The demanding first years of teaching are a time when many teachers leave the teaching profession or discard the reform-minded practice emphasized in teacher preparation. If we are to lessen teacher attrition and more effectively support teachers during their development, a better understanding of what occurs during their induction into the…

Following our contribution to a study of mentoring in seven European countries, we explored epistemological and ontological inconsistencies within mainstream mentoring systems and their regulated practice in England. We considered how feminist mentoring praxis can unsettle conceptualisations of mentoring relationships and challenge inequity in the…

Public school teaching is a profession in transition. Already the largest occupation in the United States, it is expanding faster than the nation's student population. Teachers of color are entering the profession at twice the rate of white teachers, reversing an exodus after civil rights victories opened many other doors to African Americans. And…

In California as elsewhere, state policy anticipates that aspiring teachers will follow a uniform, multistep path into the profession. It assumes they will complete a preparation program and earn a preliminary credential, take a teaching job and be assigned probationary status, complete a two-year induction program (the Beginning Teacher Support…

School districts across the country are struggling to attract and keep good teachers, a situation that seems to be particularly acute in states such as California and Oklahoma. This is not a good time for schools to be facing a teacher shortage. States have raised K-12 standards to new heights with the expectation that all students will graduate…

In this article, the author provides a conceptual framework to guide the design of coursework to prepare teacher educators. Given the absence of a stronger research base to inform the preparation of novice teacher educators, the author argues that theoretical perspectives focused on K-12 preservice teacher learning can be a useful heuristic for…

Concerns around the provision and retention of quality teachers are global. Amongst these concerns are the preparedness of graduate teachers and the quality and nature of teacher education. The purpose of the article is to focus questions of teacher preparedness and education within a wider discussion around the professional life-cycle of…

Agriculture teachers face challenges at every stage of their career, creating a need for professional development to meet their individual needs. Additionally, research suggests the need for periodic needs assessments to be conducted within individual states. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe, using the Borich needs assessment…

This is the story of a teacher leader who helped lead change in an urban elementary school by creating a new culture of support for beginning teachers. Specifically, she led focused, collaborative inquiry around discussion-based teaching to improve teaching effectiveness, and she created a school-wide coalition of support for beginning teachers to…

Recruit, train, reward, retain. These actions sound like the core competencies of a human resources manager or the buzzwords for economic development initiatives aiming to attract Fortune 500 companies. The same principles apply to finding, preparing and retaining effective educators. All 16 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states have…

Teaching is a highly demanding career, in which as many as 50% of teachers who teach in low-income schools, and more than 30% of teachers regardless of school's income exit the profession in the first five years. First 3 is an induction program for teachers that are in their first three years in the teaching career. This report evaluates the…

Mentoring is a practice widely utilised to support new teachers. However, in locally formed systems, the practice of mentoring is conditioned by traditions and arrangements specific to the site. To understand "good" mentoring, these local arrangements cannot be ignored. In this article, the theory of practice architectures is employed to…

Purpose: Social theory of learning speaks to the social nature of our lives and our attempts to understand both what and how we learn from it. My experiences are built upon and reside with the social context in which they evolved. In this lecture, I will focus on my own experiences and how I interpreted them through social theory of learning that…

A challenge for public schools is to successfully support and professionally develop early career teachers and thereby prepare them for long and successful careers in education. Multiple studies have indicated high levels of turnover in the profession of teaching, especially during the beginning years in a teachers career. The purpose of this…

In June 2020, the Wisconsin Policy Forum published "A Teacher Who Looks Like Me: Examining Racial Diversity in Wisconsin's Teacher Workforce and the Student-to-Teacher Pipeline." The impetus for that research was both the long-standing racial disparities in educational outcomes that have persisted in Wisconsin for decades and a growing…