♪♪
ANNOUNCER: State of Teacher Preparation.
Research and stories from early years in the
classroom is a co-production of Regional
Educational Laboratory Midwest and Detroit Public
Television with funding provided by REL Midwest
through funds provided by the U.S. Department
of Education's Institute of Education Sciences.
♪♪
[no audible dialogue]
COREY: Learning to teach is always about
learning to teach something.
LEAH: You can't grow if you don't know
what you're doing wrong.
JENNIFER D: What is good teaching?
How would we know what if we saw it?
And that's pushback on teacher preparation.
So now people are thinking deeply about this,
and they're coming together more to sort of
see if they can agree.
♪♪
♪♪
[no audible dialoge]
DOMINIC: I wanted to become a teacher
because I love making things interesting.
♪♪
IMANI: I love my kids.
I see them growing.
I see them changing, and it's amazing.
TIFFANY: I love children and I think that I've had
some very inspiring teachers when I was growing up.
I just always had that passion to become a
teacher, and it just stuck with me.
NARRATOR: We sat down with three novice
teachers in metro Detroit.
Their experiences draw parallels to current
research on preparing and supporting new teachers,
specifically the importance of quality
preparation, including clinical experience and
ongoing mentorship.
We also spoke to veteran teachers, school leaders,
researchers and leaders from teacher preparation
programs in the Michigan Department of Education
about evidence-based best practices for new teacher
preparation and support in Michigan and nationally
as well as ideas for continued improvement.
♪♪
TIFFANY: I went to Detroit public schools growing up.
I see the needs here now and I feel like there's no
other place that I belong other than teaching in Detroit.
NARRATOR: Tiffany Ward started her education
career as a paraprofessional in 2014
at Highland Park Renaissance Academy.
She is still at the same school,
but this is now her first year as a certified teacher.
JENNIFER D: There's plenty of evidence that clinical
experience matters, but it's not a
matter of just many hours.
There are some features of it that make it more powerful.
NARRATOR: Clinical experience is the
experience one gains while working in the field such
as in an internship or through student teaching.
In effort to get the specific clinical
experience needed to be a successful novice teacher
in Detroit, Tiffany enrolled in TeachDETROIT,
the teacher residency program offered through
Wayne State University.
JENNIFER L: The idea was to create a program that
would train people especially to work in
Detroit schools, and that would also build on the
strengths of the city.
From the very first day, our students are in a
school with children, and they'll rehearse an
activity, and then they go in and for 20 minutes,
will work with children.
JENNIFER D: Training in a context and then having
your first job in the same kind of situation,
you are going to be a better teacher.
And that evidence is pretty strong.
It's even stronger if you train in a particular
school and end up getting hired there.
♪♪
TIFFANY: I did my student teaching at a Detroit
public school, Malcolm X-Paul Robeson Academy.
And then I closed it out here at Highland Park
Renaissance Academy teaching summer school.
CHILD 1: 14.
WOMAN 1: 14?
Can you make a 10?
We looked a lot at how doctors are trained.
Those novices are in with more seasoned
professionals very early on.
WOMAN 2: You have ten and then how many little
boxes do you have?
CHILD 2: Three.
JENNIFER L: And they teach for half an hour every day
in the beginning.
Then we start increasing that and we allow teachers
to teach for longer and bigger groups.
We also looked at the way athletes train,
and that's how we got to the videotaping.
Turns out athletes are videotaped frequently and
get critique on their videos and actually helps
them learn and grow.
♪♪
NARRATOR: One of the top concerns for Tiffany as a
novice teacher is classroom management,
especially since she teaches very young students.
She relies on her peers and mentors at TeachDETROIT
to help her plan her own management strategies.
KENDRA: Kindergarten is a hard grade in itself.
It's not just always about teaching ABC's and 123's.
A lot of the kids have never been to school before.
I think that was difficult in the beginning just
because she was new and they were new.
♪♪
TIFFANY: What comes after five if you're counting by ten?
It's different every single day.
All right, hang your things up.
They're full of a lot of emotions.
And so sometimes when you first walk in the door,
it's a lot of what went on this morning or what
went on last night.
Do you need a hug?
How are you feeling?
Did you eat breakfast?
I get to see the TeachDETROIT students
that's been in the program with me and some of the new
TeachDETROIT students.
And so we get to share our experiences and really
talk about how it's been going for our
first year of teaching.
And I think a lot of us are having, you know,
those same struggles with classroom management.
The director of the program, Dr. Lewis,
she's been giving us advice.
It's normal.
It's normal for a first-year teacher to have
some classroom management issues.
And even after ten years of teaching,
you're gonna still have some things that you struggle with.
You've got to leave space.
You see how there's space in between there?
JENNIFER D: The very first thing you need,
it comes up again and again in surveys,
teachers say classroom management,
understanding how to manage children.
Next time write your answers right below.
OK?
Because you want to line them up.
JENNIFER D: It's about things like setting
classroom norms on day 1, telling people what's
expected of them, giving them good instructions,
learning how to hand out papers,
learning how to use the board.
TIFFANY: Eyes on the SMART Board.
CHILDREN: Eyes on the SMART Board.
JENNIFER D: How to use your voice.
It's a performance.
JENNIFER L: Lots of first-year teachers
leave the profession.
Lots more leave by year three, and in large part,
it's because they feel that they are not up to the task.
The work is overwhelming.
They feel that they're ineffective,
and it was found that good mentorship
made a real difference.
♪♪
While our students are in our program taking
courses and going through these clinical experiences
with us, they have mentors.
But when they graduate, we actually provide what we
call induction mentors for the first two years.
♪♪
We offer a lot of support for our new
teachers because our instructional coach pretty
much works one on one with all of the teachers,
and we're able to really see how much support each
individual teacher needs.
We have PLC meetings weekly which is
professional learning community.
The teachers are able to meet with one another at
least once a week to discuss whatever is
pressing that week.
♪♪
DOMINIC: I applied to Novi twice throughout the summer.
The first time was for a middle school position
that they found somebody else for.
The second one was a high school position.
Once I got the call, it was every kind of resource
that I had was completely invested into this school.
NARRATOR: Dominic Lis like Tiffany is a novice teacher.
He is a science instructor at Novi High School
and completed his teacher preparation at
Michigan State University.
DOMINIC: The teacher prep program at Michigan State has
us in classrooms starting our first year in it.
I went to three different schools for my service
learning, and then after we graduate our senior
year, you get your degree in your field,
and then you progress to your internship year.
COREY: In the internship, they are placed in a
classroom for five days a week,
and then on the fifth day, they come back to campus to
take graduate level classes.
That allows really a much longer time for learning
to teach and kind of a back and forth between
learning about ideas, trying them out in
practice, coming back and reflecting.
There are plenty of students or pre-service
teachers who when they enter this classroom or as
a new teacher, the only preparation they've had is
a 12-week internship.
That is their only classroom experience.
When we interview candidates,
it becomes very obvious about who's actually had
experience, and some of the people we're
interviewing have been classroom teachers,
and obviously they have a huge advantage because
they can speak from classroom experience.
NARRATOR: Even though Dominic and Tiffany teach
in two very different school districts,
their needs are similar, and include clinical
experience as pre-service teachers.
Like Tiffany, Dominic also benefits greatly from an
onsite mentor, Emily Pohlonski.
[no audible dialogue]
EMILY: I mentor new teachers in their first
couple of years here at Novi,
and I think the type of mentor I am with each of
those individuals is different.
With a new teacher, it's a lot more directed.
There's some really specific things that I
want to make sure that they know how to do and can do.
DOMINIC: Emily's been through so many different
types of training.
I mean, just unit planning and assessment writing,
all of these things.
And since she's a great teacher herself,
she can just give us that information.
NICOLE: And she models the behavior that we would
want to see out of new teachers like Dominic.
We have mentors that are assigned to all new
teachers, so each one is paired up with someone who
has been, you know, in the field for
four to five years minimally.
And if they don't have a mentor,
I would be really concerned and apprehensive as to
whether or not that person would be able to be sustainable.
♪♪
Research shows that getting good feedback from a
good mentor teacher is powerful,
because, you know, when you're in the moment,
you can't see it yourself, but having someone observe
you, that kind of feedback is very powerful.
COREY: There are some things that new teachers need, right?
They need time.
They need to have come in with some content and
pedagogy background and then have spaces and
opportunities to try new things and to be able to
learn from those things and to realize that not
everything is going to be successful the first time.
EMILY: I do not expect them to be the best that
they're ever going to be, but I expect that they
have what it takes to make sure I would feel OK
putting my kid in that room.
After that, I expect them to have an attitude that
indicates that they get that they're not the best
that they're ever gonna be and that they
want to grow with us.
LEAH: Feedback is so important that it's actually
part of the Superintendent's Top 10 in 10 initiative.
His goal is to be top 10 state in 10 years.
I think it's the single most beneficial way in
which a teacher can be supported is have somebody
that's able to give critical feedback and also
be a partner with somebody else as a mentor and share
feedback with them.
Blue and yellow make what color?
CHILD 3: Green.
CHILD 4: Green?
IMANI: I've always had an aptitude for children,
and people always told me I should be a teacher.
NARRATOR: Imani Sims comes from a teaching family and
attended private and charter schools while
growing up in Detroit.
She is a former Teach for America corps member and is
finishing up her second year as a kindergarten
teacher at Munger, a K-8 Detroit public school.
During her first year, she did not have any
significant mentorship.
IMANI: There is no formal mentorship program within
Detroit Public Schools which quite honestly,
I wish there was one because I was so lost last year.
♪♪
The biggest thing I guess is that Ms. Briegel came in.
When I first met her, she was just full of life.
Today we're gonna talk about things that are as
big as a fire truck.
♪♪
IMANI: And was very much like, hey,
this is what I'm doing, this is what I'm doing,
this is what I'm doing.
This is who I am as a person.
I really enjoy helping people.
NARRATOR: Fortunately, one experienced Detroit
educator took the initiative to change the
situation for Imani by serving as an informal
mentor to her.
LISA: The very first day of school we met each other.
We have adjoining classrooms.
I took this classroom over from a teacher that was retiring.
So, I went through the first seven years of my
career without a mentor, not only without a mentor,
but without a evaluation by an administrator.
So, I had no feedback on my teaching whatsoever.
As far as having a mentor, being assigned a mentor,
that didn't happen in my career ever, ever,
until I, 13 years in, went to National Board
Certification, and that's when I first discovered
what a mentor was, someone who helps you through the
process, someone who helped you reflect and
think about teaching.
And that's when I think it clicked for me that this
is a key element in this career.
IMANI: I saw older teachers asking her for
help, and I didn't feel like some dumb young kid
asking her for help because like other people,
(A) She offered.
(B) She was all about teamwork.
(C) She seemed to be OK with a reciprocal relationship.
LISA: The mentor has to want to mentor as much as
the mentee wants to have the mentoring.
I don't have to worry as much about what I'm doing
myself in the classroom.
I can now share that skill and knowledge.
It's taken 20-plus years, but I feel that I've gotten there.
♪♪
IMANI: And it was really nice to have Ms. Briegel,
especially because like our doors are,
like I can literally walk into her room from my
room, and she can walk into mine and just say,
hey, just checking in on you where I can say, hey,
I don't know what's going on.
Please help me.
There's something about feeling like you're alone
or maybe you're doing everything wrong and you
don't know because there's nothing to compare to.
NARRATOR: Like Tiffany, Imani deals with classroom
management issues while teaching kindergartners.
And also like Tiffany, Imani learned from her
mentor that what she is dealing with is not uncommon.
LISA: It was rough.
It's tough to be in charge of 25 kids and manage all
those multiple behaviors and yet learning my craft
and what I need to know how to do and what to do.
♪♪
It's the management that has to really be done on site.
It's not something you can read in a book.
You just have to do it.
You have to be part of it, and it's a learning process.
NARRATOR: Through wise mentorship,
the learning process can be accelerated for new teachers.
But, again, Ms. Briegel is just an informal mentor
who is there for Imani only because of circumstance.
♪♪
LISA: Four years ago in Detroit Public Schools,
I oversaw a first-year teacher mentoring program.
To this day, those teachers will contact me
via e-mail or see me at a workshop now and thank me
for the little things that they learned.
Detroit, we need to get back to that.
We need to get back to specific trainings just for them.
♪♪
NARRATOR: One of the most daunting challenges in
education today is the recruitment
and retention of new teachers.
JENNIFER D: One of the interesting things going
on in teacher prep right now is that enrollment's
down across the board in every kind of program,
in every place.
There was a survey done by a group called Third Way
in Washington, and they surveyed the top 50% of
graduates of universities, and they asked them their
perceptions of the teaching profession.
Is this something they wanted to do?
Is teaching an easy major?
Is it a well-respected thing?
Does it pay well?
And it was all negative.
NARRATOR: While problems with recruitment and
retention of new teachers might be caused by a
variety of issues, pay is one reason that
consistently came up in our interviews.
LISA: Probably one of the most phenomenal teachers
I've seen in years I mentored last year,
and she left in October this year.
I don't blame her.
Wonderful for her.
I think it was great, but it broke my heart because
the kids need great teachers like that.
How do we keep 'em?
(laughs)
Pay might be one way.
DOMINIC: I'm a science teacher by day,
and by night, I'm a football coach,
a spring athletic aide and a cook.
I'm 25 years old.
I have a lot of energy.
I don't know how many years I can do working three jobs.
It's tough.
IMANI: Quite honestly, if I were to get married and
start a family and my salary didn't raise,
I wouldn't be a teacher anymore even though I love
it, even though it makes me so happy,
I could not afford it.
I just wouldn't be able to.
♪♪
JENNIFER L: No one comes here because they think
they're going to make a lot of money,
but there is a limit to what people are willing to do.
Our program costs about $25,000.
And that's not including the loss of income that
our pre-service teachers have because they're not working.
But if we continue to have that kind of tuition cost,
we already lose out on a whole bunch of people who
don't have the ability to pay that.
NARRATOR: Beyond just pay, the problem of recruiting
and retaining new teachers may have as much to do
with the public perception of teaching as anything else.
COREY: And I think what has changed more is kind
of the public discourse around teaching,
around these ideas that there is no support,
that it's so hard, that you're evaluated right
away, that you have these high stakes assessments,
that you have no flexibility anymore.
You just teach what people give you.
LISA: There's so little curriculum,
but so high expectation on test score.
And so that makes it really hard for a newer
teacher to come in.
You're expected to have a little bigger bag of
tricks than you already have, and you're new.
You don't have it.
LEAH: It's been very easy to blame teacher preparation,
and the act of teaching for student failure when
I believe it actually is a host of issues surrounding.
There are systemic problems around what is
happening in schools.
There are systemic poverty issues that are greatly
impacting student achievement across the state.
And until we kind of own it as a team in a set of
partners and provide all of the wraparound
resources that we need for students to be successful.
It's not a problem we're going to solve just by
changing the way we teach teachers to teach,
especially if we can't keep them there
longer than five years.
♪♪
NARRATOR: With the challenges laid out,
educators and experts are implementing changes now
to teacher preparation in looking at more strategies
that could impact the future in very positive ways.
LEAH: People in the K-12 world very much only see teacher
preparation as the way that they went through it
regardless of how long ago that was and what type of
experience that they had.
And our core group is already out there
communicating the things that they have learned
about teacher preparation, and that in itself is huge.
Our new teachers indicate that they really do need
additional mentoring and induction.
JENNIFER L: If clinical experiences are included
to a greater degree, let's make sure that they are
the right kind of clinical experiences and not just
clocking hours in any school with any kind of
teacher and doing any old thing.
COREY: I've heard proposals and ideas and
districts trying things where teachers are in the
classroom part time and supporting novices part time,
or the novice teacher is not working a full load, right?
But is only working part of the load.
And the other part of their work is around
learning to teach, around being supported,
around getting to know the school and community.
There are some ideas, and we've been trying them
here at MSU, around technology also and really
having kind of distributed support where cohorts of
students say leaving here and going into their first
years of teaching in lots of geographically
dispersed places can still have that community.
LEAH: We would like to see better
quality clinical experiences.
We'd like to see greater diversity in those
placements so teachers are working with a wider
variety of students in K-12 settings.
So, MD has developed a plan that addresses
recruitment, placement, support, professional learning,
and we are aiming strategies at the entire system.
NARRATOR: Although novice teachers do encounter many
challenges, they also achieve successes worth
celebrating, particularly if they receive adequate
support and assistance.
Of course, the defining feature of a great teacher is passion.
TIFFANY: Why I decided to stay here for my first
year of teaching is just that camaraderie in
knowing that there's people that I can go to
and lean on and I can get support from,
and I know who has my back.
If you want to use your fingers, that's good.
As of right now, my long-term plans are really
up in the air, but I know for the next two or three
years, I plan to be teaching in the classroom.
Not perfecting it because I'll probably never be
perfect, but just getting to the expert level of
classroom management, of teaching the curriculum,
and just of being a great teacher.
♪♪
KENDRA: I think for Ms. Ward,
the sky's the limit.
A really good characteristic that I talk
about when I talk about people and working with
them is them being coachable.
She's incredibly coachable.
If she asks me something and I give her some
advice, she takes that advice and she goes with it.
TIFFANY: When you see that light bulb go off or when
they come to you and say, Ms. Ward,
I can read this sentence.
Or, Ms. Ward, I read this book all on my own.
It's nothing more rewarding than seeing the
students light up and to see them learn.
And I don't have any children as of yet,
but all of the kids in my class,
those are my babies.
They are my kids.
My advice to Ms. Ward or new teachers is don't be
afraid to ask for help, and don't be embarrassed.
Build positive relationships.
Relationship building is key.
DOMINIC: I wanted to become a teacher because I
love making things interesting.
♪♪
My goal was to try to bring in everybody
and get everybody to feel connected to what was
going on in the classroom.
♪♪
EMILY: I still learn all the time from Dominic.
It helps me stay fresh, and it forces me to be
more reflective of my own practice,
and I think about all the kids that are in his room.
They deserve a great teacher,
and we are so grateful that we have him.
DOMINIC: I'm still just in awe every day of the
things that I see from the kids that I work with and
the colleagues that I have.
It's just incredible to be in a place like this.
The reason why I keep going is because I feel
like I really don't have any bad days here.
NICOLE: Observing him this year has been a breath of
fresh air for me.
There's something about the environment that he's
established, the relationships that he has
with the kids, I mean, it gives me chills just
talking about it.
I got choked up last week talking.
I mean, that's not normal.
Like to get choked up talking to a first-year
teacher during their end-of-the-year evaluation
meeting is not the norm.
But it's like the level of excitement that he has
about this profession and the pride that he has in
the profession, If I could bottle it up
and pass it out, I would.
LISA: When I came in, the first thing Imani and I
did was chatted about some things,
about the building, about the atmosphere,
about the students.
I believe I even said to her,
I'm here to help you as much as I'm here to
get help from you.
And from that point, we clicked.
So, it's without a doubt, a two-way street.
IMANI: And I was excited that I would be learning
about a new culture 'cause I'm African-American,
and most of my kids are Hispanic.
I was excited that I would be able to teach them the
things that my mom taught me and show them the
things that my mom showed me,
and just expose them to this whole new world
and watch them grow.
Teaching children how to learn and teaching
children to fall in love with learning, it's so exciting.
It's so great.
Sorry, I get really excited about teaching.
It's so much fun.
♪♪
ANNOUNCER: State of Teacher Preparation.
Research and stories from early years in the
classroom is a co-production of Regional
Educational Laboratory Midwest and Detroit Public
Television with funding provided by REL Midwest
through funds provided by the U.S. Department of
Education's Institute of Education Sciences.
This program was funded by TRAC Research Group.
♪♪
For more infomation >> Lenoir County Board of Education Awards - Duration: 2:04. 
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