With nearly half of all new teachers leaving the classroom within 5 years, schools are faced with the challenge of retaining early-career teachers while simultaneously providing them with the support they need to develop into effective professionals. Mentoring novice teachers by pairing them with experienced teachers in schools is a widely adopted…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the confidence levels of new teachers and related factors. Seventy-seven first and second year teachers participating in a new teacher retention project filled out a survey. Teachers felt most confident in their communication with colleagues, sensitivity to the needs of a multicultural classroom, and…

State-level policy support for teacher induction programs can help teachers realize their full potential, keep them in the profession, promote greater student learning, and save money. Higher education institutions and school districts must work together to provide high-quality and well-designed induction programs. This issue of "Policy Matters,"…

In this study, the authors examine the influence of teacher and student communication patterns, instructional practices, and teacher pedagogical content knowledge on students' mathematics learning in both general and special education mathematics classrooms. Five pre-service special education teachers in field placements and 43 students with…

Over the past thirty years, numerous studies confirmed that new teachers do not have the requisite knowledge to understand the complex interrelationships among management, behavior, and academic tasks. An important missing piece in the literature is how the concerns of experienced teachers differ from those cited by beginning teachers. Based on…

Thoughtful mentoring can shape and challenge a beginning teacher's practice in educative ways, especially when the novice is well prepared and adopts the stance of a learner. What responsibility does a mentor have when the novice performs at the edge of acceptable practice? Drawing on interview and observation data collected for a national study…

It has become common to hear that "young teachers are the hope and foundation of the schools. The future is in their hands." There is good reason for these expectations: young people have a long professional life ahead of them. However, the pedagogical professions are not that popular. Many graduates of higher pedagogical educational…

This article focuses on student teachers' professional identity formation inspired by the tension between two layman points of view namely: being born as a teacher (i.e. based on demographics and personality traits) and becoming a teacher (i.e. based on experience). Besides demographics, personality traits and experience, the teacher preparation…

Worldwide, teachers' work continues to be the subject of discussion and debate, especially in terms of teacher competence and its appropriate appraisal. Available literature offers a number of perspectives of beginning teacher competence, yet the voices of beginning teachers themselves are not represented. This paper outlines the findings of a…

This paper constructs a statistical model of learning that suggests a systematic way of measuring the persistence of treatment effects in education. This method is straightforward to implement, allows for comparisons across educational treatments, and can be related to intuitive benchmarks. We demonstrate the methodology using student-teacher…

This study examined the impact of a beginning teacher induction program on involved mentors' teaching competence. Additionally, it investigated the relationship of mentor's self-efficacy to program impact. Approximately 1,600 beginning teachers and 700 mentors from 56 school districts participated in a state-funded induction program in which…

Experienced English teachers can proactively help newcomers in their schools in different ways by relying on research and case studies that focus on the stated needs of new teachers. The efforts of a community of colleagues will serve to sustain newcomers so that they can gain confidence over time, refining their teaching proficiencies to…

Helping novice teachers both improves their effectiveness and increases the likelihood they will remain in teaching. Ignoring the needs of novices is costly, in terms of both student achievement and teacher turnover. This brief discusses the strategies used by districts as they strive to offer high quality induction programs in an environment of…

This qualitative study evaluated the belief systems and professional practice of program graduates of an early childhood special education teacher preparation program regarding collaboration with families of children with disabilities. Eleven graduates were interviewed over the course of a school year to identify perceived challenges to their…

This paper examines alternative teacher certification in the NCREL region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin), reviewing relevant literature, analyzing current Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) data, reviewing information on alternative certification programs in these states, and offering results from a survey of…