Teachers are perceived by society and in law to be in a position of trust. As a result of the daily interaction with their students, educators have the opportunity to be influential and they are expected to behave in a responsible, ethical and moral manner. Being viewed as a moral compass of society is a significant responsibility and the implications of such a statement are substantial upon not only teachers but also impact on teacher education programs. This study investigates how educational law impacts on beginning teachers in light of the many legal and ethical boundaries that educators will experience throughout their career. The literature review discusses the delicate balance between an educator’s mission and the requirement to follow policies and procedures; documented court cases, which have an impact on educators; and, finally, the educational law component within the teacher education framework. Six participants were interviewed in this study of which two are teachers in their first three years of teaching, two recent graduates, a principal and an official with a teacher union who is a member from the Counseling department. All four of the teachers completed a two-year initial teacher education program. In addition, the principal is a member of the Partnership Advisory Council of the program. Maintaining the delicate balance between an educator’s mission and the law will continue to be a challenge. The direct and indirect statutory rules and regulations which impact on the education system and the supporting landmark court case decisions clearly bring to question the level of preparedness of teacher candidates and indicate a need to examine the role teacher education programs play in preparing future teachers. The major themes include the impact of educational law on the professional and personal lives of beginning teachers, the role of initial teacher education programs, and the legal enablers and barriers for educators. The key findings for each of the themes are discussed. Educators find themselves in a very complex role. The teacher education programs in Ontario need to examine the importance of including meaningful and insightful dialogue about the legal and ethical aspects of being a teacher.

This research study examines the status of mentoring programs for beginning teachers in Manitoba’s public school divisions. Based on reviewed literature, a distinction is made between formal and informal mentoring programs for beginning teachers. The study is a naturalistic inquiry using a semi-structured interview protocol. Twenty four of 38 school divisions in Manitoba participated in the study. Interviewees were asked if the school division had a formal mentoring program in place, the histories, goals and rationales of their formal mentoring programs, and the strengths and challenges of the mentoring programs. If the division did not have a formal mentoring program, they were asked to comment on the way they support beginning teachers and on rationales for not having a formal mentoring program. Based on the school divisions interviewed, the study found that the province was almost evenly split between divisions with formal mentoring programs and those not having formal programs. However, formal programs were more prevalent in urban areas than in rural and northern areas. Mentoring was recognized as a strong support for beginning teachers providing benefits to the beginning teacher, the mentor and the school division. Programs varied greatly from division to division with little or no communication or collaboration between divisions to develop a common program as is done in some other Canadian provinces. The challenges for school divisions to offer formal mentoring programs included time, money, and geography. The study offers five recommendations to support beginning teachers. / May 2017

The purpose of this study is to investigate how beginning teachers' personal teacher efficacy (the abbreviation PTE for personal teacher efficacy) and the organizational health of school (the abbreviation OHI for the organizational health of school) influence teachers' professional identity (the abbreviation PI for professional identity). The participants were 125 middle school teachers from China. They completed online surveys that measured these three variables and some demographics such as gender, salary and school size. The results revealed that there were significant correlations between the OHI and PI, PTE and PI, and OHI and PTE. Except for gender and salary, there was no statistically significant difference in PI between groups of different school size, educational background, type of teaching job, and years of teaching experience. The findings also indicated that OHI mediated the relationship between PTE and PI. Furthermore, a multiple linear regression model was used to predict teachers' PI based on OHI, PTE, and gender. Finally, a statistically significant difference was found on role values (subscale of teachers' professional identity) between tension group (high PTE while low OHI or low PTE while high OHI) and non-tension group (PTE and OHI are at the same level). These findings depict the interactions between PTE and OHI and its influence on PI of Chinese middle school's beginning teachers. The researcher also proposes the next question for further research and makes some practical suggestions for educational policy makers, schools, and individual teachers to improve their PI.

This study investigates various factors related to North Texas State University graduates who were certified to teach and obtains those graduates’ appraisal of the extent to which the teacher education program is meeting their needs. The purposes of this study are to determine the extent to which North Texas State University teacher education graduates are carrying out the personal and professional activities for which they were prepared and to determine the effectiveness of selected aspects of the teacher education program. It is also the purpose of this study to solicit opinions of the graduates concerning the strengths and weaknesses of the program. The findings of the study support the following conclusions: 1. A majority of the graduates are well prepared by the teacher education program to enter the teaching profession. 2. Teacher education graduates have a positive self-concept concerning their success as teachers and they are highly satisfied with teaching as a profession. 3. Student teaching is considered by the graduates to be the strongest and most important course in their preparation for the teaching profession. It was also considered to be the most valuable course by those who are now teaching. 4. Earlier and more frequent classroom observations and experiences should be provided for teacher education students prior to their student teaching experience, especially those who are seeking secondary certification. 5. Graduates indicated a need for upgrading experiences associated with student teaching. Additional time spent in the actual student teaching experience, and more personal observation and feedback by the university student teaching coordinator were areas identified for consideration. 6. Graduates were satisfied with the overall professional education program. Early, basic required education courses drew the greatest amount of criticism from graduates. Only one upper-level professional course failed to meet an adequate mean value rating. Various courses offered composed the weakest or least desirable feature of the program, as revealed by over one-fourth of the graduates.

Teachers are perceived by society and in law to be in a position of trust. As a result of the daily interaction with their students, educators have the opportunity to be influential and they are expected to behave in a responsible, ethical and moral manner. Being viewed as a moral compass of society is a significant responsibility and the implications of such a statement are substantial upon not only teachers but also impact on teacher education programs. This study investigates how educational law impacts on beginning teachers in light of the many legal and ethical boundaries that educators will experience throughout their career. The literature review discusses the delicate balance between an educator’s mission and the requirement to follow policies and procedures; documented court cases, which have an impact on educators; and, finally, the educational law component within the teacher education framework. Six participants were interviewed in this study of which two are teachers in their first three years of teaching, two recent graduates, a principal and an official with a teacher union who is a member from the Counseling department. All four of the teachers completed a two-year initial teacher education program. In addition, the principal is a member of the Partnership Advisory Council of the program. Maintaining the delicate balance between an educator’s mission and the law will continue to be a challenge. The direct and indirect statutory rules and regulations which impact on the education system and the supporting landmark court case decisions clearly bring to question the level of preparedness of teacher candidates and indicate a need to examine the role teacher education programs play in preparing future teachers. The major themes include the impact of educational law on the professional and personal lives of beginning teachers, the role of initial teacher education programs, and the legal enablers and barriers for educators. The key findings for each of the themes are discussed. Educators find themselves in a very complex role. The teacher education programs in Ontario need to examine the importance of including meaningful and insightful dialogue about the legal and ethical aspects of being a teacher.

Reformed teaching is better for students' conceptual understanding compared to the more popular traditional style of teaching. Many beginning teachers wanting to teach reformed conform to traditional teaching within their first couple years of teaching. I argue that this can happen because the emotional labor to continue teaching reformed without support is too high. Having a reformed math mentor can decrease this emotional labor and provide more support to beginning reformed teachers. This study builds on and adds to Hargreaves (2001) emotional geography framework to better understand the emotional closeness/distance beginning and veteran reformed teachers have talking about their practice. The results of this study show the emotional closeness/distance of four emotional geographies: moral, political, physical, professional of two mentor/mentee teachers pairs.

Britt (1998) indicated that to get to the heart of the complex issues first year teachers face, it is necessary to give first year teachers an opportunity to tell their own stories of their experiences as neophytes. The purpose of this study was to share the experiences of first year teachers. Of particular interest was how well these first year teachers believed their teacher preparation program had prepared them. The research question posed for this study was: How do graduates of Mississippi State University describe their first year teaching experience? A multiple-case design was used in this research study. Because this research was exploratory and descriptive, and because it had multiple cases, the replication approach to multiple-case studies was employed. The researcher was the instrument used for the collection of data. Five first year teachers participated in this study. All graduated from Mississippi State University and were teaching for the first time during the 2003-2004 school year. Six major themes emerged from the data. These themes were: (a) a feeling of being overwhelmed, (b) dealing with student misbehavior, (c) concern for student learning, (d) ineffective mentoring, (e) understanding the local culture, particularly in the area of discipline, and (f) lack of commitment to remain in the teaching profession. Three additional concerns of three participants emerged as well. These were: (a) negative student teaching experience, (b) conflict with parents, and (c) difficulties with other professionals. Recommendations included: (a) re-examining the practicum experience throughout the teacher education program, (b) implementing a follow-up program for graduates of the teacher education program, (c) re-examining the critical needs scholarship, and (d) implementing a study concerning student teacher placement.

Several states introduced alternative certification (AC) programs in the mid-1980s to alleviate the teacher shortage situation, and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program is an example of just such a curriculum. Three research questions for this study were: 1) what were the challenges beginning MAT teachers faced? 2) what were beginning MAT teachers? perceptions of their training program?, and 3) what were the beginning MAT teachers? attitudes toward their teaching career? Case methodology was conducted to highlight the research questions. Six beginning MAT teachers that graduated from Mississippi State University participated in this study. Data were drawn from interviews, observations, and a concomitant related document analysis. Results revealed three themes as challenges for the majority of MAT teachers: (a) students? low motivation, (b) No Child Left Behind (NCLB)ountability, and (c) lack of parental support. In terms of perception regarding their training program, all six MAT teachers exhibited gratefulness for their training programs availability, especially for the opportunity to gain teacher licensure. In addition, they reported they were confident about their teaching preparation. However, some teachers agreed that there was room for improvement. All participants suggested the following as potential enhancements for their MAT program: (a) exhibit more specificity concerning program requirements, (b) contain more content knowledge courses, (c) assign a mentor, (d) make the certification process easier and less complicated, and (e) add any training applicable to their future teaching career. Again, these findings could be perceived as guidelines for the improvement of the MAT program and as methods for ensuring effective AC teachers graduate from the training program. Among the six participants, five wanted to quit teaching in the near future, with only one, an older second career seeker teacher, deciding to remain in the profession. Most importantly, she was the only one whose previous educational background and job experience were the same as the subject she taught. The above findings filled several research gaps when compared with previous studies. For example, there is an inconsistency between MAT teachers? licensure area and content knowledge background. Further studies are needed to investigate samples of graduates from other AC programs.

The focus of this study is the phenomenon of beginning teacher competence. In Queensland, the context for the research presented here, the competence of beginning teachers is appraised by their supervisor (usually the principal) at the end of their first year of full-time employment. This appraisal is conducted on behalf of the Queensland Board of Teacher Registration and a positive outcome enables beginning teachers to achieve full teacher registration. Although there exists research suggesting that principals bring to the appraisal process their conceptions of competence, there is a dearth of knowledge about beginning teachers' conceptions of their own teaching competence. The research presented here adds to the debate about competence by including the voice of the beginning teacher. This focus, located within the context of local issues, is used to explore important themes that are relevant to other systems of beginning teacher appraisal. The selection of phenomenography as the research approach adopted for this study is based on its appropriateness to the investigation of a phenomenon such as competence. Phenomenography aims to describe, analyse and understand the ways in which people experience aspects of the world around them. The point of departure that sets apart this approach from many others, is the principle that phenomenography seeks to investigate neither the phenomenon, nor the people who experience the phenomenon, but the relation between the two. The results of a phenomenographic study are presented as a description of all of the possible conceptions that a specific group can have about a particular phenomenon. For the research presented here, eighteen beginning teachers were interviewed individually in order to identify and describe the variation in their conceptions of competence. Research participants representing State, Catholic and Independent school systems were drawn from preschools, special, primary and secondary schools of one provincial city, in one regional area of South East Queensland. Two major outcomes emerged from the research presented here. Firstly, beginning teachers were identified as experiencing competence in a number of ways. Although these conceptions were varied, their number was quite limited. Six distinct conceptions of beginning teacher competence were identified, with a further finding that individual beginning teachers were not limited to one conception, but conceived of competence in multiple ways. Because the relational nature of competence demands that it be investigated within the context in which it is experienced, this study also identified five different approaches to competence appraisal, as understood by the beginning teachers who had undergone the appraisal process. Comparisons of both conceptions of competence and approaches to appraisal were then compared to existing research in this area. This thesis presents an alternative view of competence and appraisal that may be used to further develop the process of appraisal and indeed, the professional development of beginning teachers.

Thesis advisor: Patrick J. McQuillan / Most would agree that pupil learning is a fundamental purpose of schooling. Differences arise, however, when conceptualizing what form that learning should take and how it should be assessed. In recent years, there has been increased pressure to improve pupil achievement through educational reform initiatives intended to ensure that all pupils meet high academic standards through strict accountability measures. This dissertation seeks to understand how teacher candidates/beginning teachers, working in this era of accountability, focus on pupil learning over time. An interpretive qualitative approach was employed to complete cross-case analyses on 55 interviews conducted with five participants over a 3-year period. Based on a sociocultural framework, and drawing on constructivist assessment theories and prior research on learning to teach, this dissertation argues that the end objective of improving pupil learning led teachers to enhance their teaching practice by holding high expectations for pupil learning, building personal relationships with pupils, maintaining strong classroom management strategies, and utilizing formative assessment practices. However, engaging in these practices was often a result of a complex process of negotiation between aspects of the school context that functioned as obstacles and the teachers' moral sensibilities Overall, contrary to claims made by stage theory, the beginning teachers in this study demonstrated that focusing on pupil learning was possible with perseverance, commitment to social justice, development of an inquiry stance and an understanding that learning to teach is a life-long process that involves continuous reflection and professional development. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.