New Comer-Teacher Adaptation and Leadership Succession in Higher Educational Institutions through Mentoring as an OS Practice

New teachers have to cope with many issues in the initial phase which discourage them and persuade them to abandon their teaching profession. To transition themselves from a student- teacher to a professional-teacher, the initial years is the critical time of survival for the beginning teacher. It is during this initial phase of their career that they require extra support and caring supervision to adapt easily to their newly chosen roles. The current induction programmes utilised are not adequate enough to successfully evolve the transition of a newcomer teacher into the parent institution. This study utilises the theoretical framework of organisational socialisation and its literature to bridge the gap between teacher transformation and teacher retention, especially engaging the OS Practice of Mentoring. By examining the issues inherent in newcomer-teacher adaptation and the various dimensions of knowledge sharing transition process, from senior teachers (especially HOD) to the juniors in a departmental position, mentoring is found to be the most ideal and effective practice to solve burnout to a great extent, and to ensure successful retention of newcomer teachers. Keywords: Organisational Socialisation, Mentoring, Teacher retention, Newcomer adaptation, transition process.

Survey Methods to Identify Risk of Attrition: Measures of Career Intention and Regret

The common measure of teacher retention as snapshots of those employed in state-funded schools may overestimate attrition by failing to consider a desire for flexibility in contemporary teaching careers. When used as a measure of the effectiveness of teacher education, an over-emphasis on classroom teacher supply may also narrow the curriculum to teacher training rather than the more expansive ‘learning teaching’. This paper discusses two ‘softer’ measures of retention, career intention and training regret, to give a more general sense of how contemporary teachers see their career development as relating to their initial teacher education and professional learning. These measures are generated by adapting survey questions from the OECD’s TALIS and the US’ Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study, simply asking teachers where they see themselves in five years’ time and if they would still choose to become a teacher if they could go back to before they began training. Surveys were administered annually to two cohorts of recent graduates as part of the Measuring Quality in Initial Teacher Education project—three data captures for 2018 graduates, two for 2019 graduates. It is shown how these measures help to mitigate declines in survey response and can give some helpful estimates of teacher attrition with respect to sex, ethnicity, school type, and degree type. The alternative measures are also argued to give helpful indicators of attrition risk before it happens, allowing discussion of how teachers’ career intentions change during their early careers. In particular, it is found that leaving the classroom is a fairly common expectation, but not necessarily because of teacher burnout. It is suggested that asking what teachers can imagine themselves doing is an effective measure for engaging with issues around vocational choice and teaching as a lifelong profession, with implications for how careers in education are conceptualised in initial teacher education programmes.

TORNANDO-SE PROFESSORA: entre a pesquisa acadêmica e a educação básica

O texto analisa alguns fragmentos narrativos produzidos por uma professora iniciante das séries iniciais da educação básica durante as reuniões do seu grupo de pesquisa do doutorado. Ao tomar como campo empírico tais fragmentos nosso objetivo foi explorar pistas que nos permitam refletir sobre como indivíduos tornam-se professores/as quando estão inseridos simultaneamente em dois contextos cuja articulação tende a ser marcada por relações conflituosas e de subordinação: a escola e a academia. A aposta que fazemos é a de que a experiência de biografização que resultou nessa escrita contribua para se pensar outros caminhos teóricos possíveis para a interface pesquisa científica - docência na educação básica, contribuindo, assim, para desestabilizar binarismos enraizados no campo educacional. Palavras-chave: Professor iniciante; Experiência docente; Narrativas (auto)biográficas; Educação básica; Pesquisa acadêmica.Becoming a teacher: between academic research and basic educationAbstractThis text analysis some narratives fragments produced by a beginner teacher of basic education, during her doctoral research team meetings. By the time we set such fragments as empirical field, we intended to exploit traces that allow us to reflect on how individuals become teachers when they are inserted simultaneously into two contexts whose articulation tends to be marked by conflicted and subordinated relations: the school and the university. We defend that the biography’s experience, which came out in this written text, contributes to think other theoretical ways to the interface scientific research-teaching in the elementary education, providing, therefore, the destabilization of binarism grounded in the educational field.Keywords: Beginning teacher; Teaching experience; Self-biographical narratives; Basic education. Academic research.Convirtiéndose en profesora: entre la investigación académica y la educación básicaResumenEl texto analiza algunos fragmentos narrativos producidos por una profesora novel de los primeros grados de la educación básica durante las reuniones de su grupo de investigación de doctorado. Al tomar como campo empírico tales fragmentos, nuestro objetivo fue encontrar pistas que nos permitan reflexionar sobre cómo los individuos se convierten en profesores/as cuando están insertos simultáneamente en dos contextos cuya articulación tiende a estar marcada por relaciones conflictivas y de subordinación: la escuela y la academia. La apuesta que hacemos es que la experiencia de biografización que generó el presente trabajo sirva para que se piensen otros caminos teóricos posibles para la interfaz investigación científica – docencia en la educación básica, contribuyendo así a desestabilizar binomios enraizados en el campo educativoPalabras clave: Profesor novel; Experiencia docente; Narrativas (auto) biográficas; Educación básica; Investigación académica.

A constituição da formação de professores em processos de iniciação à docência

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar o contexto de formação de jovens futuros professores de matemática em processo de iniciação à docência, no que tange os sentidos atribuídos à experiência com o uso da tecnologia por um aluno bolsista, que se dá na relação entre teoria e prática, contextualizadas no âmbito do Programa Institucional de Iniciação à Docência (PIBID). Para o desenvolvimento desse estudo problematizamos: Quais os desafios à inicialização da prática docente em matemática, focado na comunicação matemática? Dentre outros resultados, destacamos que o professor iniciante se constitui numa relação conflituosa entre a formação especifica e pedagógica. Pontuamos ainda, a formação inicial a exigência e a necessidade de um novo perfil de aluno-professor, que nos leva a pensar na formação educacional com a tecnologia e as atividades colaborativas. Tais ambientes educacionais com o uso de tecnologia e prática colaborativa, exigem sem dúvida, a repensar uma nova postura e ações ao enfrentamento da inicialização à docência. This article aims to analyze the context of training of young future teachers of mathematics in the process of initiation to teaching, regarding the meanings attributed to the experience with the use of technology by a student stock market, which occurs in the relationship between theory and practice, contextualized in the scope of the Institutional Program of Initiation to Teaching. For the development of this study, we discuss: What are the challenges to the initiation of teaching practice in mathematics, focused on mathematical communication? Among other results, we emphasize that the beginning teacher is a conflicting relationship between specific and pedagogical training. We also point out the initial formation of the requirement and the need for a new student-teacher profile, which leads us to think about educational formation with technology and collaborative activities. Such educational environments with the use of technology and collaborative practice, undoubtedly require rethinking a new attitude and actions to confront initialization to teaching.

Former Teachers: Exits and Re-Entries

Despite the large literature on teacher labor market in the United States, only few studies have examined the career choices of former teachers and the factors that affect their decisions to return to the profession. This is surprising given that former teachers represent over a third of teachers entering the teaching workforce, according to some estimates. This paper examines the exit and re-entry decisions of former teachers using a restricted-use data from the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study (BTLS). We use a discrete time hazard model that estimates the probability that a former teacher returns to teaching in a given year conditional on not having returned in the previous year. Results suggest that female teachers are more likely to return to the teaching profession by somewhere between 10 and 12 percentage points. We also find that teachers who are highly paid are more likely to re-enter teaching.

Development of Professional Identity and Related Metacognitive Thinking Procedures of English Language Teachers Through Spontaneous Collaboration for Pedagogical Problem-Solving

This research explores potential benefits of the spontaneous collaboration of a small group of teachers regarding their professional identity (PI) and related metacognitive thinking procedures. The researcher conceptualizes the co-operation of PI and metacognition via interactive pedagogical problem-solving and presents spontaneous collaboration processes of a beginning teacher (BT) and an experienced teacher (ET) of English. Based on the qualitative approach, it was revealed that the BT often referred to the ET’s meanings constituting her PI, but through pedagogic experimentations and dialogic meaning negotiations, BT gradually improved her meanings/PI and related metacognitive thinking procedures as identified BT becoming more self-critical and pursuing professionalism. The ET reshaped her meanings/PI through constant monitoring and regulations, stimulated by the BT, and elaborated these and metacognitive thinking procedures by focusing on what to improve. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to professional development.