As of 2015, approximately one in five special educators received licensure through an alternative pathway. Although evidence suggests that emotional exhaustion contributes to special educator attrition, few studies examine firsthand the emotional experiences of novice, alternatively certified special educators. Guided by Tuxford and Bradley's…

While new teachers bring energy and passion into their classrooms and schools, they can find themselves incredibly challenged as they learn how to plan and implement lessons, collect, and use data to inform their instructional practices, build relationships with students and families, manage classroom behavior, and meet the varying academic,…

Within the field of teacher education, increased emphasis has been placed on social justice education (SJE). This qualitative study examined a group of beginning teachers who voluntarily participated in a social justice critical inquiry project (CIP). The findings indicate that while many of them were successful at teaching social issues, they…

This article is a compellation of my work with big ideas and my findings based on that work for the second semester of the 2006-2007 school year. I worked with three 11th grade students that have in the past struggled to pass the Global Studies Regents exam. The class was created as a RCT (Regents Competency Test) preparation course. The purpose…

This study examines the experiences of ten first-year English teachers in various school contexts in two Northeastern states. Through a phenomenological approach to in-depth interviewing, teachers were interviewed at the end of their first year of teaching. Commonalities in teachers' experiences include former teachers' influences on their teacher…