Browsing by Subject "Teachers--In-service training--Texas"
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Item Novice teachers' experiences with telemonitoring as learner-centered professional development(2003) Abbott, Lynda Daisy; Harris, JudiThis multiple-case study examines the experiences of ten novice teachers using telementoring services sponsored by the University of Texas’ WINGS (Welcoming Interns and Novices with Guidance and Support) program for its recently certified new teachers. This protégé-driven service allows new teachers to address self-perceived induction needs by selecting their own mentors from an online database of profiles submitted by experienced-teacher volunteers. The novice teachers in this study exchanged e-mail with their telementors regularly during a period of 15 to 24 months, typically sending or receiving at least one email message per week. E-mail exchanges were facilitated by WINGS staff and were automatically archived on the WINGS server with participants’ fully informed consent. Data gathered and generated for this interpretivist study included interviews with the novice teachers; their archived e-mail exchanges with their mentors and facilitators; information submitted by the protégés as they selected their mentors, plus professional profiles written by the mentors they selected; and interviews with WINGS facilitators. These data were analyzed using a constant comparison method, leading to the emergence of themes, which formed the basis for the study’s findings. Key findings were threefold. First, the participating novice teachers sought induction support online largely because they felt vulnerable when asking for assistance or support in their own school environments, perceiving such requests as possibly exposing them to negative judgment from on-campus colleagues, assigned mentors, or supervisors. Second, these protégé teachers generally felt that their telementors helped them by providing profession-related developmental assistance, ranging from practical teaching suggestions the new teachers could immediately apply in their classrooms to general suggestions that helped them assimilate into the social and professional cultures of teaching. The majority of these novice teachers also felt that their telementors provided them with valuable personal and emotional support, characterized by qualities that included caring, attentiveness, and positivity. The most successful of these telementoring relationships – seven of the ten examined – grew into collaboratively reflective professional-development exchanges. Third, facilitation provided by WINGS staff members was important in preventing telementoring teams’ correspondence from faltering and in resolving technological problems that disrupted telecommunications connections, which occurred more frequently than expected.Item "There is so much you can learn": child care teachers' perceptions of their professional development experiences(2008-05) Nicholson, Shelley Ann; Reifel, Robert StuartThe purpose of this study was to explore the professional development of child care teachers through their descriptions and perceptions of their training experiences. Influenced by frameworks on professional thought and beliefs (Clark, 1988), the following questions guided this study: How do child care teachers working in for-profit centers describe their professional development experiences? Specifically, what sources, contents, formats and amounts do they describe? What perceived relationship of professional development to their classroom practice do they describe? How do they describe the relationship of professional development to issues in the field such as quality and teacher turnover? And what insights can they provide in regards to pre-service and in-service professional development? The sample included 18 child care teachers working in 6 for-profit centers. Data were collected through interviews, and analyzed using qualitative research techniques including comparative analysis. The findings are described in four thematic sections: “Sink or Swim”: (Entry Training Experiences); “Very Good, For the most Part”: (Inservice Training Classes); “It Can Only Make Things Better”: (Importance of Training); and “Everything Under the Sun”: (Professional Development Needs). The teachers’ provided rich descriptions about their experiences both in training classes and within their centers. For many of these teachers, a lack of preservice and minimal inservice training opportunities led to reliance on their own abilities and learning from others in their environment. Training classes were seen as positive experiences overall, however many teachers reported instances of impractical content and disengaging formats. While the majority of these teachers thought that “training is important”, their descriptions revealed a limited influence on practice. Further, while many teachers saw relationships between training and important issues in the field like program quality, these described relationships were tempered by their perceptions of the role that personal characteristics play in how teachers relate to training. In addition, the teachers provided their own ideas about how to meet the professional development needs of child care teachers. The findings of this study have many implications for the field in terms of designing and structuring professional development opportunities for child care teachers to better meet their needs within their particular contexts.