Despite being responsible for a large percentage of undergraduate instruction, graduate students often receive little preparation for their first solo teaching assignments (J. D. Nyquist et al., "Change" 31 (3): 18, 1999). Furthermore, the existing literature on pedagogy fails to address the unique challenges faced by graduate students who are…

Working to match mentors with new teachers, one consideration was the physical proximity of the mentor to the newcomer. If the mentor occupied a room next door or across the hall, this position suggested that the new teacher had easy access to this important resource in times of urgency. Such arrangements are not always possible. In this article,…

To counteract disempowerment frequently experienced in education, in 2001 the authors initiated a "Problem Solution Project" (PSP) in the second year a two-year urban certification and Master's program. The PSP, designed to promote empowerment of first-year urban teachers and their students, involves both service learning. In 2004, the authors…

An essential component of successful schooling in linguistically and culturally diverse settings is the active involvement of parents and community members. This is made possible when teachers honor families' languages and cultural traditions and build upon them. Teacher preparation programs play a critical role in helping preservice teachers…

Improving teacher preparation is critical to long-term improvement in teacher quality. More than 200,000 new teachers enter classrooms each year. Increasing student enrollment, the retirement of baby boom generation teachers, and high attrition in their first five years (between 40 and 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession) have…

This is the story of a beginning teacher, Ben. Ben was part of a mixed-method, qualitative study directed at exploring the student-teacher relationship experiences of beginning teachers. Time, mentor relationships and student-teacher relationships were all found to play an important role in the willingness, longevity, and efficacy of beginning…

The 2-year probationary experience of new teachers was described by the McCrone Report as scandalous and led to the development of an induction standard (as part of an emerging framework or continuum of standards for various stages of teacher development) with related structures of support for beginner teachers in Scotland provided by schools and…

Mentors need to be proactive in helping the newer teacher to anticipate the critical episodes that inevitably face any teacher. These episodes include the challenge to manage a daunting workload while following habits necessary to stay healthy; to recover from disappointments, errors, and disrespect; to form positive relationships with students,…

Much has been written about the need for high-quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers and their role in U.S. educational reform. In this article we provide evidence that beginning science and mathematics teachers need a blend of three mutually reinforcing learning opportunities for growth and sustainability:…

Research on teacher quality is not definitive. But, we know that developing high-quality teachers requires a multipronged approach: We need to recruit promising teachers. We need to retain and reward effective early career teachers. We need mechanisms to dismiss those who don't improve. We need to focus teacher preparation on the foundations of…

As a new teacher, the best lesson the author learned from a veteran teacher was to get feedback from students regularly. Unfortunately, many teachers are afraid to ask students what's working and what's not. Perhaps it's because they're alone with kids in a room; perhaps because (especially as new teachers) they don't want to seem weak by asking…

This article is intended to help teacher educators, administrators, and mentor teachers envision how to support beginning STEM teachers as they transition from university-based preservice preparation into their first year of classroom teaching in high-need schools. Based on our experiences, and grounded in the associated research and literature,…

Early career teachers eager to find employment are often encouraged by employers to accept positions in remote locations which are traditionally difficult to staff. This paper reports research that examined a case study of a graduate teacher employed in a remote school. Drawing on resilience theory, we challenge the profession to consider whether…

Dispositions are the engine of performance in teaching, linking inner values and commitments with action in the context of practice. This article presents a theoretical conception in conjunction with an individual case study of the process by which dispositions develop and function in teaching. Focusing on teaching that is ambitious both in its…

The focus of this article is how to ensure (beginning) teachers' needs as practitioners are part of the discursive dialogue in physical education teacher education programs. We consider the relationship between "structure" and "agency," teachers as "change agents" and refer to "workplace learning" as we…