Section archive - Beginning Teachers

This paper describes the efforts to improve beginning teachers' induction experiences across the state of Illinois. This article describes the challenges faced by Illinois state-funded induction programs and the response of Illinois New Teacher Collaborative (INTC). The authors claim that this unique collaboration of organizations with broadly different interests continues to work together in the name of beginning teacher induction. However, the Illinois funded programs still have many unresolved and ongoing challenges, such as state funding cuts and low traffic in INTC's Website.

The current case study reports how 5 first-year kindergarten/primary teachers utilized knowledge and skills from their teacher preparation program as a means of approaching curricular decision-making for instructional practice.

This article explores the potential value of mobile technologies in supporting work-based learning. The authors describe a small exploratory study that they conducted in health care education in which medical students work in hospital practice. The results reveal that co-assistants in both the survey and the pilot are most positive about the potential role of the PDA in searching for clinical information, such as reference books, guidelines or protocols, and rules of thumb. However, most co-assistants do not see the PDA as a valuable tool for communicating with others.

The current paper investigates the perceived confidence levels of student teachers in their final year, prior to entering the profession in regard to meeting the needs of children with a range of complex needs. The research forms part of a three-year project supported by ESCalate.