No, Really, Don't Become a Teacher...Unless You Do This (original) (raw)
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2018
Never in the history of K-12 education in America has the access to and demand for using technology to support and extend learning and improve teaching been greater. That said, all indications are that these expectations will increase for teachers to effectively model, use, and integrate technologies in their classrooms and in their own professional development. The 2017 NMC Horizon Report (available at https://edtechbooks.org/-nN) cites these key trends (pp. 10-20):
A Matter of Degrees: Preparing Teachers for the Pre-K Classroom. Education Reform Series
2010
Research indicates that higher levels of education and training can help improve teachers' interactions with children in ways that positively affect learning. Studies suggest that skilled professionals can more effectively promote and support young children's cognitive, social and emotional growth when they know how to capitalize on the period of critical early brain development before age five. Pre-k teachers who have earned bachelor's degrees and have additional, specialized training in early childhood education have generally been found to be more effective than those without these qualifications. In addition to improving the quality of teaching, stronger preparation requirements may help to professionalize the early childhood workforce. The resulting higher pay, in turn, would attract a better-quality workforce, reduce turnover and provide greater incentives toward the ongoing improvement of practice. 4
2001
This report uses the national Baccalaureate and Beyond longitudinal database to look at the early career paths of 1993 college graduates. The results provide information on which college graduates became teachers, where they taught, and whether they left teaching within 3 years. Overall, it is not easy to predict who may be potential teachers when students are in college. Teachers' personal and academic characteristics vary by grade taught. Some teachers work for lower salaries with similar or higher levels of job satisfaction when they are in non-urban areas that have few high-poverty schools. More public school teachers without certification than with certification, and more public school teachers with college admission scores in the top quartile than with scores not in the top quartile, left teaching. Key recruitment strategies include providing beginning college students with a realistic set of expectations and experiences regarding teaching and including community colleges early on in students' school experiences. Key retention strategies include getting non-certified teachers certified, providing induction programs, involving new teachers in school improvement, and improving the lowest beginning salaries. (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Advances in Educational Marketing, Administration, and Leadership
In this chapter, the author reflects on her development as a teacher leader. Using self-study based in narrative inquiry, she describes the current interest in teacher leadership and why it has become such a prominent topic in education. By exploring her own experiences in light of current research on the topic, she analyzes how teachers become leaders, the benefits to the profession of teacher leadership, some of the challenges teacher leaders face, and possible paths forward for teacher leaders. In addition, she delineates new expectations and challenges facing today's literacy leaders.
In Search of the Middle School Teacher: Navigating Research, Reality, and Mission
Middle Grades Research Journal, 2012
Marcos is the only middle level teacher credential program in the state of California. The program is based on a set of goals and philosophy of middle grades education, recognizing the developmental needs of young adolescents in Grades 5 through 9, and the socially equitable experience of the whole student in pursuit of academic excellence. In this article we discuss the California credentialing policies and realities that significantly influence our practices. We also describe our program and 3 vital tools we use to navigate these realities and challenges. Indeed, our program is founded upon the theoretical framework and principles embedded in these tools, and they have helped us get through tough times and confront challenges. We are able to maintain the integrity of the program and continue to collaboratively prepare thoughtful educators and advance professional practices.
No Teacher Left Inside: Preparing a New Generation of Teachers
Journal of Geoscience Education, 2011
It is ironic that although children often form lasting decisions, at a young age, about their aptitude for and interest in science we are least successful at preparing elementary teachers to nurture their students' science interests. This is despite the fact that most elementary teachers teach in contained classrooms where they are responsible for science content at this critical, developmental stage for their students. Science preparation for preservice, elementary teachers is traditionally relegated to large, general-education lecture courses. Even when these courses have laboratories, they tend to depend on cookbook style exercises where procedures are given and the outcomes are known. This leaves many pre-service, elementary teachers not only ill-prepared, but also fearful of the science content that they must teach. We here advocate a change in the way science is taught to preservice, elementary teachers. By developing hands-on field learning and teaching experiences for these future teachers, we believe that elementary Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education can better encourage more children to become scientists and to encourage all students to become the next generation of informed citizens.
A Matter of Degrees: Preparing Teachers for the Pre-K Classroom
2010
Research indicates that higher levels of education and training can help improve teachers' interactions with children in ways that positively affect learning. Studies suggest that skilled professionals can more effectively promote and support young children's cognitive, social and emotional growth when they know how to capitalize on the period of critical early brain development before age five. Pre-k teachers who have earned bachelor's degrees and have additional, specialized training in early childhood education have generally been found to be more effective than those without these qualifications. In addition to improving the quality of teaching, stronger preparation requirements may help to professionalize the early childhood workforce. The resulting higher pay, in turn, would attract a better-quality workforce, reduce turnover and provide greater incentives toward the ongoing improvement of practice. 4
Phi Delta Kappan, 2013
The current policy debate about teacher preparation tends to pit two ideas against each other: traditional, college-bound preparation vs. alternative routes. It seems that those of us interested in education policy must choose which strategy we prefer for all K-12 teacher preparation. In our view, however, the whole heated debate isn't particularly productive because teachers and the students they teach are too diverse for a single prescription. In this ongoing argument, some say it is silly that we send teachers into classrooms without the training and certification offered in traditional education schools. Others promote alternative preparation programs, such as Teach For America, in the hopes of attracting a more talented and diverse set of prospective teachers. The fiery rhetoric in this debate can be unproductive, with its actors characterized as either cranky public school critics attempting to deprofessionalize teaching and undermine its institutions, or staunch defenders of the status quo trying to maintain their monopoly on teacher training. We propose that we start with some simple and positive assumptions: Both sides want to recruit and prepare an excellent teaching workforce to serve students well, and both sides have the right strategies to achieve this goal. Traditional teacher preparation is the right strategy, and alternative teacher preparation is the right strategy. Instead of arguing about the superiority of one strategy over the other, consider the following compromise: Continue to support traditional programs as the primary strategy for preparing teachers of elementary students, and encourage alternative programs to develop more teachers of secondary school students. Two camps If possible, we'd do a rigorous study of teacher preparation programs, using random assignment and multiple measures of effectiveness, with the hope of identifying the best practices for training future teachers. Then we'd implement those practices nationwide, mandating that every preparation program do what's been identified as most effective. And, voila, we'd have an improved teacher labor force. That may be a very well-intentioned goal, but let's not hold our breath that it will happen. The recently concluded Measures of Effective Teaching Project (MET), a rigorous study that used random assignment and multiple measures of effectiveness, has taught us at least one thing: Identifying exactly what makes a teacher effective is difficult (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2013). Identifying exactly how to train the best teachers is equally opaque. Broadly speaking, policy makers and education leaders fall into two camps when debating and developing the best policies to attract and train our future teaching workforce. The first camp supports traditional teacher preparation in approved degree programs within colleges of education. In their course of study, teacher candidates learn educational theory, receive pedagogical training, and have practical classroom experience. Those in the traditional camp include other traditionally trained teachers, teacher unions, and professors in colleges of education, among others. The logic is that teaching is a craft that must be developed over time through practice, observation, and induction into the profession. Again speaking very generally, the other camp advocates for a more direct path to the classroom, with a focus on content knowledge. According to this strategy, teachers would typically have a degree in the subject they teach, but they have much less classroom experience. This group prefers alternative programs, such as Teach For America, which seeks highly talented individuals with strong content knowledge, provides a shortened training period, usually six weeks, and then places teachers in classrooms. Programs similar to TFA include the New York City Teaching Fellows Program and The New Teacher Project. …