Educational Leadership

as an educational process.

We know that new teachers are still learning to teach no matter what their preparation. We also know that the new generation of teachers differs from the retiring generation in ways that we cannot afford to ignore. New teachers today seek more opportunities for collaboration and put less value on privacy and autonomy. They also come with more varied levels of preparation and career aspirations (Johnson et al., 2005).

These realities underscore the need for new staffing patterns and induction practices that accommodate individual differences. The question of what knowledge new teachers bring to the classroom is less salient than the question of how to help them learn what they need to know to teach effectively. As we tailor induction policies and practices to meet the needs of this generation of teachers, induction can be a catalyst for building professional learning communities in which teachers across all levels of experience work together to ensure powerful teaching and learning. EL

References

Achinstein, B., & Athanases, S. (Eds.).

(2006). Mentors in the making. New York: Teachers College Press.

Alliance for Excellent Education. (2004).

Tapping the potential: Retaining and developing high quality new teachers. Washington, DC: Author.

Breaux, A., & Wong, H. (2003). New teacher induction: How to train, support and retain new teachers. Mountain View, CA: Harry K. Wong Publications.

Bryk, A., & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Conant, J. (1963). The education of American teachers. New York: McGraw Hill.

Feiman-Nemser, S., & Parker, M. B. (1992). Los Angeles mentors: Local guides or educational companions? East Lansing, MI: National Center for Research on Teacher Learning.

Feiman-Nemser, S., & Parker, M. (1993). Mentoring in context: A comparison of

two U.S. programs for beginning teachers. International Journal of Educational Research, 699–718.

Fletcher, S., Strong, M., & Villar, A. (2008). An investigation of the effects of mentor-based induction on the performance of students in California. Teachers College Record, 110( 10), 2271–2289.

Fulton, K., Yoon, I., & Lee, C. (2005). Induction into learning communities. Washington, DC: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

Glazerman, S., Dolfin, S., Bleeker, M., Johnson, A., Isenberg, E., Lugo-Gil, J., et al. (2008). Impacts of comprehensive teacher induction: Results from the first year of randomized controlled study. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research.

Ingersoll, R., & Smith, T. (2004). Do teacher induction and mentoring matter? NASSP Bulletin, 88(638), 28–40.

Isenberg, E., Glazerman, S., Bleeker, M., Johnson, A., Lugo-Gil, M., Grider, S., et al. (2009). Impacts of comprehensive teacher induction: Results from the second year of a randomized controlled study. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research.

Isenberg, E., Glazerman, S., Johnson, A., Dolfin, S., & Bleeker, M. (2010). Linking induction to student achievement. In J. Wang, S. Odell, & R. Clift (Eds.), Past, present and future research on teacher induction (pp. 221–240). New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Johnson, S. M. (2004). Finders and keepers: Helping new teachers survive and thrive in our schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Johnson, S. M., Berg, J., & Donaldson, M. (2005). Who stays in teaching and why: A review of the literature on teacher retention. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education, Project on the Next Generation of Teachers.

Kapadia, K., Coca, V., & Easton, J. Q. (2007). Keeping new teachers: A first look at the influences of induction in the Chicago Public Schools. Chicago: Consortium on Chicago School Research, University of Chicago.

Kardos, S., & Johnson, S. M. (2007). On their own and presumed expert: New teachers’ experiences with their colleagues. Teachers College Record, 109( 9), 2083–2106.

Lortie, D. C. (1966). Teacher socialization:
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Sharon Feiman-Nemser is the Mandel Professor of Jewish Education at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; snemser@brandeis.edu. She is the author of Teachers as Learners (Harvard Education Press, 2012).