ERIC Number: EJ1445998
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-2768-1432
Addressing Attrition: Multi-Level Mentorship Model
Ya-Chih Chang; Talya Drescher
Journal of Special Education Preparation, v3 n1 p68-75 2023
Mentorship has been identified as a protective factor in early career special education teacher retention. These mentorships can be formal or informal during teachers' first years of teaching and can support teachers in various aspects of their careers, such as navigating required paperwork and instructional practices. However, these mentorships should be individualized and consistently provided to be meaningful. To address the inconsistent mentorships that early career teachers may receive, we propose a model in which early career teachers are supported by a network of alumni to both support and retain the early career special education teaching force. In turn, the alumni are supported by university faculty in mentorship skills to fill gaps in administrative roles where special education expertise is needed. By providing support to both groups of special educators (e.g., early career, mid to late career), we hope to address the shortage of special educators by improving attrition rates of early career special educators while concurrently encouraging and promoting leadership roles for in-service special educators, filling the critical need of administrators with special education expertise.
Descriptors: Special Education Teachers, Faculty Mobility, College Faculty, Mentors, Alumni, Teacher Persistence, Beginning Teachers, Teacher Shortage, Partnerships in Education, College School Cooperation, Capacity Building, Sense of Community, Job Satisfaction, Interpersonal Relationship
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A