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Why Is Teacher Development Important?: Because Students Deserve the Best
Teacher preparation programs provide educators-to-be with the tools, mentors, and hands-on experience they'll need once they begin their career.
by Edutopia Staff
Great teachers help create great students. In fact, research shows that an inspiring and informed teacher is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement, so it is critical to pay close attention to how we train and support both new and experienced educators.
VIDEO: Teacher-Preparation Overview: A Survey of Top Programs
Running Time: 9 min.
Teacher Preparation
The best teacher-preparation programs emphasize subject-matter mastery and provide many opportunities for student teachers to spend time in real classrooms under the supervision of an experienced mentor. Just as professionals in medicine, architecture, and law have opportunities to learn through examining case studies, learning best practices, and participating in internships, exemplary teacher-preparation programs allow teacher candidates the time to apply their learning of theory in the context of teaching in a real classroom.
Many colleges and universities are revamping their education schools to include an emphasis on content knowledge, increased use of educational technologies, creation of professional-development schools, and innovative training programs aimed at career switchers and students who prefer to earn a degree online.
Teacher-Induction Programs
Support for beginning teachers is often uneven and inadequate. Even if well prepared, new teachers often are assigned to the most challenging schools and classes with little supervision and support. Nearly half of all teachers leave the profession in their first five years, so more attention must be paid to providing them with early and adequate support, especially if they are assigned to demanding school environments.
Mentoring and coaching from veteran colleagues is critical to the successful development of a new teacher. Great induction programs create opportunities for novice teachers to learn from best practices and analyze and reflect on their teaching.
Ongoing Professional Development
It is critical for veteran teachers to have ongoing and regular opportunities to learn from each other. Ongoing professional development keeps teachers up-to-date on new research on how children learn, emerging technology tools for the classroom, new curriculum resources, and more. The best professional development is ongoing, experiential, collaborative, and connected to and derived from working with students and understanding their culture. Return to our Teacher Development page to learn more.
New Teacher
Submitted by Stacey Francis (not verified) on October 1, 2008 - 20:20.
I am an educator who entered the profession through an alternative preparation program after having worked as a Social Worker for a number of years. While I feel that having the teacher prep programs spend much time helping teachers to become content experts, I feel that it is also very important for educators to get some real world advice on how to deliver content, fill out essential paperwork such as IEP's and development plans and also how to deliver the content to students in a variety of settings.
I agree with one of the other teachers who stated that I think that teacher inservice days could be used to reeducate teachers in specific content areas and allow them to cross plan with teachers from the special education department.
Stacey Francis
Hampton, Georgia
Mentor Program
Submitted by Ashley Brooks (not verified) on October 1, 2008 - 16:06.
I was very lucky to be provided with a wonderful mentor my fist year teaching. She helped me create effective lessons and utilize creative and fun strategies in my classroom. She helped me to prepare my first year and I have used many if not all of the same techniques and activities this year. Currently, I am working on my master's degree. I feel teacher development is so crucial to ensure that our students are receiving their best education possible.
Teacher Induction Programs
Submitted by Carla Liming (not verified) on October 1, 2008 - 13:52.
I agree that many times the novice teacher is overwhelmed with all that they are faced with their first year. Our school uses a mentoring program to support new teachers and I believe this is helpful. However, sometimes a new teacher is assigned a mentor who is not within her grade level or subject. Assigning a new teacher a helper within their grade level or subject would be beneficial. This person would help the new teacher be informed of procedures that all oters take for granted. Many times new teachers know their subject very well but are discouraged by all the day to day teaching. It can be overwhelming when you are not prepared for it. One thing that I would like to see many education schools use would be to bring more current teachers to the college classroom to talk about strategies that they use within the classroom that work.
Teacher Development
Submitted by Katie Chrostowski (not verified) on September 30, 2008 - 18:58.
I felt that it was refreshing to finally see some one equate the teaching profession to what doctors do in surgery. You would not want a first time, fresh out of college, no experience of surgery of any kind working on your heart surgery. More than likely, you would want the well schooled, and highly trained surgeon who has had lots of supervised practice working on your vital organ.
The same goes for teachers as well. There are programs out there where people who have a degree in something different than education, can come to the classroom with little or no training and obtain an alternative teaching license WHILE teaching a classroom of children. More often than not, these inexperienced teachers are placed urban environments where teaching can be even more difficult due to lack of classroom management issues.
The moral of what I am trying to respond with is, that teaching children is just as tedious and important of a job as a surgeon trying to save someone's life. We are laying the foundation for these children lives and it is our responsibility to be as experienced and qualified as possible.
Ongoing Professional Development
Submitted by Toni Malvestuto (not verified) on September 30, 2008 - 17:26.
I am currently working on my master's degree in education in the area of Integrating Technology in the Classroom. In the program, I was watching a video of Sonia Nieto (Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture) speaking about teacher expertise and professional development. As she was talking about the importance of professional development and the rapid changes in technology, she stated that the top ten jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. That statement says a lot about how fast the world is changing. We can not stay stagnant as teachers. I believe that professional development has to be continuous if we are going to be successful educators.
Ongoing Professional Development
Submitted by ? (not verified) on October 1, 2008 - 09:51.
I am also working on my master's degree. I agree that if we are going to be successful that we must continue an ongoing professional development. We gain helpful and useful information such as new instructional strategies that we can use in our classroom.
Math/Science
Submitted by Sharron Keim (not verified) on September 30, 2008 - 18:20.
I agree that being a lifelong learner is the key to being a succesful educator especially where technology is concerned. Communication with parents is through email more than phone or personal contact. Creating effective lessons means using technology for eye-catching moments and eye-pleasing papers (if teachers want the student's papers to look neat, then the hand-out ought to as well). Engaging students through the use of technology is an essential part of a regular classroom almost daily. Not to mention, keeping up with the students interests in order to engage them, a teacher should know what they enjoy doing (types of music, websites, hobbies, etc.). Also knowing these items will help teachers to monitor and/or report inappropraite behvaviors. Technology is changing everyday so it will be an area to revisit consistantly.
Teacher- Induction Program
Submitted by carmella (not verified) on September 29, 2008 - 15:02.
When I began my first year of teaching, one of the requirements from my district was to complete a Mentor program. First year teachers met about once a month and participated in various workshops. Being inexperience, I learned a great deal from this program such as communicating with parents, classroom management, and differentiating instruction. It was a great experience not only to share insights with other novice teachers but our mentors attended the meeting too. Working collaboratively with other professionals that shared similar concerns and experiences, made the first year go more smoothly.
I Belong in the Classroom
Submitted by Cheryl Fidler (not verified) on September 27, 2008 - 10:38.
I taught for my first 2 years in an inner city school. My training both at college and during my student teaching did not prepare me for teaching mostof the children who come to school for the soul purpose of being babysat. There was no inservice days for me prior to starting school. I was given curriculum guides and sent on my way. There was one mentor teacher in our school who didn't give me any support until I sought him out. After leaving the profession to raise a family, I swore I would never teach again. Here I am 9 years later earning a Master's degree so that I can reenter the teaching profession.
I had realized that after long term substituting at my son's school, that not all school districts are the same. I received a tremendous amount of help from not only my teaching team but the mentor teacher at our school. She gave me the same attention and support that a newly hired teacher would have received. It was not until then that I realized how much I belong in a classroom.
Early Teaching Experience
Submitted by Ujema Pepe (not verified) on September 28, 2008 - 12:03.
I read with great interest the experience Cheryl Fidler experience during her first two years in an urban school setting. As a teacher who has always taught in the urban setting I can relate to your experience. However your experience happens in all setting to many new teachers allover this country. I've maintained that the training you get at college is focuses on the ideal school system, but when you get to the real world classroom you have to take time to study the social and political environment of that school in order to create for yourself a way of functioning in that school. Once you've spend sometime in that setting and have learned from your experience each succeeding years will become easier for you. I am glad you have decided to renter the school system; I wish you all the best.
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