Exploring Co-planning Conversations as a Professional Development Activity for Mentors and Mentees at the Beginning of a Yearlong Teacher Residency

In order to prepare pre-service teachers for their roles in the classroom, it is important to examine the rigor and purpose of the mentoring experience. This study explored the aspects of co-planning conversations that helped experienced and novice teachers expand their expertise and develop a mutually beneficial mentoring relationship at the beginning of a yearlong teacher residency model. While research on co-planning during the student teaching/residency experience exists, this research illuminated the importance of mentoring conversations early on in the teacher residency experience. Using a single case study design, observations, one-on-one interviews, and artifacts from four mentor-mentee dyads, data were examined to gain the essence of a mentoring relationship that utilized co-planning at the beginning of a yearlong teacher residency. Results from this study indicated that co-planning conversations yielded professional development opportunities for both mentors and mentees. Three major themes emerged from data analysis: candid collaboration, dispositional capacities, and ongoing work. These findings further suggest that co-planning can disrupt the norms of the traditional mentor-mentee apprenticeship model. This study can be used to inform teacher preparation programs and school districts about the supports necessary for novice and experienced teachers who participate in yearlong teacher residency programs

Factors That Affect the Ability of Novice Science Teachers to Teach for NOS Understanding

Novice science teachers face a multitude of instructional, curricular, and institutional constraints that affect their classroom decisions. Emphases from their teacher training programs interact with and compete against the realities of professional teaching. This qualitative comparative case study attempts to look at the interactions of novice science teachers with the reform-based practice of nature of science (NOS) instruction. Teacher training programs teach their pre-service science teachers about NOS and try to emphasize the importance of NOS understanding on student scientific literacy, but little is known about how science teachers view and approach NOS once they are free from the constraints of their teacher training programs and are instead faced with the constraints of a real science classroom, administrators, state curricula, and other factors. This study examined seven novice science teachers over one school year in order to investigate how NOS instruction occurred and what factors affected that instruction. Interviews, classroom observations, and questionnaires were utilized in order to create rich descriptions and discussions concerning NOS. Motivational Systems Theory (Ford, 1992) provided a theoretical framework to describe the goal creation, motivation, and goal achievement concerning NOS for each novice science teacher and for cross-case analysis. Findings revealed complex interactions between many factors. Context beliefs concerning mandated state curriculum standards and high-stakes testing proved to have a great effect on NOS goal setting and NOS instruction, but overall positive capability beliefs, context beliefs, and emotional connection to NOS were demonstrated as requirements for appropriate NOS goal setting and motivation. A relationship between viewing NOS as a part of mandated science curriculum standards as opposed to an external institutional goal and increased NOS classroom instruction was noticed. Skill-related factors also affected NOS instruction, though their impact went largely unnoticed by participants. Views of NOS deduced from rubricated leading questions were shown to vary significantly from verbally articulated NOS understandings, suggesting the importance of discussion and explanation in NOS training. The vocalized understandings of NOS presented by the participants, which were often diminished, invented, and conflated, significantly affected the instruction of consensus NOS tenets. Implications and suggestions for further research are described

Nursing Students\u27 and Novice Clinical Instructors\u27 Experiences With Clinical Instruction and Assessment

Adjunct faculty members make up a growing proportion of nursing school clinical faculty in the United States due to a nurse educator shortage in higher education. Many of the nurses hired as clinical faculty members have years of experience providing patient care, but they lack experience in clinical instruction and assessment. At a state community college in the southeastern United States, nursing students have expressed dissatisfaction in their course evaluations with inexperienced faculty in clinical programs. The experiences of both nursing students under the guidance of novice clinical instructors and clinical faculty were examined in this case study. The National League for Nursing\u27s (NLN) standards for practice for academic nurse educators served as the conceptual framework for this study and was used to develop research questions related to clinical practice and assessment. Data were collected from 9 students and 6 clinical nursing faculty members who participated in anonymous, open-ended electronic questionnaires regarding use of the standards in instruction and assessment. Student clinical experience collective evaluations from 3nursing programs across the state were also used for data collection and analysis. Data were coded and themes were identified and verified through triangulation. Themes were inconsistent with the NLN standards and included no formal orientation, no preparation for the clinical instructor role, use of subjective instructor evaluations, and lack of instructor feedback. Results were used to develop a professional development program to prepare novice clinical instructors for the clinical environment according to the NLN standards. This study may result in positive social change by improving clinical experiences for nursing students in community colleges, resulting in better patient care as they assume their roles in the larger medical community

Keeping New Teachers: A First Look at the Influences of Induction in the Chicago Public Schools

Examines whether participation in a formal induction program can improve teachers' experiences and job satisfaction, and demonstrates that strong levels of mentoring and support for new teachers greatly improve their desire to continue teaching

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT PRACTICES REPORTED BY CHILEAN PRE-SERVICE AND NOVICE IN-SERVICE TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL)

Purpose of the study: The objective of this study is to reveal classroom management practices reported by Chilean pre-service and novice in-service teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). This is associated with their classroom performance and considering the dimensions of people management, instructional management, and behaviour management. Methodology: The present study used a qualitative research methodology and a case study design. The participants were 30 pre-service teachers studying in two Chilean universities and 30 novice graduate English teachers from the same institutions. The data collection techniques were non-participant observations concerning the subjects’ classroom interventions and semi-structured interviews with stimulated recall based on the former. The researchers analysed the collected data by using the ATLAS.ti software for content analysis. Main Findings: The results indicate that most of the pre- and in-service EFL teachers declare the implementation of classroom management practices that employed an interventionist approach. This considering the dimensions of people management, instructional management, and behaviour management. Consequently, the research subjects’ pedagogical actions tend to be more teacher-centred rather than student-centred. Applications of this study: This study is related to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and learning and teacher education. The findings of this research can be useful for English language pre-service teacher education programs and professional development programs. The study suggests the relevance of helping pre- and in-service teachers reflect on their practices to modify their pedagogical beliefs and, consequently, improve the way they teach. Novelty/Originality of this study: This article considers teachers’ classroom management as a comprehensive construct that involves the dimensions of people management, instructional management, and behaviour management. Moreover, the data collection techniques include stimulated recall interviews based on the participants’ classroom observation. These techniques can be useful for educational research. Professional development undergraduate and postgraduate courses can also consider these procedures to help individuals examine their teaching practices, and their underlying beliefs, to reflect on them

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Emergent requirements for supporting introductory programming

The problems associated with learning and teaching first year University Computer Science (CS1) programming classes are summarized showing that various support tools and techniques have been developed and evaluated. From this review of applicable support the paper derives ten requirements that a support tool should have in order to improve CS1 student success rate with respect to learning and understanding

Report on a User Test and Extension of a Type Debugger for Novice Programmers

A type debugger interactively detects the expressions that cause type errors. It asks users whether they intend the types of identifiers to be those that the compiler inferred. However, it seems that novice programmers often get in trouble when they think about how to fix type errors by reading the messages given by the type debugger. In this paper, we analyze the user tests of a type debugger and report problems of the current type debugger. We then extend the type debugger to address these problems. Specifically, we introduce expression-specific error messages and language levels. Finally, we show type errors that we think are difficult to explain to novice programmers. The subjects of the user tests were 40 novice students belonging to the department of information science at Ochanomizu University.Comment: In Proceedings TFPIE 2014, arXiv:1412.473

Cultivating Talent through a Principal Pipeline

This report, the second in a series, describes early results of Wallace's Principal Pipeline Initiative, a multi-year effort to improve school leadership in six urban school districts. The report describes changes in the six districts' practices to recruit, train and support new principals. It also offers early lessons for other districts considering changes to their own principal pipelines