The purpose of this study was to learn about the specific needs and experiences of international teachers and their acculturation into the educational setting of American schools. Major areas of background readings centered on effective induction programs, components of cultural competencies, and individualized and continuous professional…

This report summarizes the survey responses of 68 teacher trainers who provided instruction and guidance to newly hired teachers in August 2012 for the Austin Independent School District.

In 1996, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future's (NCTAF's) first groundbreaking report made five bold recommendations that changed teaching and learning across the country. "What Matters Most" challenged the nation to provide every American child with his or her educational birthright: access to competent, caring,…

Tutor development is an essential part of academic staff development, yet is comparatively under-researched. This article examines what tutors value as most and least important in a program. Using data from more than 300 participants in three years, and using the dimensions or worth, merit and success as an analytical framework, the article…

Despite the ubiquity of teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) globally and the weight of evidence about the importance of training for new expatriate staff in international settings, the process of orienting EFL instructors to new workplaces and unfamiliar cultural surroundings has yet to be researched. This article presents the results…

The special education teaching environment is a teaching environment with unique duties that often challenge novice special education teachers. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to gain clarity of the work environment of special education teachers to uncover professional development practices that would work to support them. Research…

In 2007, the Malaysia government initiated twinned primary teacher education arrangements with five Southern Hemisphere higher education institutions (HEIs). Participating students completed their teacher education in both Malaysia and a partner HEI. In this paper, we consider the preliminary findings of a comparative study tracking the beginning…

Schools and teacher induction programs around the world routinely assess teaching best practice to inform accreditation, tenure/promotion, and professional development decisions. Routine assessment is also necessary to ensure that teachers entering the profession get the assistance they need to develop and succeed. We introduce the Item-Level…

New teachers are common in the teaching workforce (Ingersoll and Merrill 2012). All new teachers will learn about the school curriculum and school policies in their first years. New science teachers, however, need to attend to the "Next Generation of Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013) as they build their instruction and knowledge…

The qualitative study reported here assessed the needs of agents related to new agent professional development to improve the current model. Agents who participated in new agent professional development within the last 5 years were selected to participate in focus groups to determine concerns and continued needs. Agents enjoyed networking and…

This paper describes a mentoring program designed to prepare novice instructors to teach a college geometry class using inquiry-based methods. The mentoring program was used in a medium-sized public university with approximately 12,000 undergraduate students and 1,500 graduate students. The authors worked together to implement a mentoring program…

This study aims to explore how the naturalist approach can be used to improve learning. 60 novice teachers were encouraged to provide a question on a topic in education that interested them. The data analysis was based on a qualitative methodology using ATLAS.ti 5.0. The findings indicated that most of the questions could be accounted for by a…

This paper describes a mentoring program designed to prepare novice instructors to teach a college geometry class using inquiry-based methods. The mentoring program was used in a medium-sized public university with approximately 12,000 undergraduate students and 1,500 graduate students. The authors worked together to implement a mentoring program…

This publication provides a comprehensive analysis of the most important issues facing teachers during the early stages of their careers. The effectiveness of teachers fresh to the profession is an important policy issue, especially knowing the impact that teachers have on student learning. The OECD's Teaching and Learning International Survey…

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact that induction programs have on self-efficacy of new teachers in urban, Midwestern high schools. Because induction programs have been used to measure elements of new teacher self-efficacy, it remains important to study this topic, and explore the information in an urban setting where self-efficacy…