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May 20, 2008Third in Series of Reports on First-Year Teachers Identifies Two Insufficient Areas of Training - Teaching in Diverse Classrooms and Working With Special-Needs Studen |
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From Ascribe Newsfeed: Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality today released research that points to two specific areas where teacher training may be lacking, according to rookie teachers in the trenches and fresh from training: preparedness for the diversity of the contemporary American classroom and teaching students with special needs. The survey covered 12 areas of teacher training ranging from direct instruction to their study of history, philosophy and policy debates in public education. This final report of the "Lessons Learned" series, "Teaching in Changing Times" focuses on the strengths and possible deficits of the training new teachers say they receive. The first report in the "Lessons Learned" series (http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned1) described the differences between the views and experiences of new secondary and elementary teachers. The second looked at the views of teachers coming into the field from three prominent alternate route programs (http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned2). A highly effective teacher workforce starts with quality preparation and needs to be bolstered with good induction and mentoring programs for new teachers. Most new teachers working in both high-needs and in wealthier schools say they were taught how to teach in an ethnically diverse student body, but new teachers who work in high-needs schools are significantly more likely to say that their training does, in fact, help them, with nearly half (47 percent) saying that their training helps them a lot. We provide direct, immediate access to mainstream national media for 600 colleges, universities, medical centers, public-policy groups and other leading nonprofit organizations.
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