study on the implementation of a mentoring system in the Municipal State Educational Institution "Secondary School No. 27" in Nalchik. The article contains the results of innovative project work in the Municipal State Educational Institution "Secondary School No. 27", Nalchik, conducted among school teachers in order to determine the state of mentorship in this institution. The results of the study clearly demonstrate the impact of the implementation of mentorship on the main educational outcomes at school. During the research, a set of theoretical and empirical methods was used: analysis of psychological, pedagogical and methodological literature on the problem; analysis of mentoring practice; a longitudinal study of the professional activities of mentors and the dynamics of the professional development of novice teachers; conversations with mentoring teachers and novice teachers; analysis of the experience of implementing the results of the research into the pedagogical practice of an educational organization.

Exploring Threats to Novice Teachers’ Development in Selected Secondary Schools in South Africa

Newly appointed teachers in the profession encounter challenges that impact their professional development possibilities and potential. The first five years in the teaching profession are delicate and fragile. This is the era where growth and development are gathered through classroom practices. This article seeks to explore any potential threats to these teachers’ development prospects. This can be incomplete without perusing related literature and teacher development theories. This study is qualitative and interpretive in nature and involved 23 participants who were novice teachers, school management team members and school principals. The theories of teacher change and social learning theory were used as the theoretical framework. Teacher change theory argues that change can happen when teachers come across valuable experiences and knowledge in the course of life. Empirical evidence was authenticated through interviews from purposively selected schools in the Mopani district in South Africa. This paper was authored to help education authorities, teacher unions, and school management hierarchies with relevant teacher development practices that can mitigate threats to novice teacher development. One compelling finding was that most of the difficulties accompanying novice teachers’ development were beyond the novice teachers’ control while in certain instances; teachers’ attitudes need to improve. The participants affirmed the need to introduce school-based development programmes that are unique to individuals. The need to regularly monitor and support schools cannot be over-emphasised. The study recommended that the Circuits and the Districts need to take control of their responsibilities for novice teacher development programmes. They should ensure that all programmes are regularly monitored, and schools are allowed to introduce programmes that address their unique professional development needs. Recommendations for future research on the subject are made.

What do social studies methods instructors know and do? Teacher educators’ PCK for facilitating historical discussions

ABSTRACT Although Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) has been a guiding framework for the development of novice teachers for decades, less attention has been paid to the PCK of teacher educators. This comparative case study analyzes the PCK of two social studies methods instructors as they teach the practice of facilitating historical discussions and examines how two pairs of novices take up that instruction. Findings reveal that relatively small differences in teacher educators’ pedagogy conveyed divergent perspectives on social studies, and the novices’ teaching and reflection came to express elements of their instructors’ PCK. The coherence between novices and instructors revolved around the instructors’ enactment, not the perspectives they expressed in interviews, and emerged in relationship to novices’ incoming PCK. If novices are more influenced by what teacher educators do than what they believe, a more nuanced language of practice is required to understand how instructors develop and enact their PCK.

Border Crossings: the Role of Narrative Storytelling in the Professional Identity Development of Faculty of Color

Career success is associated with having an integrated professional identity, especially for teacher educators who play a vital role in the professional development of novice teachers. Yet, the unique professional needs of teacher educators themselves, especially faculty of color, are often times ignored at predominantly White teaching institutions. In this case study, we analyzed stories related to the professional experiences of teacher education faculty members who participated in a faculty learning community centered on oral storytelling. Our findings indicate that for faculty of color, the process of developing professional identities involved crossing cultural borders, establishing credibility, and redefining themselves to reclaim a sense of professional agency. Faculty learning communities that focus on storytelling have the potential to be an effective approach for faculty development, not previously reported in the literature.

Examining the Effectiveness of Mentoring Process in Developing Teaching Competencies of Secondary School Novice Teachers: A Case of Mbeya Region in Tanzania

Mentoring programmes are cost effective for both novices and practicing secondary school teachers as when carried out earlier, become competent and confident. Yet, a few studies have been conducted in Tanzania in particular Mbeya region on the matter. The study examined the effectiveness of mentoring process in developing teaching competencies of the secondary school novice teachers in Mbeya region, Tanzania. Padua’s theory, Social cognitive theory and Herzberg two factor theories guided the study. Case study design with mixed approaches was used. A sample size of 110 novice and experienced teachers was administered with questionnaires and interview guide respectively. Descriptive statistics aided in analysing quantitative data while content analysis served for qualitative data. The findings revealed that mentoring programs resulted into confidence and command among novice teachers where mentors cultivate specific ideas among mentees in facilitating teaching and learning. Yet, mentoring programs contributed to the professional development of novice teachers with personal support to cope with their new work environment. It was concluded that mentorship effectively develops novice teachers’ competencies and recommended that mentors should cultivate further understanding of how to help novice teachers and how to create mentoring goals to support novice teachers’ progress in the beginning of their teaching career.

Development of resilience among Chinese rural teachers: a social ecological perspective

ABSTRACT Teacher resilience is regarded as a professional attribute that enables school teachers to cope with adversities in their work life in order to sustain continuous professional development. This paper aims to investigate the development of resilience among novice teachers in a primary school in rural China from a social ecological perspective. It attempts to trace the developmental paths of resilience among Chinese teachers working in an economically deprived area, and to elucidate their trials and tribulations as interactions with different social ecosystems affect the growth of their resilience. The paper’s findings suggest that novice teachers working in rural education in China have to deal with context-specific adversities that are shaped by educational tradition and school reform. Accordingly, the resilience development of novice teachers follows three discernible pathways, which lead to different capabilities. In the process, the interplay of multifaceted situational factors and the interaction among different ecosystems yield a range of cumulative influences on their resilience development.

Understanding Novice and Experienced Teachers’ Cognitions and Practices for Sustainable Teacher Development: The Case of Form-Focused Instruction in English Language Teaching

Framed in Complexity Theory, this paper presents a multi-case study of Chinese university English teachers’ cognitions and practices about form-focused instruction in English language teaching. Four teachers, including two novice teachers and two experienced ones, were involved in the study. A triangulation method, including semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews, was used to examine and compare their cognitions and practices. Research findings reveal that all teachers favoured focus on form instruction rather than focus on forms instruction in English teaching in their cognitions; however, the two novice teachers failed to implement focus on form instruction in practices, whereas the two experienced teachers carried it out consistently. The result calls for effective teacher education programmes for sustainable teacher development, particularly in sustaining the development of novice teachers’ knowledge about how to implement focus on form instruction in pedagogical practice. The implications arising from this study for L2 teacher education in China and similar L2 contexts are also discussed.

DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES IN TEACHERS: THE ROLE OF TUTOR AND MENTOR

The purpose of this article is to identify the role played by tutors and mentors in accompanying novice teachers within a specialization course aimed at supporting teachers for the classroom inclusion of students with disabilities. The specific aim of this qualitative research was to investigate the expert teachers’ features and how they (in the role of tutors and mentors) perceive the distinct role they play in the development of novice teachers’ professional competencies through peer review. In particular, the focus was on two different but interconnected activities: a) a direct internship supervised by a tutor; and b) an indirect internship supported by a mentor. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with ten expert teachers and were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Results show a wide proposal of features that characterize a good tutor and mentor in accompanying novice teachers’ growth. Secondly, the collected data provided an important contribution in that they helped identify the most important and useful activities (referring to the direct and indirect internships) for the development of competencies in future support teachers.