Design Research Lessons from a New Teacher Induction Program

• In Event: Lessons From an Encompassing Teacher Preparation/Diversification Project

Abstract

Recruiting a more diverse teaching force is a central aspect of the project, but so too is supporting early career teachers working within and across diverse and demographically changing schools in the state. This early career stage of teaching is known as the “induction phase” and is the moment where “learning to teach begins in earnest” (Feiman-Nemser, 2001, p. 1026). This paper focuses on the project’s targeted induction efforts for teachers in their first five years of teaching who are working in these diverse school systems.
The first part of the paper will describe our teaching of a project-supported induction course for early career teachers. Taking place over five weeks of the summer and enrolling 17 early career teachers from 13 different schools in seven districts across the state, the first version of this hybrid course engaged students in discussions and reading that revolved the following questions: How do our teaching contexts matter for our ongoing learning to teach process? How does who we are and where we come from (as people with our own personal and teaching biographies) matter for how we experience our own classrooms? How can we think more critically about how the institution of schooling shapes students’ behavior and experiences in schools? And how can we reframe our teaching and curriculum around the notion of “cultivating genius” in our students?

After this thick description of efforts to date (in the summer of 2024), the second part of this paper will focus on ideas for the redesign of induction efforts in 2025. This includes revised summer 2025 coursework, but also the ongoing induction work happening in each of the five school sites via project-funded “induction coaches.” This paper will close with a broader argument for why this work is vital to larger efforts to recruit and retain a diverse and culturally responsive teaching force, especially in diverse and demographically changing communities.

Authors

• Lauren Gatti, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

• Jenelle R. Reeves, University of Nebraska - Lincoln