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Teacher Recruitment and Retention

Teacher Recruitment and Retention. Ken Mellendorf Kimberly A. Shaw Stephen Weber Carl Wenning. Key Findings: Teacher Candidates. Why are they becoming physics teachers? Experience with good physics teachers Desire to make a difference in people’s lives

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Teacher Recruitment and Retention

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  1. Teacher Recruitment and Retention Ken Mellendorf Kimberly A. Shaw Stephen Weber Carl Wenning

  2. Key Findings: Teacher Candidates Why are they becoming physics teachers? • Experience with good physics teachers • Desire to make a difference in people’s lives • Positive experience with teaching others • Desire to show applicability of physics to everyday life • Interest in physics and science

  3. Key Findings: In-service Teachers Factors making us glad to be teachers • Ability to make a difference in the lives of students • Joy of working with students • Watching students rise to the challenge of physics • The joy of working with people in general and youth in particular • Love of the subject matter

  4. Recruitment Recommendations • Teachers should directly recruit their students to careers in teaching • Teachers should talk about the need for science teachers • Teachers should talk about the joys of teaching, and about teaching as a profession. • We should emphasize the applications of physics. • This is true at ALL levels: high school, community college, and university

  5. Recruitment: Recommended Tasks • Get students involved in teaching experiences • Teach a lesson (younger students for high school, peer or younger for college students) • Tutoring • Detention Center education • Writing or leading lab activities • Teaching Outreach • Science Fair, Science Olympiad, Physics Day • College for Kids, Science Camp, Expanding Your Horizons, Upward Bound, Physics Van…..

  6. Recruitment: Recommended Tasks • Directly ask individual students to consider careers in physics teaching • Appeal to altruism • We ourselves need a fundamental change in our own attitudes. • Those who CAN, teach! • We should think of teaching as a higher goal, as prestigious.

  7. Traits of prospective candidates:should have the potential for… • Altruistic personality • Good ability in science • High interest in science • “Stage presence” • Internal motivation • Self-awareness • Consistent with personal abilities • Expresses joy with teaching/tutoring experience • Work ethic and responsibility • Leadership/People skills

  8. Proposed Action Items • Solicit teachers for names of prospective candidates • Publish written guidelines for “recruitment” in multiple venues • Encourage ISAAPT Council to make policy statements relating to recruitment, retention & accreditation • Ask ISTA to be actively involved in “remote” preparation of middle school/elementary students • Encourage IACT, IBTA and ICTM to be involved with recruitment • Communicate with ISBE the need for real “highly qualified” teachers

  9. Proposed Action Items (cont’d) • Loan forgiveness • “Contract for future services” or “reverse-GI bill for teachers” • Grant to extend pilot studies statewide, including case studies of feeder schools • Posters, advertising, public service announcements • Register a World Year of Physics event for Physics teachers (with funding) • Physics alliances/networks be established across the state • More creative efforts by ISAAPT to reach rural science teachers and include them in the recruitment process

  10. Findings: Reasons for Attrition (informational) • Poor attitudes of students • Student misbehavior • Lack of support and respect from students, parents, administration • Increasing family demands • Relocation of spouse • Unrealistic demands placed on science teachers • Retirements

  11. Findings: Reasons for Attrition(places we can have an impact) • Personal sense of professional inadequacy • Boredom with the subject matter • Lack of mentoring • Lack of success of students • Inadequate professional preparation

  12. Retention Action Items • Publish curricular materials in a central clearinghouse • Develop email listserve for curriculum sharing • Mentoring/networking/induction activities • Develop a way to communicate with rural/inner city science teachers • Learn from IACT, ISTA and work with them • Survey of Physics Teacher Education Programs

  13. Retention Action Items • Teachers Academy – Teachers Teaching Teachers - at Fall meeting • Use Take-Five presentations as bait • Fall High School Teaching Symposium (sharing rather than winning) • Inquiry Lab Workshops for students and teachers through alliances, ISTA, ICTM • We need to build ISAAPT’s reputation among state science teachers • Convince our university colleagues to improve the quality of teaching there • Free stuff column in ISAAPT newsletter

  14. Priorities • Discussion

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