- Year 2017
- NSF Noyce Award # 1439790
- First Name Victor
- Last Name Donnay
- Discipline Other: Education
- Co-PI(s)
Greer Richardson, LaSalle University, drgreer99@gmail.com
Sheila Vaidya, Drexel University, sheila.rao.vaidya@drexel.edu
Susan Varnum, Temple University, susan.varnum@temple.edu - Presenters
Greer Richardson, LaSalle University, drgreer99@gmail.com
Need
A key area of need that PRNP identified was supporting new teachers. Research by Ingersoll and others show that large numbers of new teachers (9.5%) leave the profession in their first year and between 40-50% leave within the first five years. PRNP’s work with the scholars in our programs was consistent with these
findings: teaching in a high needs school is challenging work and without appropriate supports, new teachers are at risk of low job satisfaction, burn out and leaving teaching altogether. This program benefits new teachers, students, schools and school system.
Goals
The Philadelphia Regional Noyce Partnership developed a new teacher support program that provided flexible, individualized supportive services to
new first and second year Noyce teachers so as to increase their persistence and professional growth as STEM professionals in the Philadelphia region. These new Noyce teachers have had increased opportunities to participate in mentoring, professional development, communities of practice and social networks with regional STEM professionals in lived and virtual environments.
The new teacher support model included the following activities:
1. Development of an Individualized Support Plan (ISP)
2. Mentoring including Mentor Training Model Development, Mentor Training and new teacher Mentoring Support
3. Professional Development on a monthly basis and at least 4 other times during the year
4. Outreach and Networking
Approach
While our new teachers have many things in common, they differ in many ways. They come from different teacher preparation programs, they work in a range of school environments (public, private, charter); serve different cultural and ethnic populations and have different personal motivations for teaching. Therefore a one-size fits all approach to support is simply insufficient to retain and sustain these new teachers. In the New Teacher Support Program we asked teachers to identify their needs and to gain agency in meeting those needs by working with their mentor on those growth areas. Mentors were trained to listen carefully to what the expressed needs of the teacher were and to support them in those areas. The social and emotional needs of teachers were also addressed since we know from research that burn out caused by the overwhelming nature of the first few years of teaching is real and teachers need to be able to care for themselves if they are to remain in the profession.
Outcomes
Of the 28 teachers who participated in the program over the course of 3 years, only 4 teachers are no longer teaching. The program worked diligently to support teachers who thought they might leave, in some cases helping them find counseling services in addition to their mentoring supports. This gives us an 85% retention rate, which is well above the 50-60% retention for new teachers during the first 5 years, as reported in studies by Richard Ingersoll and others (Ingersoll, R. and Strong, M., 2011. ‘The Impact of Induction and Mentoring Programs for Beginning Teachers: A Critical Review of the Research.’ Review of Education Research. Vol. 81(2), 201-233.) In addition in reducing ‘churn’, we have developed a model that provides lessons for supporting new teachers induction and informs pre-service programs.
Broader Impacts
Thousands of students, schools where our Noyce Teachers teach, their colleagues, and their communities are richer when teachers remain in the profession. Students get the benefit of a teacher who is reflective about their practice and who has stayed in teaching long enough to get familiar enough with the day to day to focus on critical needs of their students. These teachers become leaders in their schools and reach out into the community once they have found their identity as a teacher and gain confidence through support.
We have presented our findings and information about our model at the University of New Mexico Annual Mentoring Conference for two years and share information on our website.
