Support is an important buffer against the effects of burnout for early career teachers. Yet, little is known about how burnout trends change over time for teachers in their first 5 years in the profession. This paper focuses on the burnout trends and explanations of early career science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers over 2 years. The participants were 27 early career STEM teachers in the United States grouped into novice (1–2 years teaching experience) and advanced beginner (>2 years teaching experience) career stages. Data sources included three burnout surveys, a pre-interview, and an end-of-year interview each year of the study. Results revealed differences in trends, depending on the burnout dimension and group. The qualitative data offered explanations for changes in each of the burnout dimensions. The study provides a window into STEM teaching stories that affect teacher burnout, highlighting the nuances of burnout for early career teachers.
The transition from preservice to in-service teaching is a critical period for early career teachers, often presenting challenges that affect their occupational success and well-being. Identifying factors that influence key outcomes—such as transition difficulties, perceived teaching quality, well-being, and intention to quit—is essential for providing timely support. This longitudinal study examined how preservice teachers’ cognitive attributes (Grade Point Average, pedagogical knowledge, practicum grades), non-cognitive attributes (personality, teaching motivation), and social-environmental support before graduation relate to their teaching outcomes after entering the profession. The sample comprised 1,711 preservice teachers; 206 reported being teachers 10 months after graduation and completed follow-up surveys. Structural equation modeling revealed that cognitive attributes and social-environmental support were not significantly associated with teaching outcomes. Instead, higher conscientiousness, greater openness, and stronger teaching motivation predicted fewer transition difficulties, greater perceived teaching quality, and better well-being. These findings underscore the importance of cultivating non-cognitive skills during teacher training to better prepare future educators.
Student withdrawal in higher education is increasingly framed as a process in which intentions to quit may provide an early, context-sensitive risk signal, particularly in teacher education. Guided by situated expectancy–value–cost and self-efficacy perspectives, we followed 380 Kuwaiti female preservice teachers across three waves (920 person-wave observations; Full Information Maximum Likelihood [FIML]) to model longitudinal motivational profiles of teaching self-efficacy, task value, perceived cost, and transformative experience and to test links with intentions to quit teaching. Latent transition analysis supported four profiles: Thriving (41.1%), High-Cost (28.4%), At-Risk (15.8%), and Disengaged (14.7%). Profile stability increased within the later interval of the term, with earlier movement more often towards Thriving. Intentions to quit differed by profile (Wald χ 2 (3) = 35.67, p < .001) and were highest in At-Risk ( M = 2.94), whereas High-Cost did not differ from Thriving despite the highest perceived cost. Mixed-effects models showed profile effects without wave or interaction effects, indicating stable between-profile risk.
Teachers’ knowledge of common student struggles is widely recognized as a key component of teacher knowledge across subject areas. However, most large-scale research has focused on measuring teachers’ awareness of student struggles, with little attention paid to how teachers interpret their underlying reasons. This study examined 743 mathematics teachers’ knowledge of common student struggles with ratios and proportional relationships, an important content area in the middle school mathematics curriculum. Teachers were asked to identify the most common incorrect student solutions to eight mathematical tasks and to interpret the underlying reasons for these struggles. While many teachers demonstrated awareness of empirically documented common student struggles, they tended to attribute these struggles to procedural issues rather than to conceptual misunderstandings. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses indicated that teachers’ awareness of common student struggles and their own content knowledge were linked to how they interpreted students’ struggles.
This article explores how preservice teachers (PSTs) are supported in translating their antiracist knowledge into practice within field supervision contexts. Grounded in a conceptual framework that foregrounds race, racism, and processes of learning and identity, this vignette-based analysis demonstrates how teacher educators (TEs) provide translational resources that help connect PSTs' understandings of race and racism to their everyday decisions and actions in the classroom. Findings demonstrate that these translational resources are central to helping PSTs interpret and respond to acts of everyday racism within their classrooms and in relation to their teaching. The findings suggest that field supervision is a critical site for PSTs' antiracist learning and highlight the need for more explicit attention to how TEs facilitate the translation of antiracist knowledge into practice.
The North Carolina New Teacher Support Program (NC-NTSP) provided induction support to 11,329 teachers between 2014 and 2024, with documented impacts on teacher retention. Through the lens of situated learning theory, this qualitative study explores NC-NTSP coaching practices post-pandemic, including what coaches envision as impactful practices and contextual factors that shaped their practices and outcomes. Our collaborative thematic analysis of 12 focus group interviews (N = 37) elucidated complexity in participants' coaching practices posed by intensified needs of, and greater variability among, new teachers. Recognizing new teachers' psychological and professional fragility, coaches prioritized building relationships with teachers and individualizing support. Coaches perceived their own impact in terms of "little wins" that contributed to enhanced instructional capacity, offering an alternative approach to advancing research on teacher induction.
Teachers enter increasingly linguistically diverse classrooms, and report being ill-prepared to support the learning of multilingual learners of English (MLEs) in the early grades. This study explored the potential of a dual-pathway approach where paired in-service mentors and pre-service mentees are provided with aligned and synchronized professional development (PD) content on effective practice for MLEs. The efficacy of this approach was explored with 14 pre-service teachers and 14 matched in-service mentor teachers at four schools and contrasted with eight in-service teachers at four demographically matched schools not receiving PD and their 680 students. Results showed statistically significant growth and differences on evidence-based language and literacy strategies for teachers receiving the PD compared to teachers not receiving the PD as well as statistically significant growth in student performance for classrooms with PD receiving teachers. The current study provides promise for the potential of this approach and promotes porousness in university-school partnerships.
We link student teaching placement and K-12 administrative data from North Carolina to better understand the contexts in which educator preparation programs (EPPs) and K-12 districts make placements and the factors that predict whether EPPs and districts make placements with a highly effective teacher. Our work builds on two key findings from prior literature-cooperating teachers (CTs) are critically important to the development of preservice teachers (PSTs) and information asymmetries between EPPs and districts complicate the placement process. We find that there is significant variation across EPPs in their access to highly effective teachers and that there are opportunities to place many more PSTs with a highly effective teacher. Multiple measures of prior relationships, such as the EPP having recently placed with the CT and the CT being an alumnus of the EPP, predict the likelihood of EPPs and districts placing with a highly effective teacher.
This qualitative study examines the perspectives of 27 U.S. preservice teachers who participated in a 2-week study abroad program in Italy designed to immerse participants in diverse educational settings. Study abroad experiences are valuable as they increase pedagogical understanding and cultural competence which further supports the development of a culturally responsive pedagogy. Specific aims were to build upon existing research by capturing participants' perceptions of differing pedagogical approaches, exploring how participants' experiences abroad shaped their pedagogical understanding, and learning how these experiences molded participants' perceptions for working with students from differing cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Data indicated that participants experienced personal change in three key areas: pedagogical, social interactions, and philosophy related to U.S. schooling. Implications suggest that study abroad may increase understanding of instructional methods and school structures, enhance cultural sensitivity, and therefore, should be included in teacher preparation programs.
This study examines the potential of peer mentoring conversations through the use of a video-based learning design in Norwegian teacher education. Student-teachers used classroom videos of their own teaching as a basis for reasoning about the core practice of classroom discourse. The study adapts an existing framework to measure the quality of student-teacher reasoning in six peer mentoring groups, and the same framework is utilized as an analytical stance in the micro-analyses of selected excerpts. The findings show that student-teachers are able to conduct high-quality conversations during peer mentoring and point to the important role of structural and conceptual support.
Equity-focused coaching-coaching that centers racism, patriarchy, and other oppressive systems-is a promising approach to supporting teachers in expanding learning opportunities for minoritized students. However, despite its known challenges, details of equity-focused coaching remain underexamined. This article presents an analysis of 27 equity-focused coaching sessions with ten secondary physics teachers, which incorporated classroom videos and EQUIP analytics. The analysis applied theoretical constructs from conversation analysis: attribution of responsibility and attribution of knowledge in interaction. Findings show that whereas coaches tended to explain inequitable patterns in terms of broader social patterns, teachers tended to base their interpretations on the perceived deficits of minoritized students. The turn-by-turn analysis illustrates fine-grained details of discursive moves coaches leveraged to successfully facilitate shifts in teachers' interpretative orientations. These findings highlight that steering coaching conversations toward equity-focused interpretations is an essential element of equity-focused coaching, and such work comprises subtle and skillful discursive moves.
We implemented two reforms to student teaching in randomized controlled trials designed to test improvements to preservice preparation. Although neither reform affected overall teacher employment, we find significant effects on other labor market outcomes. The first-placed student teachers are planned with more effective mentors and in more effective schools for their clinical experiences. We find that treated candidates tended to find employment in higher-income and less diverse schools, an effect that appears to operate primarily among teachers not hired into their placement sites. The second intervention provided detailed reports to teacher candidates, their field instructors, and their school-based mentor teachers about performance on clinical evaluations during the clinical experience. Treated candidates in this experiment were more likely to obtain teaching positions in the schools in which they completed their student teaching. Overall, the results suggest that student teaching reforms may have important and unexpected effects on the teacher labor market.
Students with disabilities (SWDs) receive most of mathematics instruction in general education classrooms, and yet most general education teachers receive little instruction on methods for supporting these students in engaging with mathematical content. Teacher education could be a vital site for addressing this need, but we know little about how well candidates are being prepared for this task. In this study, we examined 267 elementary mathematics methods syllabi from 204 universities to understand how many and what types of references to SWDs appeared in the syllabi. We found that although 38% of syllabi included references to SWDs, these references were most commonly part of broader statements on supporting all learners. Comparatively few syllabi focused on specific instructional approaches for supporting SWDs, with only a small number of syllabi referencing students with disabilities in their course outlines, assignments, and readings. We conclude with implications for teacher educators and policymakers.
Student teaching is an important transitional phase from theory to practice for preservice teachers, directly affecting their cultivation quality. Based on a sample of 551 senior preservice teachers and the "cognition-affection-intention" theoretical framework, this study explores the mechanism and conditions by which role transitional shock influences internship withdrawal behavior. The results indicate that transitional shock not only directly and positively affects internship withdrawal behavior but also exerts a partial mediating effect through competence frustration and emotional exhaustion, with competence frustration further triggering a chain mediation effect via emotional exhaustion. Additionally, social support plays a negatively moderating role in this process, helping to mitigate the negative effects. Consequently, it is recommended to improve the internship training system, explore resilience cultivation models, establish internship tracking management mechanisms, and create an inclusive and supportive "growth circle" to enhance preservice teachers' professional identity, sense of value and mission.
China's preschool education is transitioning from "ensuring basic care for young children" to "providing high-quality care for young children", and the development of highly educated kindergarten teachers has become a new trend in the construction of the high-quality teaching force. At present, the training and appointment of highly educated kindergarten teachers in China is still in the exploratory stage, and this kind of "emerging group" is easy to be trapped by many difficulties in educational practices, and the risk of falling into the crisis of educational belief is also increased. Based on in-depth interviews with 18 kindergarten teachers with postgraduate qualifications, a theoretical model of the crisis of educational beliefs of kindergarten teachers with advanced education is constructed using grounded theory. The study find that the educational belief crisis of highly educated kindergarten teachers can be condensed into the following core elements: individual vulnerability, development restraint, negative feedback constitute the practical manifestations, while cultural anomie and institutional imbalance constitute the triggering factors. Based on this, the study proposes the resolution pathways for the educational belief crisis of highly educated kindergarten teachers from the perspectives of individual adjustment, organizational support, and cultural reflection, providing useful reference and inspiration for the high-quality development of the kindergarten teaching force.
Against the backdrop of artificial intelligence (AI) deeply empowering educational transformation, project-based learning (PBL) as a teaching paradigm centered on real problem-driven inquiry, interdisciplinary integration, and practical innovation, posing novel demands on teachers' professional competencies. Teachers' AI literacy has emerged as a critical pillar for enabling the high-quality implementation of PBL, enhancing teaching efficacy, and advancing educational equity. Grounded in the practical logic and core phases of PBL, the three-dimensional connotation of teachers' AI literacy is articulated as follows: At the cognitive dimension, teachers need to grasp the fundamental principles of AI and its educational value; at the practical dimension, they should be capable of leveraging AI tools to optimize project design, process guidance, and multi-faceted assessment; at the ethical dimension, they must possess capacities for critical reflection and technological governance to safeguard the legitimacy and educational appropriateness of AI applications. The advancement of teachers' AI literacy can reconstruct instructional design, refine evaluation mechanisms, and drive the transformation of educational ecosystems, thereby effectively facilitating PBL and supporting the attainment of deep learning and precise education goals. To address the current challenges in teachers' AI literacy development including tool-related barriers, the absence of subjective agency, and the scarcity of practical contexts, a systematic enhancement pathway should be established: One that is underpinned by ecological platforms, delivered via task-based training, and connected through communities of practice. This pathway aims to facilitate teachers' professional identity transition from "technology users" to "co-creators of intelligent education" within PBL contexts, providing theoretical references and practical guidance for the high-quality development of education in the AI era.
Advancing the integrated construction of the ranks of preschool and primary school teachers under the bidirectional coordination vision is the rightful principle to implement relevant laws and policies, the key measure to promote the continuous and progressive development of children, and the long-term plan to form a good ecology of scientific coordination between preschool and primary school. It is constrained by objective factors such as relevant laws and policies, the actual state of teacher education, and the software and hardware facilities of preschools and primary schools. Also, it is influenced by subjective factors such as stakeholders' beliefs on the coordination between preschool and primary school. In the future, supporting guidelines for relevant laws and policies could be established and improved to provide operational guidance for the integrated construction of the ranks of preschool and primary school teachers. According to local and school conditions, pertinent institutions of normal universities and colleges, preschools, and primary schools could be built and improve institutional support to ensure the integrated construction of the ranks of preschool and primary school teachers in the three stages of pre-service, onboarding, and in-service. By offering pre-service early childhood transition courses, consolidating onboarding and in-service early childhood transition training, leading the construction of preschool and primary school teachers' capabilities through belief changing and knowledge increasing.
