Iran’s establishment can manage fresh teacher strikes

Headline IRAN: The establishment can manage new teacher strikes

Helping new teachers stay and thrive in rural schools

Among the many challenges facing rural administrators, recruiting and retaining teachers is often at the top of the list. Given the time and energy they must invest to successfully attract, recruit, and hire a new teacher, there is a significant need to adopt strategies that will help to retain those new teachers. Rural administrators can support new teachers so that they stay — and thrive — in rural districts by connecting teachers with the community, supporting place-based practices in the classroom, and helping new teachers build relationships both in and out of school.

Mentoring for school-based teacher education

Due to the shortage of teachers at schools, the Ministry of Education and Science in Latvia has devoted special attention to fast track of teachers to teaching starting new teacher education project to attract capable and motivated professionals from various fields to the work of a teacher. This also raised the necessity for the development of programme and training competent teachers to act as mentors in school-based teacher education programme. The study aimed to explore and evaluate mentor education in the context of work-based (school-based) initial teacher education. The research sample consisted of 55 participants of mentor professional development programme and 2 mentor trainers. The data analysis of participants’ questionnaires, reflections, mentor trainers’ self-evaluations and feedback on participants’ assignments led to the guidelines for building partnership between schools and universities to promote a common understanding of school-based teacher education. Keywords: mentor education; school-based teacher education; student teacher; university-school partnership

Love, Hate, and Controversy in a School District: A Teacher Couple’s Messy Divorce

Teachers who are married to other teachers within a school district often experience their personal life events in full view of the school community. How should a principal respond when a math teacher wants to leave due to her divorce, knowing that math teachers are hard to find? Challenges in this case for campus principals and human resource administrators include (a) hiring high-quality teachers in a tight labor pool, (b) providing new teacher induction, and (c) evaluating and responding to performance issues of teachers during times of high emotional stress.

The Impact of COVID-19-Induced Changes at Schools on Elementary Students' School Engagement

In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the shutdown of schools in many countries. Emerging research documents the negative effects of the pandemic and particularly of the shutdown of schools on children's well-being. The present research extends this research by investigating how structural changes made in schools upon reopening to align with COVID-19 restrictions were related to children's emotional school engagement and subjective well-being. An online questionnaire with elementary school children and their parents conducted in Norway in June 2020 (N = 93 parent–child dyads; 46 boys, 47 girls; mean age children = 9.70 years, SD = 1.81) assessed structural changes in schools and children's coping with these changes, emotional school engagement, subjective well-being, self-reported performance in school, and demographics. Results showed that neither receiving a new teacher nor being assigned to a new (smaller) group were associated with negative outcomes. However, children who did not like their new group showed reduced emotional school engagement and subjective well-being, indicating that specific students particularly suffered from the pandemic-induced restrictions. The relationship between liking one's group and SWB was mediated by emotional school engagement. Applied and theoretical implications are discussed.

Challenges for a New Role and New Teacher Competencies: Distance Teaching Experiences

The results of researches on distance teaching from the teacher’s aspect during the state of emergency are presented in this paper, there are the teachers of primary schools, from the territory of Vojvodina (Serbia). The aim is to answer questions about how the respondents assess competencies for distance learning, job satisfaction, and how demanding are the different teaching platforms. The sample consisted of 574 teachers. The questionnaire The teacher’s and educator’s thoughts and experiences on distance teaching during the state of emergency was used. The questionnaire was distributed online. The data was collected from April 2020 until the end of the school year. Respondents assess that they have technical and IT competencies, acquired in informal education and that they need further education. Distance teaching is a professional challenge and is stressful, and the vast majority of respondents prefer regular teaching. The stress level is higher, more work, student engagement, and clarity of expectations from teachers are reduced. Respondents most often used already known communication channels during distance teaching: mail and Viber.

The Icarus Effect Rephrased: Range of Semantic Gravity and Forms of Knowledge in New Norwegian Teacher Education

In the 2000s, several major education reforms have been implemented in Norway. The reform in the teacher education is heavily inspired by the Finnish model, with introduction of a new research-based content, with the aim of developing a new type of professional knowledge, as a basis for teachers’ professional practice. Drawing on Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory, this paper explores the tensions in the new Norwegian teacher education, between knowledge and ways of knowing, by examining students’ practices, expressed in students’ research and development papers in the new teacher education. The paper refutes a one-dimensional concept of experience-based practical knowledge in the teacher education and argues that professional knowledge is based on practices that are informed by specialized and theoretical knowledge.

Mentoringprozesse in der Lehrer:innenausbildung. Gelingensbedingungen für Schulpraktika

School mentoring in Austria is structurally anchored in the curricula of the new teacher trai-ning with the establishment/implementation of pedagogical-practical studies. Partner schools of universities of teacher education and universities offer students space for learning experience through practice and opportunity to complete the curricular parts of school in social environ-ment of schools. Mentors accompany and support the professionalization process and enter into a mutual learning and developmental relationship against the background of curricular re-quirement structures as well as subjective interpretative patterns. Transformational mentoring with a categorical breakdown to guide self-reflection is presented and discussed as a possible form of mentoring.In the research approach, interviews with mentors and students were conducted and evaluated with Grounded Theory. The central result of the study is that those involved in the dyadic rela-tionship want to build up or want to enter into a profession-specific learning and development process with the aim of furthering their own effectiveness and professionalism. Emanating from these studies, (training ) models for mentoring programs were constructed.

Research on Learners and Teachers of Mathematics and Science: Forerunners to a Focus on Teacher Educator Professional Growth

This introductory paper first reflects the genesis of research in mathematics and science teacher education. The analyses show a movement from foci of research in mathematics and science education from students to teachers, and then to teacher educators. Next, an overview of research in mathematics and science teacher education and its development is provided, including teacher educators’ growth. This is followed by a comparative look at the seven papers in this special issue through three lenses, focusing on who the teacher educators in these papers are, the practices which are the focus for development, and the contexts in which the professional growth is situated. The seven papers not only exemplify how teacher educators might critically and systematically reflect on their own growth, educate new teacher educators, and do corresponding research, but also demonstrate the considerable progress the research community has made with respect to the professional growth of mathematics and science teacher educators in the last decade. Finally, challenges and questions are raised, in particular in relation to raising the quality and quantity of proficient teacher educators in order to strengthen teacher education research, and to have enough human resources to offer more and better professional development opportunities and to support schools.