STEM Teachers in Professional Learning Communities: From Good Teachers to Great Teaching

written by Kathleen Fulton and Ted Britton

These two studies place a capstone on a decade of teacher effectiveness research. We now have compelling evidence that when teachers team up with their colleagues they are able to create a culture of success in schools, leading to teaching  improvements and student learning gains. The clear policy and practice implication is that great teaching is a team sport. Performance appraisal, compensation, and incentive systems that focus on individual teacher efforts at the expense of collaborative professional capacity building could seriously undermine our ability to prepare today's students for 21 st century college and career success. Every school needs good teachers--but a school does not become a great place to learn until those teachers have the leadership and support to create a learning culture that is more powerful than even the best of them can sustain on their own.

These findings have significant implications for America's competitiveness in a global innovation economy. Student mastery in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is essential to our economic growth. But America's twenty?year decline in international science and mathematics standings tells us that we have serious challenges to overcome. Countries that persistently rank at the top of international measures of science and mathematics achievement do things differently. A growing number of reports indicates that one of their biggest advantages is in the clear, consistent, and coherent support systems they provide for teachers from preparation through induction to accomplished practice.

http://nctaf.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/NCTAFreportSTEMTeachersinPLCsFromGoodTeacherstoGreatTeaching.pdf

Mentoring: Hopes and Promise for Improving Teacher Effectiveness

written by Ellen Moir, Dara Barlin, Janet Gless, and Jan Miles

In this practical yet visionary book, Ellen Moir and her colleagues at the New Teacher Center review what current research suggests (and doesn t) about the power of well designed mentoring programs to shape teacher and student outcomes. They set forth the principles of high-quality instructional mentoring and describe the elements of a rigorous professional development program. Detailed case studies show how these principles can be applied at the district level and highlight the opportunities and challenges involved in implementing these programs in different contexts. The book makes a powerful case for using new teacher mentoring as an entry point for creating a strong professional culture with a shared, aligned understanding of high-quality teaching.

http://www.hepg.org/hep/book/111/NewTeacherMentoring

The Impact of Mentoring on Teacher Retention: What the Research Says

written by Richard Ingersoll and Jeffrey M. Kralik

The Education Commission of the States commissioned this report as a comprehensive and critical review of existing empirical studies on induction programs. This report's primary objective is to provide policymakers, educators and researchers with a reliable assessment of what is known, and not known, about the effectiveness – the value added – of teacher induction programs. In particular, this review focuses on the impact of induction and mentoring programs on teacher retention.

http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/50/36/5036.htm