According to the 2019 Biannual Teacher Supply and Demand Report, approximately 25% of teachers in Minnesota left the teaching profession for personal reasons. A trend of teacher instability-- particularly amongst teachers of color--is high and is shown to be influenced by working conditions. A lack of teacher classroom autonomy, administrative…

A tiger in the arctic. Sunflowers in a coral reef. Would they thrive -- or even survive -- in those ecosystems? Probably not, despite being strong and resilient species. Similarly, even well-designed, evidence-based professional learning must occur in a supportive, rather than endangering, ecosystem to take root and thrive. Ecosystems that support…

This article discusses the impact of collective trauma on faculty with a focus on creating a more trauma-informed learning and working environment. In addition to discussing social justice self-care, six categories of macro-level strategies and reflection questions are shared to encourage a more trauma-informed approach to faculty development.…

Novice teachers are often discouraged by the problems they encounter in their daily professional practices and they (still) feel unable to cope with. This is also reflected in high drop-out rates in the early stages of teachers' careers. In this paper a theory-informed methodology to support novice teachers' individual and collective professional…

Schools are sites of teachers' professional learning for both new entrants and experienced practitioners. In this paper, schools are conceptualised as complex, multidimensional ecologies that are constituted by the relations that exist between school leaders, teachers, mentors and all members of the school community. As relational environments,…

Over the past decade, education reformers have focused much of their attention on raising teacher quality. This focus on individual teachers has caused policymakers to lose sight of the importance of the organizational contexts in which teachers work and students learn. The quality of a school's teaching staff is greater than the sum of its parts.…

Drawing upon data from an Australian study, this book gives voice to beginning teachers navigating their way through their first year of teaching and discovering what it means to be professional learners. The chapters within provide rich insights into the ways in which beginning teachers make sense of the new and challenging experiences they face…

In research on teacher professional development and school reform attention for the role of teacher agency has been growing significantly during the last decade. The objective of this study is to create a model with the potential to view professional development and school reform from a teacher agency perspective at multiple levels. The model of…

We propose the Framework for Cultivating Teacher Thriving, which identifies the important role that teachers' social-emotional competence (SEC) plays in helping them to thrive at work (and beyond). The framework operationalises SEC by way of teachers' basic psychological need satisfaction (a sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness),…

Teachers need training and support to address the secondary traumatic stress (STS) they may experience as well as identify and address students' trauma. To ensure that all teachers can do both, state leaders need to embed trauma-informed practices in mandated teacher training on trauma and self-care. A trauma-informed education system will ensure…

The question of whether teaching is a profession, with all the status and responsibilities that entails, is not as settled as some believe. Emma García and Elaine Weiss look at the requirements and characteristics of a profession and examine data from teachers and find that teaching, as currently experienced by teachers, does not measure up to the…

Early educators are the best spokespeople about the conditions under which they work and what they need in order to thrive. Policy leaders have much to gain by actively engaging educators in identifying workable solutions to the child care crisis. The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) believes that educators have the right to…

As part of the 2024 supplemental budget, the Washington State Legislature added a requirement that each local education agency (LEA) report to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) by November 1, 2024, on the LEA's expenditures relating to the following items for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years: (1) To what extent the…

This paper provides a rationale for understanding personal/professional identities to support personal/professional learning and positioning in academe and higher education. It explains the importance of women writing and speaking out the stories of their lives (everyday and academic), having their voices heard and responded to, and using embodied…

Becoming a professional worker involves a wide range of cognitive, social, and cultural processes that have received extensive attention over the past decades amongst various disciplines. It is also not external to language use and communication. Novices in any occupation have to learn technical terms and are expected to master specific discourse…