ABSTRACT In this mixed methods study, we carried out quantitative analyses in order to examine how 80 beginning elementary teachers' enactment of ambitious mathematics instruction seems to be affected by their levels of mathematics teaching self‐efficacy, their perceptions of collective responsibility among teachers at their schools, and feedback they received from principals, instructional coaches, and mentor teachers. We observed each teacher teach up to three mathematics lessons during their first year of teaching. We used the Mathematics Scan (M‐Scan) classroom observation instrument to analyze observations of teachers' implementation of ambitious mathematics instruction. We found that when novice teachers perceived high levels of collective responsibility, they were more likely to receive higher M‐Scan scores for lesson coherence and representations and higher overall M‐Scan scores. In addition, when beginning teachers had higher levels of mathematics teaching self‐efficacy, they were more likely to receive higher M‐Scan scores for lesson coherence. At the same time, we found that feedback from principals, instructional coaches, and mentor teachers was negatively associated with novices' M‐Scan scores for representations and overall M‐Scan scores. The qualitative portion of this study explored reasons for the significant negative association that we found between feedback and beginning teachers' enactment of ambitious mathematics instruction.

This study examined first-year teachers' (FYTs') perceptions of the roles their school leaders enacted and the influence these roles had on their experiences. Prior research suggests that school leaders play an important role in managing the school building and setting expectations. While important for the management of the school in general, these roles are particularly important for FYTs as they take on new responsibilities and navigate challenges. This study extends earlier work on the roles school leaders play and the relationships they form with novice teachers. Findings are based on multiple interviews with 64 FYTs from across the United States. Our participants reported both direct and indirect school leader roles. Direct roles included instructional and behavioral support and validator of the FYT's work. Indirect roles included acting as a facilitator of support and culture and expectations advancer. Lastly, we categorize three ways in which school leaders played roles that FYTs found to be unsupportive. We also theorize an additional role of interpreter that school leaders must play when supporting FYTs.

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.