The focus of this article is the more immediate way to help new science teachers, which comes from the experienced and professionally active teacher--you! As science teacher educators who work with and study the development of beginning teachers, the authors found the support offered knowingly and unknowingly by the teacher next door was a…

This report summarizes AISD teacher characteristics and research regarding which teacher and school factors differentiate effective AISD teachers from their less effective peers.

The recruitment and retention of public school teachers has been an area of concern for many years. Teacher recruitment has been addressed through the development of alternative pathways to teacher certification. Teacher retention has been addressed primarily through induction programs that provide mentoring and other support resources to…

This paper is a user-friendly manual designed to minimize the growing pains associated with college-level teaching. Specific topics include syllabus development, classroom teaching methods, proper use of the initial class session, and advice related to answering student questions. Many new and adjunct instructors are met with unexpected challenges…

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…

The purpose of the study was to measure what factors impact the stress levels of probationary teachers who may or may not be new to the field of education, to determine what demographic characteristics are related to higher levels of stress, to determine what coping resources were successful in reducing stress, and to compare the stress levels and…

This article presents the author's experience as a new teacher lamenting the lack of clear and achievable expectations. Given a book list in place of a curriculum on her first day, she comments that she can understand why such a lack of guidance for new teachers can lead to frustration and departures. She further shares that since becoming a…

Teachers are crucial to the success of students. Yet, many of them are leaving their schools and the profession every year, particularly in poorer, lower-performing schools. As in any profession, not all attrition is bad, but whether bad or good, it has financial ramifications. This article explores the costs associated with teachers leaving the…

In this critically reflective piece, I describe the design of a foundations of education course and my first year teaching experience. I discuss thematic statements of issues that emerged as I came to construct the meaning of my experience and evolving ideas about teaching for public service professions. These included that: (1) Questioning is not…

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…

Little research has been done on the choices of mentors when they are offered a comprehensive range of roles. The mentors in this study were in their first attempt as mentors and did not have an assigned "role". They were involved in a mentoring course that sought to facilitate the placement of in-service teachers and school-institute…

This case study of a first-year and an experienced teacher presents an analysis of the place and frequency of three types of questions: probing, guiding, and factual. We examined the use of these questions in the course of five lessons, in order to study the relationship between the part of the lesson and types of questions asked. In addition, we…

This paper illustrates the experiences of novice teachers through self-reflection by a teacher trainer. It shows how novice teachers recognize deficiencies in their professional capacity, the coping strategies they adopt and implications for teacher training. As teacher trainers we should know why novice teachers say "I wish they had taught me…

Several problems exert force on teachers just entering the profession including mandated testing, public reporting, and the loss of the flexible contexts teacher preparation institutions had for developing undergraduate teacher candidates. Teacher training institutions are scrambling to implement more effective ways to prepare teachers without…

Compelling evidence points to the need for higher education, and especially teacher education, to become better informed about the concerns of Aboriginal peoples and to be more responsive to their needs. With this focus in mind, we had conversations with 30 beginning First Nations teachers, graduates of a teacher education program in Saskatchewan,…