Transitioning to the Teacher Workforce

2010 ◽  
pp. 165-182
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Workforce

Looking at Our STEM Teacher Workforce: How to Model Self-Efficacy

2020 ◽  
pp. 089124242097375
Author(s):  
Brandon Ofem ◽  
Samuel J. Polizzi ◽  
Gregory T. Rushton ◽  
Michael Beeth ◽  
Brock Couch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Teaching Experience ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Turnover ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Teacher Workforce ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Stem Teacher

There is currently a severe shortage of teachers in the U.S. workforce. The problem is especially acute among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers and exacerbated by high turnover among new teachers—those with less than 5 years of teaching experience. In this article, the authors investigate one piece of the puzzle. The authors model a social cognitive approach to understanding self-efficacy, a key precursor to job performance and retention. Their interactionist approach accounts for both demographic (i.e., gender and age) and relational variables (i.e., social networks). The authors test their ideas on a sample of 159 STEM teachers across five geographic regions in the United States. Their analysis reveals patterned differences in self-efficacy across gender that are contingent on the communities of practice in which the teachers are embedded. Together, their theory and findings highlight the value of taking a holistic, interactionist view in explaining STEM teacher self-efficacy.

scholarly journals Education Policy

2015 ◽  
Vol 231 ◽  
pp. R36-R43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Allen
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Educational Outcomes ◽  
Teacher Recruitment ◽  
Traditional Curriculum ◽  
Coalition Partner ◽  
Low Income Families ◽  
Teacher Workforce ◽  
Education Markets

This article summarises the 2010–15 Coalition government's education policy, contrasting their attempts to liberalise education markets with the desire to impose a highly traditional curriculum. The government's quite radical reforms have not been easy to implement, taking place against severe budgetary constraints and a minority Coalition partner with ambitions to improve the educational outcomes of children from low income families. It could be argued that the reforms have been successfully implemented, and there is little prospect of wholesale reversal by any future government. However, their combative approach to reform leaves a demotivated teacher workforce, a possible impending teacher recruitment crisis as the economy recovers, and a tangled web of accountability structures that will need to be resolved.

Changing the Education Workforce? The Relationships among Teacher Quality, Motivation, and Performance Pay

2017 ◽  
Vol 119 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Daniel H. Bowen ◽  
Jonathan N. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Quality ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Risk Preferences ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Performance Pay ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Performance Based Pay ◽  
Teacher Workforce ◽  
And Performance ◽  
K 12

Background/Context With a growing body of evidence to support the assertion that teacher quality is vital to producing better student outcomes, policymakers continue to seek solutions to attract and retain the best educators. Performance-based pay is a reform that has become popular in K–12 education over the last decade. This strategy potentially produces positive impacts on student achievement in two ways: better alignment of financial incentives with desired outcomes and improved the composition of the teacher workforce. While evaluations have primarily focused on the former result, there is little research on whether the longer-term implementation of these polices can attract more effective teachers. Purpose In this study we aim to provide evidence for potential long-term impacts that performance-based pay can have on the composition of the teacher workforce by addressing two questions: Does performance-based pay attract fundamentally different individuals, as measured by their risk preferences, to the teaching profession? Are stated preferences for a particular pay format correlated to measures of teacher quality? Research Design We apply methods from experimental economics and conduct surveys with 120 teachers from two school districts who have experienced performance pay. We compare the risk preferences of teachers hired under the two pay formats to test the hypothesis that performance-based pay attracts individuals with different characteristics to the profession. We also analyze teachers’ survey responses on their preferences for performance-based pay to determine their relationships to two measures of teacher quality: student test-score gains and principal evaluations. Conclusions/Recommendations We find mixed results regarding the ability of performance-based pay to alter the composition of the teacher workforce. Teachers hired with performance-based pay in place are no different from their colleagues. However, teachers claiming to seek employment in districts with performance-based pay in place appear significantly less risk averse. Surprisingly, additional analyses indicate that teachers’ value-added scores and performance evaluations do not predict a positive disposition towards merit pay. Thus, while these results indicate the possibility for performance-based pay to attract different individuals to teaching, they do not provide evidence that such change would necessarily improve the composition of the workforce. Policymakers should take this potential tradeoff into consideration when considering the expansion of performance pay policies.

Raising the Bar on Teacher Quality: Assessing the Impact of Increasing Licensure Exam Cut-Scores

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (7) ◽  
pp. 969-992
Author(s):  
James V. Shuls
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Quality ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Cut Scores ◽  
Praxis Ii ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Licensure Exams ◽  
Teacher Workforce ◽  
The Impact

State policy makers are constantly looking for ways to improve teacher quality. An oft tried method is to increase the rigor of licensure exams. This study utilizes state administrative data from Arkansas to determine whether raising the cut-scores on licensure exams would improve the quality of the teacher workforce. In addition, the study explores the trade-offs of such a policy decision. It is concluded that raising the required passing score on the Praxis II would increase the quality of the teacher workforce, as measured by value-added student achievement. This change, however, would be accompanied with an important trade-off as it would reduce the number of minority teachers and potentially lead to negative outcomes in disadvantaged schools.

Systematic Support for STEM Pre-Service Teachers

2016 ◽  
pp. 541-558
Author(s):  
Reenay R.H. Rogers ◽  
Jodie Winship ◽  
Yan Sun
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
The United States ◽  
Department Of Education ◽  
Development Model ◽  
Stem Learning ◽  
12Th Grade ◽  
Professional Development Model ◽  
Teacher Workforce ◽  
K 12

Developing a strong STEM teacher workforce is essential to improve K-12 (kindergarten to 12th grade) STEM education and to strengthen the STEM talent pipeline in the United States. Based on the successful experience in Project Engage, a grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education, this chapter proposes an authentic and sustainable four-pillar STEM professional development model. Grounded on social constructivist and interactive approaches, this professional development model is intended to cultivate STEM pre-service teachers' ability to provide K-12 students with authentic STEM learning experience as defined in the four types of authenticity (i.e., context authenticity, task authenticity, impact authenticity, and personal/value authenticity) identified by Strobel and his colleagues (Strobel, Wang, Weber, & Dyehouse, 2013).

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