Richard Locke began his first full-time job teaching seventh grade social studies at Francis W. Parker School in Chicago a quarter of a century before writing this article. Here he writes that as a young inexperienced teacher just out of college he was filled with enthusiasm and convinced that education could play a progressive role in society.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate beginning teacher attrition and the factors of collaboration and school setting (urban, suburban, and rural). Quantitative data were collected from present and former teachers in a Midwest state using the researcher-created Collaboration Survey. Building principals and central office staff supplied…

This case study involving three social studies teachers illustrates how the personal theorizing process, conducted as part of the teachers' preservice education, influenced their instruction during their first year of teaching. In addition, the evolution of the teachers' beliefs, as described through their personal practical theories (PPT's) of…

In this article, Peter Sipe compares his first year as a middle school teacher in Brooklyn, New York, to that of a rookie corrections officer at Sing Sing prison. Sipe explores what he considers to be disturbing similarities in these experiences, namely, a preoccupation with control, immersion in an adversarial social dynamic, and the prevalence…

In this paper the authors focus on one early-career teacher, co-author Natalie Gibson, whose initial teaching experiences were mediated by educational settings shaped by these different and often conflicting traditions. Their study of Natalie's early-career trajectory is concerned with understanding her effort to develop a conception of…

Preservice teachers get their first teaching position hoping to take the first step toward becoming professional educators and expecting support from experienced colleagues and administrators, who often serve as their mentors. In this article, the authors present the story of Kristine (a pseudonym), who works at a middle school in a large U.S.…

The purpose of this case study was to document the journey of three novice career change science inductees as they became middle-level science teachers in urban low socioeconomic status (SES) schools and included post-internship employment status data on all nine science teachers who completed the alternative certification program, up to the time…

Some previous research results imply that women tend to perform better, relative to men, on constructed-response (CR) tests than on multiple-choice (MC) tests in the same subjects. An analysis of data from several tests used in the licensing of beginning teachers supported this hypothesis, to varying degrees, in most of the tests investigated. The…

The authors present a program of research on the teaching practices of 1st-year teachers that has evolved within a partnership between and among a university and area school districts. The research links observed 1st-year teaching practices with school level (elementary, middle, high school) and type of teacher preparation (traditional bachelor's…

Teacher identity development and change is shaped by the interrelationship between personal biography and experience and professional knowledge linked to the teaching environment, students, subject matter, and culture of the school. Working from this framework, this study examines how beginning teacher interns who are part of an alternative route…

This study focuses on three new teachers, Arnie, Andrea, and Frank, who are New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF), a program of alternative teacher recruitment and certification that is in its third year at an urban public college in New York City. This study focuses on just three of the Fellows in order to have a more intense look into the…

The need for an environment conducive to achievement for diverse learners is especially challenging at the middle and high school levels, where more students with learning challenges are included in the general education program, but teachers tend to be less tolerant of disruptive and distractible behaviors. Thus, students who do not conform to…

Most school districts do not have a full time human resources administrator to conduct interviews and this important task most often becomes the responsibility of the building principal or a department head. Here is a guide designed for hiring employees, both professional staff as well as non-professional, in public, parochial, or private schools.…

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]