¶ … Teachers Program Area of Study

Teachers in their first few years in the classroom face a number of challenges - so many that often they are overwhelmed and find that they enthusiasm that originally drew them to the arena of teaching quickly begins to wane. Some even leave the profession altogether. In recognition of this fact that new teachers often come into the classroom without the necessary support and skills that will help them to succeed, a number of school districts (along with other organizations such as teachers' unions) have developed programs that help teachers begin in their first years in the classroom to gain a sense of mastery in their chosen profession. This research focuses on one particular such program, Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program. Designed for teachers with fewer than three years of teaching experience, the BTSA has helped some teachers gain a surer footing in the classroom. However, while the program does have a number of strengths (which this research examines), it can still be improved and the focus of this research is directed at identifying the ways in which the already strong elements of the BTSA program can be built upon while other areas that are not as strong are improved.

Purpose of Study

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which different...

Thus this research posed the following three questions:
To what extent does the BTSA program help new teachers to collect and interpret evidence concerning their own performance as teachers?

To what extent does the BTSA program help new teachers reflect on their teacher skills and philosophy?

To what extent does the BTSA program help new teachers identify meaningful professional development activities that relevant to their individual needs?

Statement of Problem

This research examines the effectiveness in a number of settings of the BTSA program. Although each teaching situation is different and each teacher's experience is different, there are common threads that run through the experiences of all teachers and BTSA should address itself to these commonalities of the teaching experience if it to prove to be effective in an many situations and for as many teachers as possible. This research investigates the extent to which this is true, i.e. To what extent the BTSA program can be considered to be universally helpful and to what extent the effectiveness of BTSA is decided by specific workplace conditions.

Hypothesis

The BTSA program provides…