Search

The European Commission has included the establishment of 'Teacher Academies' in its development plan for the European Education Area, as part of Erasmus+ projects. This article aims to explore cooperation networks as a strategy for addressing the challenges beginning teachers face during their transition into the profession. The authors describe the international educational community (Digital TA project), which includes representatives from five countries: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Spain, Ireland, and Poland. They also outline the principles of Teacher Academy projects and the process of building such communities. The authors illustrate the mechanisms for building a cooperation network on the digital platform, which is based on the methodology of problem-based learning (PBL), mentoring, case studies, and digital tools designed to support teachers' self-reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Imagens da Educação is the property of Universidade Estadual de Maringa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study addresses the issue of maintenance and career advancement of teachers from the pre-university education system. The research direction represents the perspective of the needs experienced by teachers during the first 10-15 years of their teaching career. These differ according to their professional experience, creating distinct professional approaches and goals. During the first five years of professional activity, the aim is to acquire stability in the teaching career and to obtain a consolidated professional status. The focus is on the emotional approach, counselling/psychological support and career guidance (good career prospects) also being required. After the first 5 years, efforts to promote career development stages are complemented by ongoing concerns to improve teaching practice. At this stage, teachers must benefit from career guidance (managing and planning their progress in the teaching profession) and support in improving professional practice. For teachers with more than 10 years of experience, the main aim is to achieve a high level of competence, expertise and professional maturity, which involves career guidance (development of new skills related to the profession; opportunities to build on and broaden their experience; new professional roles and responsibilities) and support in enriching professional practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of sustaining training for teachers cannot be overestimated. Trained teachers require continual professional development to keep up with changing contexts. Ongoing training is particularly important for beginning teachers as they start their professional journeys. Vanuatu, a small island state in the southwest Pacific, is currently grappling with significant obstacles to providing effective ongoing professional development for its teachers. To ensure children's academic success in Vanuatu, as elsewhere, it is imperative to have well-prepared and proficient teachers who can navigate the complexities of education in a rapidly evolving world. To pursue this matter, the article reports on the findings of an interpretive qualitative case study that makes meaning of the professional learning experiences of new teachers in the Vanuatu context. The study assumes that new teachers' voices, perspectives and motivation are important when investigating professional development. The study objective was to critically explore the professional learning support provided to them in Vanuatu's schools. To this end, seven new teachers' experiences and perceptions of professional learning were complemented by the perceptions of four school principals involved in their support. The findings reveal general satisfaction tempered by a lack of formal feedback and evaluation mechanisms. As a response, the article proposes an induction program contextualised to the local environment and sustained over time as a vital solution to enhance teachers' professional development, thereby positively impacting the learning outcomes of children in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim/Purpose: The present study aimed to understand in depth the experience of identity formation of beginning teachers (BTs), members of Gen Y in their first year at elementary school, and teaching students of Gen Alpha from the perspective of BTs and their teacher mentors (TMs). Background: The purpose of the study was to compare the aspects described by BTs and their mentor teachers of the initial experience of teaching and of shaping the professional identity of BTs, members of Gen Y, in elementary schools, from the perspective of BTs and teacher mentors (TMs). Methodology: This was a qualitative study. Two groups participated in the study: (a) 75 BTs, members of Gen Y, and (b) 40 mentors of beginning teachers. Contribution: The findings of this study indicate that the creation of an emotionally and professionally supportive community led to a fruitful discussion on issues related to the process of absorption and integration of BTs in the school. This process advanced their professional development, expanding knowledge, abilities, strategies, innovative pedagogical practices for classroom management, and meaningful teaching and learning in the classroom. The supportive community provided an emotional, professional, social-organizational, and evaluative-reflective response to the needs of BTs, facilitating meaningful interactions between the BTs and their students. It created a space for students to practice emotional training, organize and manage behavior, regulate emotions and behavior, reduce feelings of anger, and arouse a feeling of optimism. Findings: The findings show that there was a conflict between the BTs' and TMs' perceptions of school reality. The mentors expected the BTs to adapt to the existing system, whereas the BTs perceived the process as one of formation of their identity as teachers. It turned out that parameters important to Gen Y teachers, such as knowing the school organization and being an influential factor that brings about change, were less important to their mentors. The findings of the present study reinforce those of previous studies that investigated the employment characteristics of Gen Y. Recommendations for Practitioners: A supportive community at school is likely to increase the level of mental wellbeing of Gen Y teachers. To this end, support communities of teachers should be created by form and discipline of study. In the community, emphasis should be placed on reflection and mental resilience in all situations and challenging events that happen to the BTs to help them cope with the accumulated stress. Recommendations for Researchers: Students need a sensitive environment that is appropriate for Gen Alpha children. This environment must allow for emotional training and regulation, behavior organization, and management to arouse a feeling of optimism and reduce anger. Teachers must teach with love, sensitivity, affectivity, and empathy to develop students' emotional, social, and cognitive abilities. Impact on Society: To retain BTs and prevent them from quitting their career, schools must ensure that members of Gen Y understand the school organization and are satisfied with the way the organization is managed. They must have a sense of being significant partners in the life of the school. Under optimal working conditions, Gen Y teachers may greatly contribute to the values of education and equal opportunity, maximizing the personal potential of each student and the classroom as a whole and making the school relevant. Future Research: Future studies should examine the characteristics of students belonging to Gen Alpha. One of the difficulties mentioned by BTs was a misunderstanding of the characteristics of Gen Alpha, which created problems in the interactions within the teaching staff and between the teachers and the students and prevented gaining authority with other teachers and with students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine the problems faced by Turkish teachers who have recently entered the profession, based on the teacher education program. For this purpose, the types of knowledge needed by Turkish teachers and the problem areas that these point to in the teacher education program were examined. In the study, a basic qualitative research design was adopted and criterion sampling was used to select the study group. Qualitative data obtained through interviews with nine teachers who graduated from six different universities were analyzed using descriptive analysis. The findings showed that the types of knowledge that the participants needed following their professional experiences and the evaluations they made of the teacher education programs on this basis pointed to five problem areas. These are the identity problem, content problem, learner problem, teaching problem and context problem. The types of knowledge needed by teachers are self-knowledge, content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and context knowledge, respectively. Participants stated that the education they received during their undergraduate education did not match the content they used in their professional lives, and that while they should have carried out studies focused on improving their language skills in the classroom environment, they took literature and theoretical courses during their undergraduate education. Participants also stated that due to their shortcomings in teaching language skills, they gave priority to teaching grammar in their lessons and tried to fill the gap they experienced in teaching skills with grammar teaching. Furthermore, it was observed that the participants were also in need of knowledge and skills related to teacher training in subjects such as communication with other stakeholders at school, knowledge of regulations, and communication with administrators and parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this autoethnography I present three narratives exploring how I understood and experienced my identity as a gay beginning teacher working in a rural Australian secondary school, where my sexuality was generally not accepted. Reading these narratives through a phenomenological lens highlights how my subjectivity as a gay man was entangled in my embodied identity as a teacher and how students' homophobic attacks attempted to disempower this identity. I explore how colleagues' responses to these incidents advocated for a disembodied understanding of practice which positioned my sexuality as the issue and attempted to straighten me as a teacher. As a result, this paper argues that being an effective ally to queer beginning teachers starts with respecting and valuing our embodied subjectivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A schools' collective social assets (i.e., school culture, administrative support, and satisfied colleagues) are especially important for beginning teachers at higher risk of attrition, including special educators, teachers of color, teachers in high-poverty schools, and teachers in schools serving predominantly students of color. These teachers often report experiencing less social support than general educators, White teachers, teachers in low-poverty schools, and teachers serving predominantly White students, respectively; we labeled this inequitable access to schools' collective social assets intersectional professional vulnerability. Using data from the Schools and Staffing Survey and structural equation modeling, we examined how beginning teachers' race/ethnicity and their students' race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and disability status related to perceptions of their U.S. schools' collective social assets and how those perceptions shaped intent to continue teaching. We found significant differences in access to collective social assets based on their race/ethnicity, role as special versus general educators, and students served within their school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basis of professional knowledge is formed at the beginning of the career. In this research, we analyze the construction of the teaching knowledge of beginning professors from the IFPE – Pesqueira campus on the teaching of Physics. We built two theoretical categories: "Physics teaching in the perspective of Scientific Literacy" and "The beginning teacher and teaching knowledge". The research is qualitative. Three physics undergraduate students participated. For the collection, we used the semi-structured interview. For the analysis, the Categorical Thematic Content Analysis Technique. The results showed that the origins of the knowledge about Physics teaching are diverse and the most successful methodologies involve practicalexperimental activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work aims to identify possible challenges faced by beginning teachers in early childhood education. Therefore, we start from the following questions: what may be the challenges faced at the beginning of the career? Do these teachers have support from managers in their daily pedagogical practices? What are the possibilities that help you adapt and stabilize your career? To elucidate these questions, we carried out a qualitative research, and as a methodology we chose to carry out a bibliographic survey, on digital platforms, identifying in the literature in the area of early childhood education, its teaching specificities, and in the area of teaching professionalization, the beginning teacher. We also chose to carry out narrative interviews from the perspective of an autobiographical approach. As a result, we identified that the orientation of pedagogical work, by school managers, contributes to professional development. We infer that insecurity and emotional instability are present at the beginning of a career, and the possibilities to adapt to the profession are the learning acquired with more experienced teachers, and acting in teacher training programs, such as the Teaching Initiation Program (PIBID) are spaces for career engagement and professional construction. We also highlight the mandatory curricular internship role, in which it is possible to acquire knowledge that can minimize the shock of entry at the beginning of a career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Temas de Comunicacion is the property of Biblioteca Central de la Universidad Catolica Andres Bello (UCAB) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Teachers' emotional competence is the key factor affecting teachers' happiness and students' growth, but there is still a lack of measuring tools for teachers' emotional competence that accord with the characteristics of teachers in China. With the theory of emotional process, the questionnaire on the emotional competence of the primary and secondary school teachers in China has been compiled based on the open interviews, theoretical reference and factor analysis. The questionnaire includes five dimensions of interpreting self—emotion, interpreting others ' emotion, expressing self—emotion, regulating self—emotion and regulating others' emotion, which has good reliability and validity. Further test of the total questionnaire and the mean and theoretical median of each dimension shows that the emotional competence of the primary and secondary school teachers in China is at the upper middle level, but the competence to express self-emotion is relatively weak; and that the emotional competence of teachers is different in gender, teaching year and professional title, especially the emotional competence of beginning teachers is relatively low. These findings indicate that this questionnaire is applicable to the study of teachers ' emotions, and that beginning teachers are the important objects of concern for improving teachers' emotional competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Teacher Education Research is the property of Teacher Education Research Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper is devoted to obtaining information on the resilience of kindergarten and primary school teachers. In the research, special attention was paid to beginning teachers, who we thought were more likely to be less resilient than teachers with longer experience. The research sample consisted of teachers of selected kindergartens and primary schools throughout the Czech Republic. The aim of the research was to find out whether there are differences in resilience between selected groups of teachers due to the current pandemic situation that each teacher had to deal with. Analysis of the data in the research revealed that beginning teachers have different rates of resilience compared to advanced teachers. No statistically significant differences were found in resilience between kindergarten and primary school teachers.

Although there are initiatives to attract individuals with STEM degrees and experiences into teaching, little is known about the characteristics and development of qualified professional scientists with previous uncertified teaching experiences becoming teachers. One approach to prepare second career certified teachers (SCCTs) for teaching is through teaching fellowships. This qualitative case study investigated the experiences and development of three SCCTs who were accepted into a one-year, intensive teacher fellowship preparation program. The study focused on the SCCTs development and transformations over the fellowship year. The data collected consisted of questionnaires, interviews, and teaching observations. Cross-case synthesis revealed similarities and differences in the coherences and tensions experienced by the SCCTs throughout the clinical preparation year. In addition, the SCCTs experienced shifting identities from scientists, to students, to teachers, to professionals. This study suggests that science teacher educators need to recognize the diverse prior experiences of SCCTs and assist them in balancing and negotiating tensions that might exist between previous and current teaching experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bio-grafía. Escritos Sobre la Biología y su Enseñanza is the property of Universidad Pedaggica Nacional and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This longitudinal research presents case studies of three English as a foreign language (EFL) student teachers showing their development regarding target language (TL) use, taking into account both the amount of TL use and the classroom situations the TL is used in. Additionally, the factors that influence their TL use are discussed. The data consist of four questionnaires, three classroom observations, and a written reflection on TL use. Results show that – similar to experienced teachers – these student teachers used the TL more in senior than in junior classes and mainly in linguistically predictable situations. On the other hand, the amount of their TL use was high, especially in senior classes, compared to earlier studies in the Dutch context. The student teachers displayed different developmental patterns concerning TL use during teacher education: two of them increased their use of English, mainly in junior classes; TL use of the other student remained stable. Teacher education appeared to mediate TL use one year after graduation for two students. TL use had changed after finishing teacher education but no coherent developments could be discerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hacettepe University Journal of Education is the property of Hacettepe University Journal of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The results of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS‑2018) of teachers and school leaders are used to compare the teacher professional development systems in Russia and Kazakhstan. In particular, comparative analysis concerns the induction and mentoring programs for beginning teachers, the mechanisms of teacher professional learning, teachers’ needs for professional development, and barriers to the latter. TALIS‑2018 involved over 4,000 teachers from 230 schools in Russia and over 6,000 teachers from 331 schools in Kazakhstan. Two-stage probability (random) sampling allows extrapolating the survey results to the whole population of schools and school teachers in every TALIS participating country. It was established that neither Russia nor Kazakhstan engaged in monitoring or assessing the mechanisms of support for young and beginning teachers, and teacher evaluation did not require completing an induction or mentoring program. Development of mechanisms to ensure that professional learning programs satisfy teachers’ needs is a promising avenue for improving the system of teacher professional development. For this purpose, teachers in both countries are offered vouchers allowing them to choose professional development programs at their discretion. Overall, teachers’ needs for professional development are similar in Russia and Kazakhstan, as are barriers to their satisfaction. Those needs should always be considered when updating the learning standards and curricula, especially with regard to such increasingly important aspects of teaching as critical thinking and the use of digital technology. Particular attention should be paid to the development of special education teacher skills.

Abstract This study drew on qualitative research and focused on the exercise of agency among the novice English teachers in the Iranian context. Fifteen novice English teachers who have been teaching English in private language institutes in Baneh, Iran were invited through snowball sampling. The analyses of semi-structured and focus group interviews, from the complexity dynamic/system perspective, revealed that teachers practice agency employing dialogic feedback, positioning, and critical incidents. The results further indicated that teachers made a learning community to make the right decision, predict future incidents, and develop their professional agency. The analyses provide implications for the policymakers, teacher educators, and curriculum designers to construct a better opportunity for beginning teachers to become highly-qualified in their careers.

A wide range of challenges continues to exist in delivering school-based agricultural education (SBAE) programs. Among the most pressing challenges are the recruitment and retention of high-quality agriculture teachers (Guffey & Young, 2020). Teacher educators and researchers in SBAE are tasked with meeting the nationwide demand for teachers, while also better understanding the status of alternatively certified agriculture teachers (Foster et al., 2020). This study explored the challenges, coping strategies, and personal resilience of first-year agriscience teachers in Florida who held a temporary teaching certificate. Using a qualitative, phenomenological approach, seven alternatively certified Florida agriculture teachers were interviewed. The personal resilience framework developed by Hoopes (2017) guided this study, as researchers examined alternatively certified teachers’ experiences and responses to challenges in their teaching. Emergent themes included prior plans to teach, overwhelming expectations, supportive networks, aspects of resilience, and feelings of motivation and inspiration. This study highlights the need for proactive professional development and support systems for first-year, alternatively certified agriculture teachers.

Copyright of Innovacion Educativa is the property of Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Profesorado: Revista de Currículum y Formación del Profesorado is the property of Profesorado: Revista de Curriculum y Formacion del Profesorado and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study examines beginning teachers' and pre-service teachers' motivation to teach in China. Data are drawn from questionnaires completed by 107 beginning teachers (full-time teachers with fewer than six years' working experience) and 122 pre-service teachers, and semi-structured interviews with 19 of them. The respondents all emphasised social influences, personal utility value, and social utility value, and all viewed the teaching profession as a career high in demands but low in returns. However, pre-service teachers showed higher motivation than beginning teachers, except for items regarding intrinsic value, fall-back careers, and teaching ability. This study suggests a 'culture-motivation' framework for understanding teachers' motivation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early career teachers continue to flee the profession in many countries around the world. In a series of our own studies, we have attempted to better understand the intentions of early career teachers. In this paper, we build on themes that emerged in a 2015 study, published in Teaching Education, with 40 second- and third-year teachers, and interviewed 15 more second- and third-year teachers from another Canadian province. Using a semi-structured interview procedure with a method of thematic analysis, the same 2015 themes emerged in the new study with the exception of two original themes: It's the kids; and An opportunity for relief: Relational support. Both new themes highlighted relational aspects of sustainability and turned us to the notion of relational agency. We draw on the conception of relational agency to inquire into how early career teachers might establish a capacity to align their thoughts and actions with others on the professional knowledge landscape. We then pose questions surrounding how relational agency helps teacher educators, administrators, and teachers to think differently about how early career teachers might be sustained in teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to identify the challenges beginning teachers face with in their first years in the profession and their sources. A multiple-case study design was conducted. Purposeful sampling was used and participants were three beginning teachers who started their teaching career in Eskisehir at the beginning of 2014-2015 schooling year. Data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews, observations, unstructured individual interviews and open-ended questionnaires throughout one schooling year. Data were analysed inductively. Cross-case analysis followed within-case analysis of each beginner teacher case. The common emerging themes were classroom management, preservice teacher education, organizational procedures, students and personal/professional development oriented challenges. Implications for preservice teacher education curricula are to increase the teaching practices/practicum and to be more rigorous in these courses. In further research, an action research design study might be beneficial to understand the challenges in this critical period and to attempt to overcome them.

The induction of beginning teachers is an imperative process in enculturating teachers to their new careers and helping them overcome the hurdles in the early years of teaching and the registration processes teachers undergo. Although induction practices in Australia have become more common in recent years, the data shows there is still much work to do. The current article presents a collective case study of six induction programs, which sought to ascertain the nature of beginning teacher induction in the independent school sector in NSW. Although difficult to generalise across the entire schooling sector, it is likely that the cases selected provide a snapshot of the variety and inconsistency of induction programs in independent schools across the state. The implications of the findings are significant in that they support structured induction of beginning teachers that may require bureaucratic oversight to ensure that beginning teachers have the best opportunity to become highly qualified career professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Gazi University Journal of Gazi Educational Faculty (GUJGEF) is the property of Gazi University Journal of Gazi Educational Faculty (GUJGEF) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As a downside, research shows that high-quality mentoring is rare. In 2017, more than dozen years after the launch of the induction program, a survey was initiated by the NGO Alustavat Õpetajat Toetav Kool. The characteristics of the current beginning teachers in Estonia and as well as the current situation in beginning teacher mentoring in Estonia calls for mentoring system improvements.

The purpose of this study is to determine the challenges faced by novice teachers in their first year of profession. This research was conducted with 33 novice teachers working in Istanbul, Konya, Gaziantep and Van provinces. Research data were obtained using semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers. In the analysis of the data, descriptive analysis and content analysis techniques were used. As a result of the research, it was found that the novice teachers faced various challenges in teaching planning and implementation, classroom management, relations with society and adaptation to the physical environment, relations with colleagues, administrators, parents, and mentor teachers and the lack of physical infrastructure of the school in the first year of the profession. Existing pre-service teacher education and induction programs should be revised taking into account the challenges that novice teachers most frequently encounter during the first year of the profession.

This paper contains the results of a study on beginning teachers' views regarding the role of the professional communication between mentor teachers and beginning teachers for effective induction and integration to the teaching profession. The study was conducted in within "The Art of Mentoring the Transition from University to Educational Institutions" research project of Vratsa branch of St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo. The first steps in a career (the induction), is a period of support aimed at the seamless introduction of the new recruits into a profession. Typically, at the start of their career in the teaching profession (first 1-3 years), beginning teachers are full of optimism, enthusiasm, dedication, ready to make a difference. But the induction period which is time of positive energy also turns out to be the most difficult and critical period of a beginning teachers professional life. During this early stage of teaching, new teachers suffer the pressure of high public expectations, disappointment from unmet expectations and frustration that ultimately result into leaving the profession. High attrition rates among beginning teachers is a global problem which causes huge economic cost to educational institutions and indicates the need of adequate support for new teachers. Effective induction is the best means for reducing attrition rates among beginning teachers during the early stage of their careers. Furthermore, high quality induction provides beginning teachers with the kind of support that may not only help them survive and stay, but may also help them thrive in the profession. It requires strong supportive school climate and high-quality mentoring. Of all support providing approaches, mentorship is the most effective one. The effectiveness of mentoring is in the power of man-to-man connection. The relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a strong professional relation. The most significant aspect of any relationships - no matter if they are personal or professional - is communication. Professional communication encompasses different forms of communication (written, oral, visual, digital) within a workplace context. Communication between mentor teachers and beginning teachers is the essence of mentorship. It plays an important role for the effective integration of the early career teacher to the profession as well as in building quality teachers. The mentor teacher's role is to guide the new teacher by providing methodological support thus stimulating the beginning teacher's professional enhancement and career development. Beginning teachers, however, are not only passive receivers of support and guidance, but active contributors to their induction and co-responsible for their own professional growth. The communication with a more experienced veteran teacher can be a motivating and inspiring example for the beginning teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study drew on qualitative research and focused on the exercise of agency among the novice English teachers in the Iranian context. Fifteen novice English teachers who have been teaching English in private language institutes in Baneh, Iran were invited through snowball sampling. The analyses of semi-structured and focus group interviews, from the complexity dynamic/system perspective, revealed that teachers practice agency employing dialogic feedback, positioning, and critical incidents. The results further indicated that teachers made a learning community to make the right decision, predict future incidents, and develop their professional agency. The analyses provide implications for the policymakers, teacher educators, and curriculum designers to construct a better opportunity for beginning teachers to become highly-qualified in their careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates beginning teachers’ relationships with their mentors as well as the collaboration between beginning teachers and their colleagues after five years of practice. One of the important roles of a mentor is to support the beginning teachers’ collaboration with other teachers. Authors investigated the sustainability of the collaborative aspect of the induction program in order to determine if collaboration between beginning teachers and their mentors continues after five years of work and whether this collaboration extends to the beginning teachers’ colleagues. Open-response questions were chosen for discovering aspects related with the continuity of mentoring. More than a half of the beginning teachers continue collaboration with their mentors throughout a five-year period. These beginning teachers, whose collaboration with their mentors continues during the five years, are found to be more cooperative with other colleagues at school. One-to-one mentoring creates quality examples for teacher collaboration that are treated as the first step towards creating a professional learning community within schools. The novelty of this research lies in the longitudinal nature of the teachers who participated in the national induction year program and whose progress has been monitored throughout five years of work.