It is estimated the national teacher shortage will be approximately two million by the year 2010. Thirty to 50% of new teachers leave the profession within the first 5 years. In an effort to improve teacher quality and retain teachers, many states and local school districts have instituted induction and mentoring programs. The state of Utah's Early Years Enhancement (EYE) induction and mentoring program went into effect January 1, 2003. This purpose of this study was to examine how secondary novice teachers experience the mentorship requirement of the EYE program. A phenomenological approach was used to illustrate the lived experience of 19 Utah teachers who completed the mentorship and all other requirements of the EYE program in order to earn their Level 2 License and continue on in the profession. Some of the themes that emerged from the participant interviews are congruent with the literature in terms of the benefits of a mentorship. A majority of participants reported their mentorship was beneficial because their mentor was a source of advice and information; their mentor was a confidant who also inspired confidence; and they got along with their mentor. Included in the study are unanticipated perceptions regarding the portfolio and the Praxis II requirements of the EYE program, giving a more holistic picture of what participants experienced during the mentor and induction process.

Attrition rates continue to rise for beginning teachers. It is alarming that almost half of all new teachers leave the profession within their first 5 years. The “revolving door” that is created negatively affects student achievement. The most common solution to decreasing teacher turnover rates is implementing a comprehensive new teacher induction program. Comprehensive induction programs are designed to increase teacher efficacy, promote quality professional development, and facilitate a collaborative work environment among teachers (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2004). The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine beginning teacher induction programs in the state of North Carolina and the factors of those programs that positively contribute to teacher job satisfaction and the intention to remain in the profession as perceived by beginning teachers. Surveys were distributed to beginning teachers in 3 North Carolina school districts who were in their first, second, or third year of teaching during the 2011-2012 school year and who were still employed by their respective school district at the time of the study. Data collected focused on individual components of the induction programs, job satisfaction, and intention to remain in the profession. Pearson correlations and single sample t tests were performed to analyze the data. The results of this study found that isolated components do not positively contribute to job satisfaction, but overall satisfaction with the induction program do predict the intent to remain in the profession.

Diverse mentoring models have been implemented by educational organizations to address teacher retention, but debate continues over which mentoring model is most beneficial. Two school districts in Utah, USA, hereafter referred to as the Asher and Dane (pseudonyms) School Districts, provide distinct approaches to mentoring. Both the Asher and Dane School District have used veteran teachers with full-time teaching loads to mentor beginning teachers. The Dane School District, however, has recently implemented a unique and distinct mentoring model in addition to in-school mentors. In this model, full-time released teacher "coaches" with specialized mentoring responsibilities are assigned by the district to mentor several beginning elementary teachers in one grade band (K-3 or 4-6) throughout the district. This longitudinal research studied the Asher and Dane School Districts' mentoring models to develop a grounded theory to explain how these two distinct mentoring models were related to beginning teacher retention rates. A stratified, random sample was utilized, resulting in 23 participants selected for this study. Interview data were gathered from each participant during their first year of teaching, as well as follow-up survey and interview data in their third year. Beginning teacher attrition data were gathered from both the Asher and Dane School Districts. A constant comparative qualitative analysis method, using NVivo software, facilitated the development of the grounded theory. Findings describe and explain the sources and types of support that beginning teachers in these two distinct mentoring models found most beneficial in their induction, development and retention during their first three years. Beginning teachers reported that key mentoring characteristics included a mentor that had experience and knowledge, particularly in their same grade level, as well as a personal relationship with someone who was open to listening to them and who empowered others. Overall, collaborative teams and in-school mentors were a great source of support for beginning teachers, and teacher retention occurred most often when beginning teachers felt supported by their principals. Beginning teachers also experienced a decrease in stress and increase in both autonomy and confidence with time or years of teaching, experience, and support. Findings suggested that district coaches in the Dane School District lacked proximity, personal relationship, and knowledge of the grade being taught by those they mentored. As a result, they lacked the ability to help induct beginning teachers into their school culture and develop informal networks in the school and ensure retention.

Mentoring was a component of the Resident Teacher Professional Preparation Program (RTP3), a Race to the Top (RTTT) program funded project. RTTT funded efforts reward states that have demonstrated success in raising student achievement and have the best plans to accelerate learning in the future (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Five Florida school districts implemented different variations of the RTP3 mentor model and due to the unique needs of each school district, context differences in effectiveness may have emerged. The purpose of the study was to determine the differences among the five mentor models, the extent to which these differences may relate to variances in mentoring effectiveness, and the impact on persistence of the resident teachers in teaching. School district designee interviews were conducted and mentor and resident teacher surveys were administered. Interview and survey data were analyzed using the grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to determine mentor and resident teacher perceptions of the effectiveness of the RTP3 mentoring support. The findings of the research suggest that the decisions of the five partner school districts to add additional targeted supports to their mentor models had an impact on increased persistence rates and decreased rates of resident teachers leaving the field of teaching. The majority of mentors perceived that common professional learning increased their capacity as a mentor to a moderate or large degree. The findings suggest that resident teachers who had school-based mentors perceived that their mentors were somewhat to very influential in assisting them in being more effective teachers. There were limitations to this study. Five school districts in the state of Florida were used in the study, and the sample of survey and interview participants were limited. Therefore results may not be able to be generalized to other school districts in Florida or other states. Additionally, the objectivity of survey and interview participants may be questioned because the participants were employees of the school district. However, it was assumed that participant's responses to the survey and interview questions were candid. Further research is recommended that would examine variations in school district mentor preparation and selection processes. Further recommendations would include evaluating different mentor models within the same context to better examine the impact of specific components of mentoring programs and considering the effectiveness of the mentee based on not only mentee perception of increased effectiveness, but effectiveness as determined by the school district-adopted evaluation system. Another avenue for future research to broaden and support the findings in this study would be to access whether effective mentoring models differ depending on the context and based on the needs and experiences of the beginning teachers. ?

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One of the areas concerning the medical literacy is the first aid giving. The aim of this diploma thesis is to answer the question whether the skills of beginning teachers concerning the first aid are on a sufficient level and whether the teachers are able to react adequately in emergency situations. The theoretical part describes the bases of these skills. It analyses the accident rate of children, professional training of teachers, new methods and projects how to increase the medical literacy of teachers. The practical part provides the results of a questionnaire survey analysing the first aid skills of beginning teachers. It observes whether the level of teachers is sufficient and whether they are able to react properly in health endangering situations. It also discusses the opinions of teachers concerning the first aid giving and the general vision of the first aid area in school environment. The conclusion of the survey shows that the teachers' first aid skills are not up to standard and that teachers assess the professional training concerning the first aid as insufficient. The thesis offers possible changes which would develop the skills of beginning teachers. Keywords health, health literacy, first aid, health care, beginning teacher

Diploma thesis addresses the issue of initial training of beginning teachers of primary school in Czech schools. Defines the requirements for successful integration of new employees, as well as suggesting possible standard procedures, methods and assesses the possibility of their use in the school environment. It describes the role of supervising teacher and the meaning of its existence. The task of the practical part is to find out with which kinds of educational activities beginning teachers have problems. In interviews with experienced teachers, we tried to clarify whether at the time of their beginnings had the same problems as current teachers and we wonder on what skills and knowledge should be students of faculties of education trained better. Key words beginning teacher, supervising teacher, class teacher, educate teachers, professional competence

Esta dissertação tem como objetivo investigar o processo de formação de professores iniciantes de francês como língua estrangeira (FLE) sob o enfoque do ensino como trabalho. De forma mais específica, pretendemos analisar o papel das entrevistas de aloconfrontação (MOLLO, FALZON, 2004) nesse processo, identificando os questionamentos dos professores quando se veem diante de dilemas do trabalho de ensino vividos por outros professores e a forma como essas entrevistas podem contribuir para a construção de noções sobre o trabalho do professor de FLE. Para a compreensão desse processo sob o ponto de vista dos próprios professores, realizamos nosso estudo no contexto de um curso de francês em extensão universitária. Fizemos uso da aloconfrontação (MOLLO, FALZON, 2004), um método de intervenção formativa baseado na noção de confrontação entre o sujeito e sua atividade realizada por outros, em que, primeiramente, realizamos reuniões de discussão sobre o trabalho a fim de identificar os questionamentos dos professores desse contexto e, em um segundo momento, convidamos quatro professores a assistirem a vídeos de aulas de outros professores e comentarem-nos, possibilitando, assim, que eles verbalizassem seus questionamentos. O corpus desta pesquisa consiste nos textos das reuniões e das entrevistas e foi analisado segundo os pressupostos teórico-metodológicos do Interacionismo Sociodiscursivo (BRONCKART, 1999, 2004; BULEA, 2010). Adotamos como referência pesquisas produzidas no Brasil que consideram o ensino como um trabalho (LOUSADA, 2006, 2011; MACHADO, 2004, 2007) contamos, também, com aportes teóricos da Clínica da Atividade (CLOT, 1999, 2001a, 2008) e da Ergonomia da Atividade (FAITA, 2004, 2011; AMIGUES, 2002, 2004; SAUJAT, 2004). Os resultados de nossas análises permitiram-nos identificar alguns questionamentos dos professores iniciantes de FLE que participaram de nossa pesquisa e observar o posicionamento deles diante de suas dificuldades. Além disso, pudemos observar a construção de noções sobre o trabalho do professor de FLE propiciadas pelas verbalizações e generalizações da experiência vivida dos participantes. Entre outras contribuições, destacamos que a pesquisa confirmou o papel das aloconfrontações como um instrumento (VYGOTSKI, 1934/1997) que contribui para a reflexão sobre outras maneiras de realizar o trabalho do professsor de FLE , portanto para sua formação. / This dissertation goal is to study the process of development of beginning teachers of French as a foreign language (FLE) under the focus of teaching as work. In a more specific way, we aim at analyzing the role of allo-confrontation interviews (MOLLO, FALZON, 2004) in this process. To do so, we tried to identify teachers queries when they face teaching dilemmas lived by other teachers and to study how these interviews can contribute to the construction of notions about the FLE teachers work. In order to understand this process from the point of view of the teachers, we conducted our study in the context of a French open course at the University. We used allo-confrontation (MOLLO, FALZON, 2004), a method of formative intervention based on the concept of confrontation between the subject and its activity performed by others. First, we made some discussion meetings about the work in order to identify teachers queries in this context and, in a second moment, we invited four teachers to watch and to comment recorded classes from other teachers, making it possible for them to verbalize about their own queries. Our research corpus consists of texts from these meetings and interviews which were analyzed according to the theoretical and methodological assumptions of Socio-Discursive Interactionism (BRONCKART, 1999, 2004; BULEA, 2010). Our study is also based on studies produced in Brazil which consider teaching as work (LOUSADA, 2006, 2011; MACHADO, 2004, 2007), as well as in many theoretical contributions from Clinic of Activity (CLOT, 1999, 2001a, 2008) and Ergonomics of Activity (FAITA, 2004, 2011; AMIGUES, 2002, 2004; SAUJAT, 2004). The results of our analyzes led us to two conclusions: we could observe some queries from the beginning teachers of FLE who participated of our research and their opinion on their own difficulties. Besides that, we could observe that the fact participants verbalized and generalized their lived experience allowed the construction of notions of the teacher of FLEs work. Among other contributions, we highlight that our research confirmed the role of the allo-confrontation as an instrument (VYGOTSKI, 1934/1997) that contributes to think about ways of doing teachers of FLE work and to their development.

abstract: This action research study focused on the beginning teacher attrition issues plaguing schools today. Specifically, this project explored a way to support out-of-state beginning teachers, who are traditionally difficult to retain. While there is literature on teacher retention, the retention of out-of-state teachers has not been well examined. Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and Bandura's self-efficacy theories provided a foundational understanding of this group's needs. This study utilized interactive support sessions for six out-of-state beginning teachers that had five face-to-face sessions and required the teachers to submit weekly reflections between sessions using an iPad and app that allowed teachers to design their reflections using digital images, words, and/or narration. These weekly digital reflections, mapping activities collected during the support sessions, a pre- and post-innovation questionnaire, and interviews provided insights on the impact of these supports, as well as changes that occurred in self-perceptions. The results of this study indicate the challenge and complexities of being an out-of-state beginning teacher. The data showed that the teachers must first have had their basic needs met before they could fully explore and settle into their new identities and role as the classroom teacher. The data also indicated that intentionally teaching these teachers strategies around resiliency, stress management, and self-advocacy was useful for navigating their first semester. The supportive community that developed within the group emerged as a significant finding, and showed the importance of support structures for new teachers, especially for those who are struggling with both a new job and new community. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2015