<p> The purpose of this research was to investigate whether new teacher and new teacher mentor perceptions of the effectiveness of the Missouri State Beginning Teachers’ Assistance Program (BTAP) were positive and whether the new teacher perceptions led to the new teacher remaining in the teaching profession at least five years. At the time of this writing, in the state of Missouri, new teachers must work through a six step process to upgrade their initial teacher certification to a continual (99 year) certification (Appendix A). This paper describes research on the second step of Missouri’s process, which involved the new teacher working with a mentor for the first two years of their careers, to become accustomed to the expectations of a teaching career. </p><p> The method used in collecting data for this was study was three-fold. First, the education department at a local university conducted a new teacher panel discussion. The researcher attended this discussion and noted the results within this paper. Second, secondary data were collected from a conference presentation discussing the perceptions of new teachers and their administrators. New teachers gave their responses, as to how they thought they were performing in their classrooms and their administrators gave their responses, as to how they thought their new teachers were performing. Thirdly, data was collected online from new teachers and new teacher mentors on their perceptions of the Missouri new teacher mentoring program. </p><p> Results from the data in all three collection methods indicated that, while all surveyed districts were using a mentoring process for new teachers, each district implemented their program with varying degrees of effectiveness. Best practices seemed to indicate that a good new teacher and new teacher mentor personal connection was key to helping new teachers succeed in their new profession. The process for how these pairings were created varied from district to district. </p><p> Because of this research, the researcher recommends that individual districts make every effort to find a “good” personal fit between their new teachers and their mentors and that finding this ideal fit is bets performed by the administrator who will be supervising the new teacher and the mentor. </p><p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10633949 |
| Date | 12 December 2017 |
| Creators | Ciolek, Raymond |
| Publisher | Lindenwood University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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