This project will study the impact and effect of the use of induction for first year middle grades mathematics teachers in three districts in Tennessee and Kentucky, including rural and urban settings. The purpose of this proposal is to study the links of components of induction to improved instruction and student achievement. In the first year the team will develop a conceptual framework for the study of the induction process and adapt and refine a coherent, integrated set of research instruments. During the course of the project they will 1) draft the instruments; 2) validate these ideas and findings through focus groups; 3) hold a working conference to share ideas, and to assess the face and content validity of the instruments and 4) conduct two rounds of cognitive interviews to refine the instruments. In years two to five they will study the sources of support for new math teachers' content and pedagogical content knowledge development, including mentorship, formal and informal interactions with other teachers and other aspects of school and district induction. They will build on earlier work to explore how the quality of these supports influences the development of middle school math teachers' content and pedagogical content knowledge, the content and quality of their instruction and their students' achievement. They will initiate a longitudinal study of all new middle school math teachers in each of three districts (estimated at 15 new teachers per district), using their portfolio of research instruments. In the second and third years of the longitudinal study, they will add an additional cohort of beginning teachers in each district as well as continue to follow the teachers who they began to study the prior year, for a total of 135 teachers across the four-year longitudinal study.
This study developed a research-based conceptual framework for studying induction. It simultaneously builds the capacity of the field to study math teachers’ induction activities—with broader implications for investigating teacher learning at all stages of their careers—while contributing specifically to what we know about the effectiveness of induction activities in increasing math teachers’ content and pedagogical content knowledge, improving their instruction and bolstering student learning. Accordingly, the first year of the study was devoted to adapting and refining a coherent, integrated set of research instruments. The second year began a four-year longitudinal study of all beginning middle school math teachers in each of districts. Findings include: Divergent perceptions exist among beginning teachers, their mentors and principals relative to the challenges that they experience and the types of supports that are available to address them. Teachers often rely on informal mentors for support with teaching and non-teaching challenges. These informal mentors may be colleagues in their halls or on their teams. Few of the 11 Districts in our study provide any math content-focused professional development or induction experiences. The dominant challenges that beginning teachers experienced included classroom management, locating resources and materials for their classrooms, pacing and lesson planning, and teaching students of diverse ability levels. Mentors and principals view classroom management as the dominant challenge that all new teachers experience and did not seem to differentiate the challenges of their new math teachers. Most of the challenges were heavily interrelated with one struggle simply exacerbating another (e.g., low ability levels of students increased anxiety and struggles related to pacing). The teachers in our sample did not receive professional development in their primary challenge areas, which has serious implications for their job satisfaction, effectiveness, and retention in the profession. While future analyses should focus on teachers’ selection and access to high quality professional development in relation to their needs, organizational contexts and policy environments, these findings suggest that teachers are not receiving the assistance they need from their districts and schools. We do find that informal mentors generally provide more mentoring than formal mentors, especially on the topics of classroom management, parent involvement, emotional support, and instructional support in math, and that informal mentor support is perceived to be more helpful than formal mentor support in classroom management, emotional support, and support focused on understanding school or district expectations for teachers. Math instruction and classroom management receive more coverage than any other topic; however, the math-related support teachers receive is primarily focused on what content to teach, as opposed to the topics that are most likely to increase their pedagogical content knowledge (e.g., common misconceptions students have about particular math concepts and how to address these misconceptions). The beginning middle school math teachers in our study started their careers with higher ratings of their classroom environment practices than instructional practices, based on coding utilizing the Classroom Assessment Scoring System – Secondary (CLASS-S). We also find substantial growth in emotional support, classroom organization, and in cross-subject specific instructional support. From their first days teaching to the end of their third year the math teachers in our study had a predicted growth between .625 (emotional support and instructional support) and .825 (classroom organization)—the equivalent of 75 to 85 percent of a SD of the corresponding CLASS-S scores coded during fall of their first year teaching. In contrast to the growth seen on the CLASS-S measures, we find little evidence of growth in content-specific instructional practices. The typical teacher in our study selected mathematical tasks for their students with that were rated low on cognitive demand according to the Instructional Quality Assessment (IQA) and then, in many cases, proceduralized those tasks by first demonstrating a procedure and then having their students practice the procedure on the selected task. Further, on the aspects of classroom discussion that the IQA measures, including level of class participation, amount of teacher and student discourse, and amount of teachers’ and students’ linking to prior knowledge and broader mathematical ideas, teachers scored low across their first three years teaching—signifying little press for student explanations and understanding during whole class discussion. We then investigated the relationship between supports typically provided new mathematics teachers—including mentoring, professional development, opportunities to collaborate with other math teachers, and leadership support—and the extent to which teachers implement reform-oriented math instructional practices (as measures by the IQA). We found little improvement in the instructional quality of mathematics lessons during the first 3 years of teaching and that these supports, as they are currently delivered, did not appear to help beginning middle school mathematics teachers improve their instructional quality. We did find, however, that teachers who more frequently engaged the students in more rigorous instructional activities had greater growth in their students’ math achievement.
