Summary of Current Research:  Teacher preparation is a means to advance equity for all students.  High-needs students, those of color or low-income, research has shown are more likely to be taught by new teachers.    
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Establishing the Need: Rockefeller Institute reported in The Teacher Workforce Study:  

• NYS has seen in recent years one of the largest drops in the nation in the number of individuals enrolled in and graduating from teacher education  programs. If that trend persists, the decrease in the supply of teachers could create shortages in future years.
• The future effects of the declining supply of prospective teachers may be exacerbated by their specializations.  When compared to the current teacher workforce, few recent graduates of teacher education programs are prepared to teach the core subjects of mathematics, science, English, and social  studies as well as such subjects as career and technical training, music, and art.

In districts with greater proportions of nonwhite and Hispanic students as well as higher rates of poverty, school districts are more likely to have teachers teaching out of their certification areas, have teachers without permanent certification,  have inexperienced teachers, and experience high annual rates of teacher turnover. The teacher demand and supply system in New York thus reveals persistent inequalities in the abilities of districts to recruit and retain a stable and qualified teaching staff, and the inequality is compounded by the fact that the problems are more acute in the  districts where an increasing number of New York State students are enrolled.

• Jim  Malatras,  Thomas Gais,  and Alan Wagner, A  Background  on Potential  Teacher Shortages  in the United States (Albany:  Rockefeller  Institute of Government,  July  2017),
• Thomas  Gais, Jim  Malatras, Alan  Wagner, and Young  Joo Park, By  the Numbers:  Phase One Analysis  of the Teacher Workforce  in South Dakota (Albany: Rockefeller  Institute of  Government, November  2017).

Research affirms that effective teaching is key to student learning — yet teacher candidates too often are unprepared for the complexity, expectations and requirements of the teaching profession, with attrition as high as 50 percent in the first five years of teaching.

• High-quality teacher preparation is key to teacher retention. As noted earlier, teachers who enter the field with little preparation are two to three times more likely to leave their schools than those who had comprehensive preparation.                            
  • Ingersoll, R.,  Menill, L-, & May,H. (2012). Retaining teachers: How preparation matters. Educational Leadership, 59(8), 30-34.
• Teacher residents gain extensive classroom experience by learning from an accomplished veteran teacher in a high-need school before becoming solely responsible for their own class.  This increases their chances of success as classroom teachers and gives the residency program an opportunity to assess residents' performance before entrusting them with students of their own.  
  • ​Wiswall, M. (2013). The dynamics of teacher quality. Journal of Public Economics, 100,61-78; Kini, T., & Podolsky, A. (2015). Does teaching experience increase teacher effectiveness? A review of the research. Palo Alto: Learning Policy Institute.
• It also allows the partnering school district to closely shape the type of coursework and other preparation the residents receive, so that residents fully understand the local district context. The residency model helps new teachers build strong relationships by clustering cohorts in university classes and school sites, and by providing ongoing mentoring and support once residents become teachers. Thus, residents can collaborate with and support one another through the challenges of being novice teachers.
  • ​Guha, R., Hyler, M. E., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2016). The Teacher Residency: An innovative model for preparing, teachers. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.
• Principals find graduates of residency programs to be well prepared, and in many cases to be better prepared than typical new teachers. In addition, a review of residency program evaluations shows that residents tend to have higher retention rates over time than non resident teachers.
  • Guha, R., Hyler, M. E., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2016). The teacher residency: An innovative model for preparing teachers, Palo AIto, CA: Learning Policy Institute;  National Center for  Teacher Residencies. (2016).2015 Network Impact Overview. Chicago: National Center for Teacher Residencies; Solomon, J. (2009). The Boston Teacher Residency: District- based teacher education. Journal Teacher Education, 60(5),478-488; Sloan, K., & Blazevski, J. p015). New Visions: Hunter College Urban Teacher Residency: Measures of success. Bloomington, lN: Rockman.

Research Specialist

Edward Sturman, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Psychology

SUNY Plattsburgh @ Queensbury

classroom_academy_preliminary_research_summary.pdf
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The CLASSROOM ACADEMY:  A TEACHER RESIDENCY 
Research Design:  The goal of the present study is to objectively and systematically evaluate the performance of teacher residents along with perceptions of the teacher residents by parents, students, and the subjects themselves. In addition to performance, we seek to evaluate how the teacher resident program will impact key educational variables, including efficacy, grit, motivation, and engagement.
Performance variables:  Formative assessments in reading and math will be tracked longitudinally for students in the teacher resident classrooms, both in the first and second year of the program. We will investigate whether significant improvements in reading and math occur over time for students who receive additional instruction from teacher residents.
    It will also be important to evaluate teacher residents’ instructional performance in real-world classroom settings. In each year, residents will submit videotape of their classroom instruction at one time point in each of the fall and spring semesters. Three expert raters, each with either a doctorate in Education, a certified and calibrated NYS administrator, or National Board certification in that area and ten years of practical teaching experience, will assess the subjects on a number of teaching skills. The raters will be blind to the resident assignment to avoid bias. This approach will allow us to both evaluate whether changes have occurred within the teacher residents over time.

Student Evaluations of Teacher Residents:  The teacher residents will be evaluated by students on the “7Cs” of teaching. The 7Cs are as follows: Care, Confer, Captivate, Clarify, Consolidate, Challenge, and Classroom Management and are assessed using the Tripod Surveys. The Tripod Surveys are a set of standardized and validated measures that can be used to assess student perceptions of teachers as well as their own abilities.

Student Perceptions:  In each semester of the teacher resident’s program, students will be assessed on efficacy, motivation, behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, and grit using standardized assessments. Grit will be assessed with a separate grit measure (the Grit Scale for Children and Adults, which has been validated at SUNY Plattsburgh) while the other variables will be assessed with the Tripod Surveys. This approach will allow us to assess changes over the course of the teacher resident’s appointment and the extent to which students benefit from the program.

Parent Perceptions:  Parents will be asked about their general attitudes towards the teacher resident program at the start and end of each academic year.
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Teacher Residents:  Each semester, teacher residents will be assessed for efficacy using a standardized measure. We will also administer a motivation/enjoyment measure, created for the purpose of the study. By assessing these variables in each semester we will be able to ascertain whether teaching efficacy, motivation, and enjoyment of teaching increase over time in this group. We will administer the same measures in each semester to the control groups to determine whether parallel changes occur in early career teachers and student teachers.

Classroom Academy Preliminary Findings:
Parent Perceptions and Tripod Surveys:

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The Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES does not discriminate in its programs and activities, including employment and admission as applicable, on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, economic status, marital status, veterans' status, political affiliation, domestic victim status, use of a guide dog, hearing dog or service dog, disability, or other classifications protected under federal or state law, and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts and other designated youth groups. The designated district compliance officers will coordinate compliance with the nondiscrimination requirements of Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended, the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act, and the New York State Human Rights Law. The BOCES Compliance Officers are: Turina Parker and Ronald Black, Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES, 1153 Burgoyne Avenue, Suite 2, Fort Edward, NY 12828. phone: 518-746-3310, email: tuparker@wswheboces.org or rblack@wswheboces.org.  Complaints may also be filed with the Office for Civil Rights, New York Office, U.S. Department of Education, 32 Old Slip, 26th Floor, New York, NY 10005- 2500, phone (646) 428-3800, fax (646) 428-3843, email:OCR.NewYork@ed.gov ​