RR 90-12 Start with the stone, not with the hole: Matching novices' needs with appropriate programs of induction.
Abstract
Much of the literature concerning the challenges facing beginning teachers treats their problems as generic in nature. While researchers acknowledge the different problems encountered by beginning teachers, they often fail to take into account the varied knowledge, skills, beliefs, and dispositions which prospective teachers bring to their first years from their preservice teacher education programs. Further, many studies of beginning teachers are initiated in the fall of their first year of teaching; hence, they do not track the student teaching experience and novices' newly developed strengths and unresolved problems. In this paper, we (a) focus on the knowledge, skills, beliefs, and dispositions which eight student teachers bring from student teaching as they begin their first year of teaching; (b) speculate about the sorts of induction programs which would most benefit these teachers; and (c) pose questions for those developing induction programs which will move these programs to more constructivist positions.