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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > November > 25 > Entry
How to make a teacher
At first glance, it would seem a new Hoover Institution study contradicts research I’ve written about in the past that showed new teachers need more than just content knowledge to be effective in the classroom.
But when you look at the recommendations from Hoover, I think the researchers from prior studies might agree with their conclusions.
Hoover looked at reading and math scores in New York over five years for elementary grades and found teachers who followed “alternative” certification routes (usually shorter and less instructive than what traditional certification requires) did as well as their traditional teacher peers after two years when it came to raising student test scores. The report argues there should be minimal standards for getting into the classroom but careful selection after two years of just the high performers to continue as teachers.
A couple of things jumped out at me here. The first is that the teachers in the study had at least some sort of “alternative” training, which is different than the no training some opponents of certification argue for. Second, the report notes that teachers with alternative training perform less well than their traditional peers at first but that the differences disappear in two years.
That actually jives with the Michigan study I cited in the past, which shows new teachers who knew their subject matter well (usually a good predictor of teaching success) but were untrained struggled at first to help kids learn. That study suggested there are some core teaching skills new teachers must learn to be effective.
Both the Michigan and the Hoover studies seem to suggest that new teachers with good content knowledge may be able to learn those teaching skills pretty quickly. In the Hoover study, it looks like ones who made it through two years had probably begun to discover effective teaching strategies on their own.
And both studies seem to at least hint that it’s a good idea to identify those alternative route teachers who are succeeding and support them, while counseling those who don’t measure up to find a different line of work.
(Image credit: www.gamedip.com)
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Comments
By MJ
November 27, 2006 6:10 PM | Link to this
Potential teachers first need to have a positive service mentality, a love for self a love others, and an ability to learn and share what they have learned. Their educational degree program must require an paid intern or on the job program after their first year of sucessful college work. Potential teachers will be constantly monitored so that problems could be corrected. Self elimination or counselling out of education should take place before too much time or money is invested in the education program. The pay should be attractive enough so as to attract those with great potential.By Terri
November 27, 2006 5:33 PM | Link to this
The proposed internship would not replace student-teaching. It would rather include a year in which the first year teacher would co-teach with a seasoned professional: all-day, every-day, all year long. The second year would have the intern have their own class with time given to both mentor and mentee to conference with and observe the other. Obviously we were instructed to ignore financial and personnel limitationsBy Nettie
November 27, 2006 10:38 AM | Link to this
I would guess this to be true with almost all professions that require a degree. What you learn at college helps, but you really need immersion before your career can completely take off. Student teaching is the current method, but it is filled with flaws. Therefore, Terri, your internship would have to be designed in such a way that would truly be more effective than the intern teaching while the “master” talks in the office and takes a variety of coffee breaks.By Oldprof
November 25, 2006 8:10 PM | Link to this
Yes. We have no sense of history, and as the old saw goes, “those who don’t learn from the past…” The fact is that teachers learn NOTHING about actual teaching in their education courses—they learn “about” theories and concepts, but real teaching is a psychomotor skill, not a cognitive one. Back in the 1950s, it was understood that a new teacher would be mentored by the experienced faculty. Unfortunately, nowadays, with the average teacher leaving the profession after 3 years, there are too few senior faculty to do the mentoring. An internship program, or some other hierarchical pattern of progressing through the profession, would make a lot of sense—IF the people in charge were those who know about teacher, e.g., experienced teachers—and NOT the education-scholars, the pundits, and the abysmally ignorant of the Fordham or Friedman foundations. Hey, who do you want to be in charge of teaching “the ropes” to the next generation of auto mechanics—some current ASE certified mechanics, or some “car theorists”?By Terri
November 25, 2006 4:07 PM | Link to this
I attended the National Board Certified Teachers Policy Summit in Columbus on Nov. 16. The discussion group I participated in dealt with new teachers - specifically how to improve their quality and how to keep “good” ones in the teaching profession. One of the proposals that came out of the session included a two-year internship program for new teachers. The only way to develop the skills necessary to teach successfully is to teach under the auspices of a good, experienced teacher. Colleges and universities give them the theory, real life turns it into practice. This seems to jive with the study you describe, Scott.