"What Do You Need? How Can I Help?" Understanding and Responding to Beginning Teacher Challenges

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 4:20 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Listening, Understanding, and Responding to In-Service Teachers (Table 34)

Abstract

The first years of teaching are uniquely challenging. Early career teachers (ECTs) are overwhelmed by many and often competing responsibilities, lack of consistent support, and systemic inequities and inefficiencies. The identification and mitigation of these factors through mentorship is a promising strategy to improve the experience of ECTs.

The focus of this study, University District Induction Partnership (UDIP), serves ECTs on fourteen campuses to improve individual teacher outcomes and stabilize the staff in schools where challenges are particularly acute. Over a three-year period, university mentors, in partnership with district stakeholders, identified systemic challenges to ECT persistence in the field and worked together to mitigate them. The paper focuses specifically on data collected during the 2022-2023 school year.

Authors

• LeAnne Lesher Hernandez, University of Texas at Austin

• Audrey See, University of Texas at Austin

• Elizabeth Ries, University of Texas at Austin

• Beth Maloch, University of Texas at Austin

• Melissa Mosley Wetzel, University of Texas at Austin