About This Project
Over the last few years, the number of teachers in the US workforce has become larger, less stable, and composed of a higher percentage of novice educators. With the 5-year teacher attrition rate still hovering near 50%, the changes in the workforce results in inequitable services to students. Mentoring can mitigate these changes. The goal of this project is to determine factors that accelerate the professional development of novice educators.Ask the Scientists
Join The DiscussionWhat is the context of this research?
According to the NCATF Teacher Turnover Cost Calculator, it costs the school division about $18,000 per new teacher. In difficult economic times, this draws significant resources away from instructional materials; rates of turnover can have a negative impact on student achievement, especially in high poverty areas. Providing equitable services to our students means reducing teacher attrition and accelerating new teacher development.
The most effective means of reducing teacher attrition is to provide high quality mentoring (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). Understanding how mentees work with cross-content mentors in conjunction with other support resources, such as collaborative teams, would provide critical information in designing, implementing, and sustaining comprehensive support systems.
What is the significance of this project?
Traditional mentoring programs rely on one-on-one mentors and fail to efficiently utilize system resources. Novice educators receive informal support from a myriad of sources. An important role for mentors would be to help novice educators construct meaning from their experiences, rather than transmit knowledge or information.
Transmissive mentoring is less effective in developing the professional identities, providing emotional support, and fostering the professional capacities of novice educators than a more constructivist approach (Richter et al., 2013). As the number of novices in the field increase, cross-content mentors will become a necessity, yet few investigations have been done into how cross-content matched mentors and mentees interact within a comprehensive support system.
What are the goals of the project?
Using a multiple case study design described by Stake, I will answer the following questions:
- How do the experiences of cross-content matched mentors & mentee compare to mentors & mentees from the same content area?
- In what ways do cross-content mentors and mentees interact that accelerate the growth of the novice educator?
- In what ways do mentees with non-content mentors leverage other resources in the system?
Budget
Although I am employed by a public school system, I am an independent researcher who receives no funding. This research will be conducting on my own time using my own funds.
The funding for this project will support the tools needed for data analysis. Qualitative data analysis is time intensive and multiple software packages are available that make the process easier. Many of these packages are prohibitively expensive to the independent researcher. Dedoose is an inexpensive but powerful tool that is a fraction of the cost of other commercially available software.
Funding will also support the transcription of the interview data. As a full time employee, husband, father of four, recreational soccer coach, referee, and independent researcher, I have little free time. Transcribing interviews is an arduous process. A 45 minute interview requires 2-3 hours of transcription time. The bulk of the funding would allow me to hire an external agency for transcribing the interviews, thus allowing me to focus on data analysis and interpretation.
I am committed to enriching the field of education through research. Without funding, I lack the time and resources to conduct the research in a timely manner.
Meet the Team
Team Bio
Since 1998 I've been a classroom teacher, special education teacher, IC Team Facilitator, and intervention specialist. In 2004, I earned National Board Certification in the area of Middle Childhood Generalist. I am also an Agency Trainer for Cognitive Coaching. My vitae and list of presentations and publications can be found on my academia.com website.As a professional development specialist, I have enhanced and improved the mentoring and induction program, including refining mentoring training, co-developing a team-based approach to supporting novice educators, and developing online learning experiences. The struggles I had my first year of teaching has driven me to find better ways of supporting new teachers. It is important to me that my 4 girls have access to quality teachers.
In addition to teaching, I am a soccer fan, coach, referee, and parent spectator, have studied martial arts, and enjoy reading. Occasionally, I still find time to pick up my guitar or fire up my bagpipes.
Michael T. Neall, Ph.D.
I have worked for the public school system since 1998 as a classroom teacher, special education teacher, Instructional Consultation Team Facilitator, and intervention specialist. In 2004, I earned National Board Certification in the area of Middle Childhood Generalist. As a professional development specialist, I have enhanced and improved the mentoring and induction program, including refining mentoring training, codeveloping a team-based approach to supporting novice educators, and developing online learning experiences. In addition to working full time, I also serve as the editor for Learning Forward Virginia's new online journal, Voices for Professional Learning. My vitae and list of presentations and publications can be found on my academia.com website.
Lab Notes
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Project Backers
- 1Backers
- 10%Funded
- $120Total Donations
- $120.00Average Donation