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Book Chapter
Turnover and Shortages among Science and Mathematics Teachers in the United States
After establishing how many teachers depart from their teaching jobs and how these rates compare with other occupations, this chapter presents statistics on the reasons why teachers move from or leave their teaching jobs. These data are drawn from it...
Book Chapter
Collaborative Efforts to Retain New Teachers: A University-School District Partnership
This chapter describes the Teacher to Teacher Program—a collaborative effort between Furman University and two local school districts. The program provides an avenue for improved teacher retention and mentoring. The partnership creates a community ...
Book Chapter
ASIST: An Induction Program for Science Teachers
Quality induction programs are needed for science teachers. This chapter describes one program—Alternative Support for Induction Science Teachers (ASIST)—developed specifically for beginning science teachers based upon their expressed and demonst...
Book Chapter
Honoring Adult Learners: Adult Learning Theories and Implications for Professional Development
Designers of adult learning must consider carefully the research on adult learning and change and factor this into learning designs. In this chapter, the author reviews a classic adult learning model and two contemporary theories—constructivism and...
Book Chapter
The Model Science Laboratory Project: Lessons Learned about Teacher Retention
This chapter presents the Model Science Laboratory Project in the Rice University/Houston Independent School District. The project provided support, training, and time for teachers to refine their instruction of science to urban students in the Houst...
Book Chapter
Beginning Teacher Mentoring Programs: The Principal's Role
Successful teacher mentoring programs require strong leadership. School principals must be prepared to provide this leadership by planning, organizing, implementing, and evaluating a mentoring program that is based on research and best practice. This...
Book Chapter
New science teachers may be retained using a multifaceted approach. First, school districts may use an on-site training program to induct new science teachers. Second, schools may arrange the master schedule to support new teachers. Finally, veteran ...
Book Chapter
Mentoring for Professional Renewal: The Kentucky Experience
This chapter offers an overall perspective on the value of mentoring for new and experienced teachers. It also identifies characteristics of effective mentoring drawn from reports of existing programs, primarily from a statewide teacher induction pro...
Book Chapter
Recruitment and Retention of Secondary Teachers in New York State
The chapter examines how one urban school district in New York State recruits and retains secondary science teachers. The main finding is that the recruitment, retention, and renewal of science teachers is practiced differently at the district and sc...
Book Chapter
Comprehensive Teacher Induction in Five Countries: Implications for Supporting U.S. Science Teachers
This chapter presents a National Science Foundation-funded study of beginning science and mathematics teachers in five countries. The study looks at teacher induction systems that are more comprehensive than most in the United States. For example, th...
Book Chapter
A number of studies concerning the mentoring of beginning teachers and their induction process are found in recent educational publications. A review of this literature guides professional educators as they formulate and implement the work of educati...
Book Chapter
Induction Programs for Science Teachers: What the Research Says
Induction programs play a critical role in the development of professional educators. These programs support beginning teachers as their preservice ideology is challenged and as they experience constraints in working in a new school climate. While in...
Book Chapter
Needs Assessment for Beginning Teacher Assistance Programs
This chapter makes several general suggestions to teams charged with developing beginning teacher assistance programs (BTAPs), then describes four specific types of needs assessment carried out in effective BTPAs—environmental needs assessment, beg...
Book Chapter
A Systematic Approach to Support Teacher Retention and Renewal
Teacher retention and renewal are critical issues facing school districts across the United States, with the need for teacher retention at a time when school districts are also facing a need for teacher renewal. It is imperative that school districts...
Book Chapter
Mentoring and Coaching for Teachers of Science: Enhancing Professional Culture
Mentor programs provide an opportunity to foster a professional culture that focuses on improving the teaching, learning, and assessing of science as well as a means to retain highly qualified new and experienced teachers. This chapter outlines key s...
Book Chapter
Personal Histories Supporting Retention of Beginning Science Teachers
Beginning science teachers enter the classroom with an early professional role identity formed from life experiences in science, education, and volunteer/work settings. These experiences, along with teachers' values and beliefs, can support new scien...
Book Chapter
The Reemerging Cycle of Teacher Supply and Demand: North Carolina Takes Action
This chapter presents a brief history of teacher shortages, particularly in the fields of science and mathematics. It describes numerous efforts by North Carolina, not only in recruiting individuals into the teaching profession but also in retaining ...
Book Chapter
Congratulations! You have secured a position to teach the fascinating world of science to middle school students! Science to young adolescents!?!?...
Book Chapter
Perhaps the most important skill a good teacher should possess is the ability to control students. A teacher who can devise fascinating and unique lesson plans for her classroom is useless if she can't get the kids to sit down and listen to her inst...
Book Chapter
Using Your Community Resources
Within the field of education, it is important for communities to take an active role in developing relationships with the local schools and learning facilities. One good reason in particular is that children and adolescents need to feel that they a...
Book Chapter
Teaming is a method of grouping students so they share the same set of teachers for their core subject areas—science, math, language arts, social studies, and sometimes physical education and health. Most often, teams are created when an entire gr...
Book Chapter
Our lives are ones of uncertainty and surprise, yin and yang existences. Some things we can control and others we are powerless to command, even with the best intentions. Teachers are not exempt from emergencies, jury duty, and illness. Luckily, m...
Book Chapter
Front-page articles in science and education periodicals and journals give voice to the growing concern that scores on nationwide science exams have either declined or, at best, have had a minute increase even after several years of pushing for bette...
Book Chapter
Whether your assigned classroom is for science labs or there is a specific lab area shared among several teachers, you need to set up properly for group experiments and other hands-on activities. There are several ways to set up lab groups in various...
Book Chapter
Cooperative Learning and Assessment
Cooperative learning in its simplest sense is two or more students working together on an assignment. In an expanded definition, cooperative learning becomes an opportunity for students to interact with one another intellectually and socially under ...
Book Chapter
Writing, as we all know, is an integral part of any discipline. And, because of the important role that writing up lab reports and research plays in the field of science, you must help your students work on writing throughout the year. This chapter...
Book Chapter
Adapting Labs and Troubleshooting
A great deal of information is available on how children learn—brain research, multiple intelligence aspects, concrete versus abstract thinking, environmental stimuli, and so on—but one key feature can be gleaned from all of the studies, and that...
Book Chapter
One common misconception in the middle school science classroom is that students magically will know how to do many of the seemingly easy tasks teachers assign. In reality, even the simple direction of using written resources to gain background info...
Book Chapter
One of the most challenging activities in the middle school science lab is taking measurements. A simple ruler can send students into a questioning mob around a teacher, not unlike a shark-feeding frenzy. Student activities that require using and r...
Book Chapter
This section includes resources that any new teacher would want to have at their fingertips. It offers reproducible lists, quizzes, and forms. These resources will assist in making the first year of teaching a smooth and successful one....
Book Chapter
This section offers practical resources that will be quite valuable during those first few months of teaching middle school science. Here you will find recipes that include salt crystals, culture medium, fun putty, and the ever-popular "oobleck". T...
Book Chapter
The Importance of Everyday Assessment
Assessment for learning is set in the context of conflicts and synergies with the other purposes of assessments. The core ideas are that it is characterized by the day-to-day use of evidence to guide students’ learning and that everyday practice mu...
Book Chapter
As a context for thinking about the claims made in this book, some of the circumstances that have influenced the demand for and character of assessment in general are noted. The argument is then made that the substantial lack of coherence in today’...
Book Chapter
Learning Through Assessment: Assessment for Learning in the Science Classroom
This chapter presents an extended example from a middle school science classroom of what assessment that supports learning looks like. In the example, the teacher models assessment for learning by talking about learning with her students; showing sam...
Book Chapter
Examining student work is an essential aspect of teaching, yet it is easy to miss opportunities to learn about how students are interpreting—or misinterpreting—the lessons we present to them. In this chapter the author shares insights concerning ...
Book Chapter
This chapter provides an overview of frameworks that teachers can use to conduct assessments of students’ engagement in scientific inquiry. The author examines two factors that are central to such assessment. One factor is the design of classroom l...
Book Chapter
Using Questioning to Assess and Foster Student Thinking
Questioning can be used to probe for understanding, to initiate inquiry, and to promote development of understanding. The results from questioning, listening, and assessment also can be used by teachers to promote their own growth as professionals. T...
Book Chapter
Involving Students in Assessment
While much of the responsibility for classroom assessment lies with teachers, students also play an important role in meaningful assessment activity. Bringing students into the assessment process is a critical dimension of facilitating student learni...
Book Chapter
Reporting Progress to Parents and Others: Beyond Grades
As science education moves increasingly in the direction of teaching to standards, teachers call for classroom assessment techniques that provide a richer source of “rigorous and wise diagnostic information.” Student-to-student comparisons and si...
Book Chapter
Working with Teachers in Assessment-Related Professional Development
Professional development related to everyday classroom interactions can require a shift in the teacher’s priorities in the classroom from a focus on managing activity and behavior to a mind-set of managing learning opportunities. This essay looks c...