This vital book is a unique collection of the Canadian research on teacher induction and mentoring. It makes a timely and valuable contribution by bringing together the pan-Canadian voices of authors who are passionate about the development of early career teachers.

Teachers are the backbone of schools, yet they are leaving in droves. This book addresses the post-pandemic crisis of early career teacher turnover that is harming students and entire school systems. The author provides teacher educators and mentors with strategies to help new teachers proactively navigate the early years and thrive in the K–12 classroom. Based on 10 years of research and practical application, this guide will support teacher professional identity formation, resilience, and agency. With a humanistic conceptual lens on the most pressing issues expressed by novice teachers, chapters cover understanding the causes of burnout and attrition, promoting an authentic teacher identity, appreciating teaching as developmental, managing tension and conflict, self-care for busy educators, and authoring a personalized early career plan. Each topic features assignment ideas, reflection prompts, and other tools suitable for both teacher preparation courses and one-on-one coaching and mentoring. Book Features: Offers field-tested tools to help preservice and new teachers avoid burnout and maintain their well-being.Includes step-by-step activities with templates that break down each of the tools discussed.Weaves together inspiring quotes, short anecdotes, and work samples from teachers who participated in the activities.Recommends distinct ways that K–12 induction programs, mentors, administrators, and early career teachers can use and adapt the ideas presented. “Valtierra is a beacon of hope, offering practical strategies and compelling insights to empower educators at the onset of their journey.” —Tina H. Boogren, bestselling author and educational consultant

Teachers in their first few years of their teaching career require high quality, structured support to begin the journey towards becoming experts. Establishing research-based best practices and working habits set up early career teachers for a fulfilling and successful career. The requirements of teachers are constantly changing, and teachers need to continually adapt their knowledge and practices to fit schools’ changing demographics. Having a toolbox of research-based best practices to draw upon can support early career teachers as they move from theory to practical application when the learning curve is the steepest. Strengthening the system of support includes increasing teachers’ influence over their day-to-day work and developing positive and supportive cultures of learning. Supporting Early Career Teachers With Research-Based Practices presents both theoretical and practical research to support the conceptual understanding of educational praxis for common areas with which early career educators may require additional expertise or support. This book is intended to be a valuable contribution to the body of literature in the field of education by supplying research-based teaching practices for modern education. Primary topics covered include professional learning, classroom management, student-teacher relationships, teaching diverse students and inclusive educational practices, and teacher self-care strategies. This book is a valuable reference tool for early career teachers of all subject areas and grade levels, school administrators, teacher mentors and guides, education faculty in higher education, educational researchers, curriculum developers, instructional facilitators, practicing teachers, pre-service teachers, professional development coordinators, teacher educators, researchers, academicians, and students interested in teaching practices and support for the early career teacher.

Teachers are the backbone of schools, yet they are leaving in droves. This book addresses the post-pandemic crisis of early career teacher turnover that is harming students and entire school systems. The author provides teacher educators and mentors with strategies to help new teachers proactively navigate the early years and thrive in the K-12 classroom. Based on 10 years of research and practical application, this guide will support teacher professional identity formation, resilience, and agency. With a humanistic conceptual lens on the most pressing issues expressed by novice teachers, chapters cover understanding the causes of burnout and attrition, promoting an authentic teacher identity, appreciating teaching as developmental, managing tension and conflict, self-care for busy educators, and authoring a personalized early career plan. Each topic features assignment ideas, reflection prompts, and other tools suitable for both teacher preparation courses and one-on-one coaching and mentoring. Book Features: Offers field-tested tools to help preservice and new teachers avoid burnout and maintain their well-being. Includes step-by-step activities with templates that break down each of the tools discussed. Weaves together inspiring quotes, short anecdotes, and work samples from teachers who participated in the activities. Recommends distinct ways that K-12 induction programs, mentors, administrators, and early career teachers can use and adapt the ideas presented.

Engaging in Educational Research-Practice Partnerships guides academic researchers into forming mutually respectful, collaborative, and scalable partnerships with school practitioners. Despite robust theoretical and conceptual planning, research on learning is often removed from real settings and generates findings with limited practical relevance, yielding frustration for K-12 stakeholders. This book provides invaluable resources to researchers seeking to work with practitioners as they solve problems and improve outcomes while answering fundamental questions about who gets to generate knowledge, from where, to whom, and in what contexts. A range of illustrative case studies and strategies explores how to apply appropriate theories and methodologies, negotiate agendas that ensure mutually beneficial goals, determine the role of pracademics, establish institutional supports, policies, and procedures that amplify impact and sustainability, and much more.

This book addresses one of the most persistent issues confronting governments, educations systems and schools today: the attraction, preparation, and retention of early career teachers. It draws on the stories of sixty graduate teachers from Australia to identify the key barriers, interferences and obstacles to teacher resilience and what might be done about it. Based on these stories, five interrelated themes - policies and practices, school culture, teacher identity, teachers’ work, and relationships – provide a framework for dialogue around what kinds of conditions need to be created and sustained in order to promote early career teacher resilience. The book provides a set of resources – stories, discussion, comments, reflective questions and insights from the literature – to promote conversations among stakeholders rather than providing yet another ‘how to do’ list for improving the daily lives of early career teachers. Teaching is a complex, fragile and uncertain profession. It operates in an environment of unprecedented educational reforms designed to control, manage and manipulate pedagogical judgements. Teacher resilience must take account of both the context and circumstances of individual schools (especially those in economically disadvantaged communities) and the diversity of backgrounds and talents of early career teachers themselves. The book acknowledges that the substantial level of change required– cultural, structural, pedagogical and relational – to improve early career teacher resilience demands a great deal of cooperation and support from governments, education systems, schools, universities and communities: teachers cannot do it alone. This book is written to generate conversations amongst early career teachers, teacher colleagues, school leaders, education administrators, academics and community leaders about the kinds of pedagogical and relational conditions required to promote early career teacher resilience and wellbeing.

This book provides perspectives and insights across the educational system for how we might move toward living out this wish in all schools. The chapters provide perspectives on fundamental questions that have been guiding recent research on wellbeing in schools: How do school communities flourish together? How does supporting educator wellbeing connect to teaching, learning, leading in schools? What characteristics, qualities and strategies support the wellbeing of the whole school community? This book is unique in that it answers these questions from the perspectives of teachers, students, administrators in K-12 schools, as well as from university and the wider community. Importantly, these chapters provide a repertoire of varied answers to the question that underpins this shift in research toward a positive organizational perspective: How can we leverage what works well to grow more, to instill in each community member a sense of their value and capacity to contribute? These chapters serve as examples, invitations, and inspiration for readers to notice in their own contexts ways they can grow wellbeing through a focused attention on building appreciative, strengths-based, positive approaches to teaching, learning, and leading in all schools.