The Challenges of Supporting New Teachers

A Conversation with Linda Darling-Hammond

In this interview with Educational Leadership, Linda Darling-Hammond describes the kind of preparation and support new teachers need to survive their critical first years in the classroom.

Fifty years ago, Dan Lortie said the new teacher was like Robinson Crusoe, marooned on an island and facing challenges of survival. Modern Survivor images aside, is it still like that for beginning teachers?

It's still like that for some teachers, but less so than it once was. It's true that a number of beginners leave the teaching profession early because they don't feel effective. Sometimes they feel that they're crashing and burning, and sometimes, they really are.

But now most states have implemented some sort of professional development or peer assistance for new teachers. About three-fourths of new teachers report that they have participated in an induction program and have had a mentor teacher assigned to them.¹  A few states even have fully funded mentoring programs in which the mentors are expert teachers who have release time to be in the classroom coaching on a regular basis.

It's really important for beginners to have systematic, intense mentoring in the first year. Having weekly support and in-classroom coaching in the first year for fine-tuning skills, for planning lessons, and for problem solving about things that come up in the classroom ensures that someone experienced is there during the critical moments of the beginning teacher's first year.

That is the ideal way to make sure beginning teachers don't just survive but also become competent and effective—and stay in the profession.

You've noted that teacher preparation plays a big role in the retention of teachers. How does teacher preparation need to change?

In the old-style program, you took a bunch of courses and then did eight weeks of student teaching at the end of the courses. Candidates learned things in the abstract and then tended to forget much of what they learned by the time they actually got into a classroom. And the practices in their student-teaching classroom might not resemble those described in their courses. That antiquated, fragmented program is becoming a thing of the past.

Many teacher education programs have already changed so that they offer strong clinical experience connected to coursework. Many also have strengthened their preparation for curriculum development, assessment, and differentiated instruction. These things matter for keeping teachers in the profession.

We know that teachers who are fully prepared stay in teaching at much higher rates than those who lack key elements of preparation. Those who have done student teaching are less than half as likely to leave after the first year as those who haven't student taught. Those who have had coaching, been observed in their classrooms, and seen other people teach are less than half as likely to leave within the first year. Those who have had a chance to study child development, learning, and curriculum are less than half as likely to leave as those who have not had those opportunities.² 

Being in the classroom of an effective mentor teacher for a long enough period of time, with graduated responsibilities, has a huge impact. Carefully managed student-teaching placement matters, too.

What is the current status of the professional development school? Has that movement been successful?

I just gave a talk to about 1,000 people at the annual conference of the National Association of Professional Development Schools. They came from across the United States and from several other nations and were all involved with thriving professional development schools. Many universities and schools together provide not only a clinical site for training teachers in the context of carefully mentored student teaching, but also a coherent program in which all of the courses are connected to the clinical work.

In these programs, the student learns specific practices, goes into the classroom and works on those practices, and then brings the experience back (sometimes with a videotape of the teaching or evidence of student work), debriefs, problem solves, learns some more, and takes it back to use in the classroom.

Of course, this requires collaborative planning between faculties in both the school and the university. The most powerful program models now enroll students in student teaching from the time they enter through the time they complete the program. Courses and student teaching are woven around each other, like a double helix.

Would you name a few of the professional development schools that have model programs?

I can name well over 100 schools that are doing very fine work.

It's certainly the model we use at Stanford. You see very high-quality work going on ...

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