Third-year Teachers Research Articles

Grappling with social justice: Exploring new teachers’ practice and experiences

This qualitative study examines the narratives of 27 new teachers as they grapple with social justice in the context of their classrooms. Informed by pedagogical perspectives regarding social justice education and new teacher mentorship, this research is framed by theories of communities of practice and professional knowledge landscapes. At the time of fieldwork, the participants had all graduated from a teacher education program focused on issues of social justice and were in their first, second or third year of teaching. Analysis of the participants’ narratives, gathered in semi-structured interviews indicates that the realities of teaching assignments, curriculum constraints and professional support either encourage or discourage new teachers from incorporating social justice into their practice. Thus, the extent to which new teachers are able to incorporate social justice into their practice can be related to the material and social conditions in which they are situated.

Changes in Teacher Self–Efficacy from the Student Teaching Experience through the Third Year of Teaching

The purpose of this study was to examine changes in teacher self–efficacy from the student teaching experience to the third year of teaching. The population was the entire cohort of student teachers from The Ohio State University. Of the 34 individuals who student taught, 17 entered the teaching profession. The researchers utilized the Teachers Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) to assess the individuals in the study four different times; at the conclusion of student teaching, and the conclusion of their first, second and third years of teaching. No previous research exists in agricultural education that tracks the changes in teacher self–efficacy from student teaching through the third year of teaching. Individuals reported the lowest levels of teacher self–efficacy at the end of their first year of teaching and the highest levels at the conclusion of their student teaching experience. Participants reported the lowest levels of teacher self efficacy in the student engagement domain in each of the assessments. The results of this study support previous research conducted with teacher education candidates. However, as this research continues the assessment of teacher self–efficacy through the beginning years of teaching, the researchers recommended more thorough and comprehensive study.

Using Children's Interests in the Learning Process

This question came from Eula Donaldson of Guilford Child Development in Greensboro, North Carolina. Eula is a lead teacher in a Head Start classroom which also receives More at Four funding. More at Four is a state funded program that helps support teacher salaries and makes it feasible for licensed teachers to work in non-public school settings. She earned her Bachelor's degree from UNC Greensboro and has a North Carolina Birth to Kindergarten license. Eula is in her third year of teaching and is involved in the Beginning Teacher Support Program of the North Carolina Office of School Readiness. “… I try to build on the interests of the children as I plan for instruction. I am interested in learning more about how I can carry the interests of the children throughout the whole week, planning and including activities that touch on all of the domains of development.…”

Student perceptions and attitudes about Community Service-Learning in the teacher training curriculum

Much of the international research on Community Service-Learning has investigated the benefits, outcomes, and learning experiences of students already engaged in service-learning projects and programmes. As there is scant research on students\' attitudes to and perceptions of Service-Learning, before this learning became integrated into an academic programme, our purpose was to determine teacher training students\' attitudes to, and perceptions of, Community Service-Learning, before integration of such a module into their academic programmes. A quantitative survey, employing a questionnaire as instrument, was used for measuring the attitudes and perceptions of third-year teacher training students (n = ±168) at a research university in South Africa. The Community Service-Learning Attitudes and Perception Scale (CSLAPS), developed specifically for this kind of investigation, was used in the analysis of the data. The findings indicated that students with prior knowledge of and/or participation in a community service project showed greater willingness to enrol for a course/ module in Community Service-Learning, especially if it would add value to their career development, bear credits, and enhance their personal and social development. The findings provided information that would enable academic staff and institutions to design curricula for academic programmes that take account of these attitudes and perceptions and address them positively to enhance the learning experience. Keywords : academic programme; attitudes; citizenship; Community Service-Learning; curricular community engagement; curriculum; perceptions;quantitative study; teacher training South African Journal of Education Vol. 27 (4) 2007: pp. 631-654

Growing or Wilting? Beginning Biology Teachers in an Induction Program for Science Teachers

In 1996, the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council) called for a change in the teaching of science. The use of as during instruction received considerable attention in the Standards. This approach advocates science instruction that includes opportunities for students to identify questions, explore important concepts, design and conduct investigations, formulate explanations from data, and communicate findings to appropriate communities. Over the years, creating a science-as-inquiry environment has become more difficult for science teachers. Mandated state assessments often guide topics that are presented in science class, leaving little time for inquiry-based activities. In addition, alternative pathways to the teaching profession have increased the number of teachers with limited understanding of science as inquiry. However, most science teachers and science educators are still committed to some form of inquiry in the science classroom. The task of learning how to create a science-as-inquiry environment can be difficult, and even more challenging for beginning teachers (Luft, 2001). New teachers are con strained by their lack of experience in the classroom and their limited knowledge of the discipline (Roehrig & Luft, 2004). While more robust field experiences can be provided during a pre-service program, the content coursework in biology can be problematic. Pre-service biology teachers are often encouraged to specialize in a sub-domain such as ecology, zoology, or microbiology, rather than acquire a general biology degree (Wandersee, Fisher & Moody, 2001). And because most middle and high school life science or biology classes focus on general concepts, new teachers might not have the necessary expertise to teach all areas. One possible mechanism to assist beginning life science or biology teachers is an induction program that provides support in the areas of content knowledge and science as inquiry. Such a program can provide content and pedagogical assistance for teachers as they plan and enact lessons outside of their field of expertise. This study explores how beginning secondary biology or life science teachers did or did not modify their instruction when they participated in an induction program for secondary science teachers. Background The Alternative Support for Induction Science Teaching Program The teachers in this study participated in an induction program designed to support beginning secondary science teachers in their first, second, or third year of teaching. The program, Alternative Support for Induction Science Teachers (A-SIST), was developed by university science educators, with the assistance of local school district administrators, in order to foster inquiry-based environments in secondary science classrooms. Any secondary science teacher in the region could participate in the program. Once enrolled, beginning teachers attended monthly Saturday workshops facilitated by a university science educator, mentor science teachers, and graduate assistants. They also participated in online communications, were visited in their class monthly by project staff, and attended a regional or national science education conference to acquire additional teaching resources. In order to support the use of science as inquiry in the classroom, scientists from the university and mentor teachers with different areas of content expertise answered content questions and made instructional suggestions. A comprehensive discussion of this program can be found in Luft and Patterson (2002). Beginning Teachers in Biology There are two areas of literature that inform this study. The first area relates to the support of beginning teachers. Induction programs are important for beginning teachers (Britton, Paine, Pimm & Raizen, 2003; Huling-Austin, 1990, 1992; Gold, 1996). Huling-Austin (1990), for example, concluded that beginning teachers who participate in induction programs can improve their teaching performance, stay longer in the profession, enhance their personal and professional well-being, and learn about the culture of the school system. …

Mentoring and being mentored: The story of a novice music teacher's success

This qualitative study examined the growth of Jelani, a failing novice teacher who successfully received tenure following his third year of teaching. His progress seemed related to the quality of his relationships with different mentors. An unanticipated factor in Jelani's success was his participation in a university-based program for children, where he served, under supervision, as a mentor for two preservice teachers. In what became a mutually beneficial relationship, Jelani reinforced his new-found knowledge and skills and learned to better describe and assess his own teaching. Among those who worked with Jelani, additional reciprocal mentoring relationships developed.

TEACHER EFFICACY OF NOVICE TEACHERS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN OHIO AT THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR

The purpose of the study was to describe teacher efficacy at the end of the school year in novice (first through third-year) teachers in agriculture in Ohio related to stage of development, summer activities, classroom variables, and their future plans in teaching. The study was survey research comprised of multiple one-shot case studies. Demographics were collected as part of a previous study, at the beginning of the school year. A mailed questionnaire generated a 74% response rate (N = 73). First, second, and third-year teachers were similarly efficacious at the end of the school year. Although stage of development is theoretically important (Richardson & Placier, 2001), there was not enough variability in teacher efficacy across the three stages of development to find a significant relationship. Forty-two teacher characteristic variables were correlated with the summed efficacy score and six were found to have significance. Out of these six variables, only twoñthe teachersí agreement with the statement that their student teaching experience was excellent, and the number of class preparations for which the teacher is responsible-were found to have significant relationships to teaching efficacy. When the teacher characteristics and demographics were reviewed, it was found that novice teachers in agriculture were efficacious at the end of the school year. It was also found that teachers in the study who had mentors felt that their mentors were competent and supportive, that teachers had generally chosen teaching as a long-term career goal, felt that their job matched their personal and family needs, and felt confident about teaching in agriculture.

A Roller Coaster Ride: The Twists and Turns of a Novice Teacher's Relationship with Her Principal

No matter how certain new teachers may be in their choice of career or how secure they may feel about their skills, they can all benefit from a solid support system. The authors offer a toolbox of survival tips that can help new teachers overcome even the least promising circumstances. WHEN PRESERVICE teachers graduate and obtain their first teaching position, is hoped that they have taken the first step on a creative path toward becoming professional educators. Naturally, is expected that these novice educators will get support from both experienced colleagues and administrators, who often serve as their mentors. Such guidance is meant not only to retain promising new teachers by providing a support system but also to help ensure that novices develop into competent and enthusiastic practitioners who achieve their full potential. However, ideal scenario does not always play out. In article, we share the story of Kristine (a pseudonym), who works at a middle in a large public district in the United States. Now in her third year of teaching, she remembers her introductory year as anything but what she originally anticipated. We hope that her story and the lessons she learned from her experience might be useful to other novice teachers as they make their way through their first years in the classroom. Kristine's Story I am a third-year teacher. This is the first year that I feel comfortable working in the where I teach. Furthermore, is the first year that I feel valued and validated as an important person in my school's community. We have a new principal year. It all started during my first year of teaching. I was hired as a language arts teacher and was slated to teach language arts classes for at-risk students. I had never taken any courses on how to teach these students. I was a little lost. Not only was I teaching a student population that I didn't know how to reach, but I was also floating among five different rooms and felt completely alone. I cried frequently and considered leaving the field of education. I wound up crying in the main office on more than one occasion. I sought help from my administrators. I had moments when I resented the other new teachers in my who did not appear to be struggling. I was filled with frustration. I was frustrated with my department head for abandoning me, with myself for not getting it in the classroom, and with my administrators for promising to help and not following through. I was frustrated with teaching in general. It was an unhealthy situation. Then the confrontations began. At the end of my first year, my department head asked me to accompany her to her classroom. I assumed she wanted me to pick up a memo or some other paperwork. Instead, she invited me to sit down and proceeded to express concerns that the principal had communicated to her about me. I was caught off guard and had no idea how to react. My department head used a variety of weasel words as she went on to list my professional shortcomings. She didn't propose solutions to the problems she laid out. Instead, she left me feeling blindsided and confused. I felt my principal had betrayed me by believing that I should be motivated by stress, fear, and intimidation. Apparently, a 20-minute lecture would cure me of several flaws: being too needy, publicizing my unhappiness in front of the faculty, not appreciating the opportunities I had been given, not becoming friends with the other teachers or staff members, not being a team player, and abusing leave time (I had taken seven of the 10 days provided by contract). Furthermore, the discussion called into question whether or not teaching was for me or, more important, whether this school was for me. There wasn't any positive feedback that might have helped me to learn and grow professionally. Thankfully, there was one teacher I could engage with, and I immediately thought of her. …

How to Infuse Social Skills Training into Literacy Instruction

cept and behavior would, consequently, improve. At the beginning of Lafond’s third year of teaching, he reflected on his previous years of teaching and realized that although his effort to increase student achievement was successful, his students could have made greater gains if he had

Hear our voices: Student teachers' experiences during practical teaching

Practical teaching forms an integral part of teacher training. Teacher education programmes at the University of South Africa (Unisa) are no exception. However, there are two sides to this coin. On the one side, research studies led to the conclusion that teaching practice is a valued and a very necessary part of teacher education for students to become competent teachers. On the other side, it was also concluded that teaching practice was less than satisfactory because of deficiencies in the quality of supervisor teachers and in the application of theory in practice. Given the critical importance of practical teacher education, there has been a concern among lecturers at Unisa about how student teachers experience their teaching practice periods. A survey based on two unstructured questions and open-ended semistructured questions as a data collection instrument was undertaken with a sample population of third-year teacher training students to determine the negative and positive experiences of student teachers during their teaching practice. It was evident from the findings that the most outstanding positive experience of the student teachers concerned was the support system offered to them by the supervisor teacher. Negative experiences included exposure to bad discipline in the classrooms and the enlistment of students as cover teachers, thus precluding the presentation of lessons as planned. These findings compelled the researchers to prepare students during their training more thoroughly for what they might experience while doing their teaching practice.

The Case for Differentiated Professional Support: Toward a Phase Theory of Professional Development

In this perspective article I draw upon interviews with first-, second-, and third-year teachers to develop a phase theory of professional development that accounts for the questions, interests, and preferences of teachers across their first three years in the classroom. I suggest that differentiated professional development has potential to improve the quality of the teaching force by increasing the expertise of teachers in their first few years and providing support that is engaging and rewarding enough to encourage retention.

‘three up’: a case study of teachers of information and communications technology in their third year of teaching

This article reports on a cohort of teachers of information and communications technology at the end of their third year of teaching. It forms part of a longitudinal study which has tracked nine teachers through their initial teacher training and into their first years of teaching in secondary schools and colleges in the United Kingdom. The article focuses on these teachers' professional development and their sense of satisfaction with their work. It reports on continued satisfaction with teaching, arising out of experience in the classroom and reflection on working with pupils. However in this, their third year of teaching, ‘dissatisfiers’ are emerging for some teachers, chiefly negative experiences in their relationships with senior management. The article argues that at a time of teacher shortages, support for professional development needs to take a higher priority and to be a more a salient factor for teachers when making choices about schools in which to work.

‘three up’: a case study of teachers of information and communications technology in their third year of teaching

‘three up’: a case study of teachers of information and communications technology in their third year of teaching

Changes in Primary School Teachers' Beliefs about Knowing: A longitudinal study

A teaching programme designed to facilitate the reflection on and development of more sophisticated epistemological beliefs was implemented with 29 pre-service graduate teacher education students at a large metropolitan university in Australia in 1997. As part of the year-long teaching programme, the students were required to reflect in journal entries on the content of an educational psychology unit in relation to their epistemological beliefs. The students engaged in this teaching programme were interviewed in relation to their beliefs about knowing at the beginning (Interview 1) and conclusion (Interview 2) of the teaching programme. Eleven participants were then interviewed again (Interview 3) in their third year of teaching. The results of the qualitative data analysis of all three interviews indicated that, over time, seven participants became more constructivist in their beliefs about knowing, two maintained the same beliefs, while two described less constructivist beliefs. Implications for teaching are discussed.

An Invitation to Success: Co-Teaching and Learning in English 9G

evaluate your teaching style, your classroom management, your students' learning. None visits to help in the business of teaching. (Who needs their help, anyway? What could they suggest after only one visit?) Even students are hip to the routine; most will suspend their authentic classroom ways for your benefit, saying, knew we had to be good because we didn't want to get you in trouble. Good thing those intrusions are few and far between. When the visitors leave, you and your students can return to the real business of learning, right? Don't answer yet. We think more teachers need to invite teacher educators into their classrooms-not as visitors, but as colleagues, collaborators, co-teachers. More university faculty who work in teacher preparation need to commit serious time to language arts classrooms, students, and teachers. More schools need to welcome those university guests and support the teachers who invite them. More language arts classroom doors should remain open daily to admit professors who welcome sustained instructional time with adolescent students. All these things need to happen more often because, as this collaboration between a third-year teacher and a seasoned professor illustrates, when educators bridge the gap f om high school to college, students and teachers in both environments benefit.

There's Nothing that Bugs People More than Sort of Remembering: Ambiguity in the Growth of a Science Teacher

This article presents an analysis of interviews done with a woman science teacher, Pat, over a six-year period. The interviews began when Pat was a student in a science and mathematics teacher education program, and continued into her third year of teaching. The writer examines changes in Pat's ideas about learning, about herself as a learner, and about teaching. In addition, the writer examines some of the research and ethical issues involved in doing this research and the changes in her own ideas as the study progressed. As Pat's ideas became more elaborated and instantiated in her own practice, the value of the uncertainty she expressed early in the interview process became clear. What the writer first interpreted as a weakness or lack of clarity slowly appeared as a strength, for Pat's recognition of her lack of certainty seemed to contribute to her later ability not only to tolerate the ambiguities of teaching but to use these as sources for experimentation and growth.

A comparative study of pre-service teachers' teaching efficacy beliefs before and after work-integrated learning: Part two

The study, which is grounded in Bandura's concept of self-efficacy, assessed the teaching efficacy beliefs of student teachers before and after completing six months of work-integrated learning. This was necessitated by research which shows that self-efficacy is an important aspect which influences a teacher's ability to teach as well as the effectiveness of that teaching. The first part of this study measured the perceived teaching efficacy of third-year teacher education students in three construct dimensions: student engagement, instructional strategies and classroom management. This part of the investigation was performed before the participants attended their work-integrated learning at secondary schools in South Africa. The sample consisted of 136 students, with 70 males and 66 females, respectively. A questionnaire was used to collect data from the student teachers. The results showed that at the end of their third year of study, the student teachers responded with largely positive teaching efficacy beliefs with regard to their future occupation. The participants’ perceptions of their teaching efficacy were however primarily based on and influenced by their observations of other teachers and lecturers. The theoretical grounding that they received from the institution at which they studied also contributed to their perceptions of their teaching efficacy. The second part of the study engaged the same group of students, then in their fourth year, but after having completed six months of work-integrated learning at South African secondary schools. A similar questionnaire was administered in order to determine the participants’ perceptions of work-integrated learning itself as well as the extent to which work-integrated learning had influenced their teaching efficacy beliefs. Intricate changes in the perceived teaching efficacy of the participants had indeed taken place and are analysed and discussed in this article.