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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
Saturday, November 25, 2006
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)
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