Search results for: Professional identity

The aims of this paper are to explore novice teachers’ experiences in the Covid-19 crisis, and to examine their professional identity construction process. During the global crisis, novice teachers had to deal with unexpected challenges and take advantage of new opportunities. This study is based on 32 narratives of novice teachers in Israel who took part in a one semester online Zoom induction in two workshops. The open conversations narratives in the meetings were recorded and transcribed, and then subjected to categorical content analysis. The findings show the challenges and opportunities related to three central categories: technological, pedagogical and educational system in the novice teachers’ experiences. The main contributions of this study are: understanding the novice teachers’ experiences in the uncertainty and turmoil of the crisis, and learning about professional dilemmas and tensions which gave rise to various challenges and opportunities that that supported the construction their professional identity.

edTPA (Educative Teacher Performance Assessment) is designed to strengthen teacher professionalization and provide a framework for program redesign. However, using a national assessment to shift the content of local programs is challenging because of their inherent organizational complexity. In this article, the authors focus on this complexity, using a systems lens to analyze edTPA implementation at a large, public university. Employing a mixed-methods case study design, they survey 250 teacher educators and candidates to understand how they interpret the demands of edTPA and how their varied perspectives impact each other. They interview a stratified, purposive subset of participants to explore mechanisms underlying quantitative findings. They find substantial internal variation in edTPA implementation that translates into differential support for candidates. This variation could not be explained by duration of implementation of edTPA. Varied perspectives may stem from distinct perceptions of teacher educators’ professional roles and the role they see edTPA playing in teacher professionalization.

This article explores the emergence of Emirati novice teachers’ professional identity from a socio-cultural viewpoint where influences on identity are sourced internally through beliefs, attitudes, values and dispositions and externally through factors such as roles and responsibilities. Empirical data collected through individual and group interviews and analysed using content analysis, highlights both challenges and emergence of professional identity from point of graduation through to the end of the first year of teaching. The results show that influences on professional identity relate to challenges of raising learner outcomes in relation to delivery of the curriculum, managing the self in multiple contexts, and participating in school-based communities of practice. Teaching science and mathematics in English raises queries of ‘self’ as a teacher. Novice teachers’ emerging professional identity emphasises the ethics of teaching in the UAE.

Troops to Teachers (TtT) is a UK governmental scheme introduced in 2013 to facilitate ex-military service personnel to re-train as teachers. This narrative study explores the accounts of a sample of new TtT trainees at the onset of their training and considers their motivations for career changing, potential transferable attributes and skills, aspirational teacher identities and anticipated challenges. Emerging from these rich narratives is a strong, shared commitment to the trainees’ chosen new career. Self-discipline is identified as a professional quality to take into teaching from military service, whilst maintaining discipline in the classroom is more commonly regarded as an area of concern and challenge, rather than as a transferable skill set, challenging core governmental expectations of the Troops to Teachers initiative. However, the importance of and a desire and commitment to continue to ‘serve’, is widely held, reflecting a particular narrative refraction of the TtT trainees. This provides potential for further, perhaps longitudinal study, as the troops become teachers. The study affirms the potential for further investment in a wider recruitment strategy for career-change teachers more generally, as providing an experienced and motivated professional workforce for schools.