This mixed-methods study examined 55 first-year teachers' (FYTs) experiences with teacher evaluation and their perceived influence of evaluation on their teaching. Analyses revealed that FYTs who experienced higher-quality feedback within their teacher evaluation system reported different experiences and emphases than their peers who received lower-level feedback. These FYTs reported more consistency between the classroom practices they perceived as important and those emphasized in the teacher evaluation system, whereas their peers reported a significantly higher emphasis on student scores on standardized tests. We characterize the experiences of FYTs who did not receive high-quality feedback as lost opportunities to support their development.

Although teachers are expected to teach mathematics ambitiously, it is challenging for them to do so. Given that the first year represents a critical juncture between teacher preparation and inservice teaching, it may be particularly challenging to teach ambitiously. Understanding the nuanced characteristics in lessons taught by first-year elementary teachers identified as being generally ambitious can inform how mathematics teacher educators and school mentors support them. A thematic analysis of 15 transcribed lessons revealed instructional moves that were more and less prevalent. Task-level findings indicated that while first-year teachers solicited student input, encouraged them to participate in discussions, and had them attend to cognitively demanding tasks, they seldom assigned open-ended and non-procedural tasks. Students also had few opportunities to grapple with the mathematics. Turn-level findings indicated that first-year teachers maintained the task potential, facilitated student participation, and promoted student authority and perspectives. They further aimed to deepen students’ mathematical thinking, albeit the subtle ways they did so sometimes were apparent across lessons (e.g., encourage students to continue to problem solve) and other times were limited (e.g., provide an opportunity for students to agree or disagree). © 2024 Research Council on Mathematics Learning.

Teachers can make number talks more ambitious and increase learning opportunities for students by debugging errors, promoting multi-student thinking, and orienting to make connections. This article describes the basic number talks routine and examines some common tendencies, such as "Serial Sharing." It concludes with a vignette to illustrate these moves, along with ideas for how and why teachers might use them.

Number talks offer one way for beginning teachers to engage in ambitious instruction (Lampert et al., 2010) that fosters students' conceptual understanding. This paper explores: (1) features of the number talk routine and (2) how beginning teachers' enactment of number talks are aligned with ambitious instruction. The authors utilized Cazdan's (2001) sequential and selectional dimensions to systematically analyze videos of 17 number talks enacted by seven beginning teachers. Findings indicate that the number talk routine consisted of introducing, collecting, idea sharing, and closing phases. Additionally, using the M-Scan instrument (Berry et al., 2013) to measure whether lessons were ambitious, the authors found that more ambitious lessons included number talks where teachers supported multiple students to engage in another student's strategy rathter than simply shaing individual strategies. We discuss several important implications for mathematics teacher education and research on ambitious mathematics instruction.

Informational reading instruction plays an important role in early literacy but has traditionally received less emphasis than literary text in elementary classrooms. This mixed-methods study illuminates trends from observed reading instruction of 77 first-year elementary teachers, drawing on data from 761 lesson segments scored with the Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations, a validated observation protocol. In descriptive analyses, we report on the prevalence of informational lessons across grade levels. Then, we integrate quantitative and qualitative data to describe the quality of informational reading instruction among first-year teachers. Findings suggest a higher percentage of informational reading lesson segments in early elementary than has been shared in previous studies: 27% of observed reading instruction in grade 1 and 41% of observed reading instruction in grade 2. Quality of informational reading lesson segments varied within and among elements of instruction, with the majority of segments rated as low scoring for strategy use. We use qualitative case sampling to illustrate the characteristics of informational reading instruction across a range of score points. Analysis of lesson segments reveals a range of practices in text-based instruction, strategy instruction, and representations of content, with the highest quality instruction showing a combination of all three. This study contributes to our understanding of the current landscape of informational reading instruction among first-year teachers, identifies specific instructional practices that could be the focus of improvement efforts, and weighs in on the debate about strategy instruction versus content instruction.

This study of 83 graduates from 5 elementary teacher education programs found that elementary candidates' opportunities to learn general teaching methods were positively associated with their enactment as first-year teachers of ambitious mathematics and English language arts (ELA) practices. Opportunities to practice content-specific instructional strategies during student teaching were positively associated with first-year teachers' enactment of ambitious mathematics practices, but negatively associated with classroom management in mathematics and disciplinary demand in ELA. First-year teachers' classroom management was positively associated with enactment of ambitious instruction in both subjects. In sum, we identify several learning opportunities that support first-year teachers' ambitious instruction. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-021-09491-7. © 2021, Springer Nature B.V.

Few studies have investigated how person-organization (P-O) fit between beginning teachers and features of their schools is associated with teacher retention. This study investigated the association between several measures of P-O fit and novice teacher retention in the United States. Data analysis indicated that first-year teachers' (FYTs) perceptions of P-O fit with their teaching colleagues was the strongest predictor of teacher retention. These findings suggest that it is important to develop P-O fit between FYTs and their teaching colleagues in schools. The findings have implications for induction programs and the teacher hiring process in schools. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Although a growing body of scholarship points to the importance of teacher education program coherence, few studies focus on the ways in which teacher education program directors, field placement coordinators, and methods course instructors foster program coherence. This mixed-methods study draws on interview data from four teacher education program directors, seven field placement coordinators, and 25 elementary mathematics and English language arts methods course instructors at four large, public research universities, as well as survey data from 305 elementary teaching candidates at those universities. Using a coherence framework, we analyze differences across programs in the degree to which teaching candidates perceived their programs as having clear visions and high levels of program coherence. We also describe ways in which program directors, field placement coordinators, and methods instructors described and promoted shared visions across courses and between courses and field experiences. Implications for teacher education programs and research are discussed. © 2019 American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Teacher education research is in still in the process of developing a robust set of tools that can measure the key features of coursework and fieldwork. This article focuses on the design of measures of “opportunities to learn” (OTLs) in content method courses that can be used across large populations of candidates at diverse preparation programs. We draw on the survey and interview data from a broader, longitudinal study of teacher preparation across four programs in the United States (n = 455 candidates). Variance decomposition suggests far greater within-program variation than between-program variation in reported OTL. More nuanced analyses at a single university indicate significant associations between individual characteristics and reports of OTL, suggesting that self-reports of OTL may tell us more about the candidates who complete a survey than the programs that prepare them. Discussion focuses on implications for teacher education research and next steps for studying OTL in methods coursework. © 2019 American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.