APEC Teacher Induction

From APEC HRDWG Wiki

The Education Network within the Human Resource Development Working Group is concerned with cultivating the best practices among teachers and providing the best resources and skills for students in the Asia-Pacific region. The beginning years of teaching can be enormously challenging and stressful. For the first time, the new teacher is in complete control of a classroom, where he or she faces the demands of children and parents, and must prepare new lessons every day. Beginning teachers meet these challenges with perseverance, hard work, and, increasingly, with the assistance of experienced teachers and administrators who recognize the need for extensive teacher support during the first year or two on the job. In many APEC economies, this support is provided through a combination of activities or strategies that are collectively referred to here as "teacher induction" -- the period of transition of new teachers from students of teaching to teachers of students.

The publication Students of Teaching to Teachers of Students: Teacher Induction Around the Pacific Rim - January 1997, edited by Jay Moskowitz and Maria Stephens of the Pelavin Research Institute, U.S.A, is the result of the second phase of a study on teacher training and professional development in APEC members, originally proposed at the first Education Forum meeting in January 1993. Phase I of the study described teacher preparation systems across APEC members, to identify key issues and challenges for teacher preparation and professional development, and to identify promising practices for the future of teacher preparation. The findings were published in Teacher Preparation and Professional Development in APEC Members. The findings of Phase II, focusing on policy and practices of teacher induction in 11 participating APEC members, are presented here.

Sections of Students of Teaching to Teachers of Students: Teacher Induction Around the Pacific Rim - January 1997

Title	Author	Description
From College to First-Year Teaching: How the United States Compares to Several Other Countries		Compares the sink-or-swim attitude toward teacher induction, typically found in the U.S., to the practices in other countries that provide more assistance and support, focusing on case studies from Japan, New Zealand, and the Northern Territory of Australia.
Cover page and copyright
Preface and Selected Findings from the Study		Introduces APEC, the aim of the project, and the main considerations found during the study, including Common Features of Supportive Programs, Teacher Induction Delivery Systems and Strategies, and Remaining Challenges.
Chapter 1: APEC Teacher Induction Study: Introduction and Methodology		Introduces the foundations of this study and those of the first phase. Explains the features of the study's methodology, such as the exploratory survey, case studies, and accepted vocabulary of teacher induction.
Chapter 2: Overview of Teacher Induction Policy and Practice: Results of the Exploratory Survey	Maria Stephens and Jay Moskowitz	Eleven members responded to an exploratory survey on teacher induction practices, outlined in Appendix B. While the depth of response varied from member to member, the information provided helps us to understand the basic practice of teacher induction in different APEC members. The first part of this chapter discusses the prominent features of and influences on teacher induction; the second part briefly summarizes teacher induction policy and practice in individual APEC members.
Chapter 3: Strangers in Their Own Country: Teachers in the Northern Territory of Australia	Jay Moskowitz and Wes Whitmore	Faced with the need to support new teachers in rural and remote areas, where they will be confronted, on a daily basis, by the challenges of working and living with cultural differences, the Northern Territory provides a comprehensive set of support programs to assist these teachers, as well as new teachers in urban areas, during their first year of teaching in the Territory. The teacher induction program reflects the NT response to its geography and demography and their goals to successfully acculturate new teachers and increase teacher retention.
Chapter 4: "The Training Year": Teacher Induction in Japan	David Nohara	In 1988, the Japanese National Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture (Monbusho) introduced a new program of teacher induction for newly appointed teachers. As a result, all new teachers now spend at least 90 days of their first year in activities directly linked to teacher induction. In addition to this high number of training days, another significant aspect of the first-year experience is the amount of support the new teachers receive, both formally and informally, from guidance teachers and other instructional staff members. Although in place for only a few years, the program is well received by teachers, school principals, and other educators and policy makers.
Chapter 5; Teacher Induction in an Era of Educational Reform: The Case of New Zealand	Jay Moskowitz and Shelley Kennedy	In 1989, New Zealand embarked on a series of comprehensive, far-reaching educational reforms. An outcome of the education reforms was to shift responsibility for teacher induction from bureaucrats, who are less familiar with individual needs and local contexts, to local professionals—school administrators and tutor teachers. As a result, a wide range of teacher induction activities are now provided by the schools, within the context of a member-level framework for teacher registration and new teacher support.
Chapter 6: Lessons Learned, Challenges Remaining	Jay Moskowitz	Teacher induction programs reflect a range of delivery systems and strategies. While no delivery system or strategy is necessarily superior to another, adequate planning and implementation of a multi-pronged set of activities have a higher chance of meeting broad policy goals for teacher induction than replicated strategies not tailored to their context. The intent of the study was to describe several exemplary practices, and not to describe all program strategies, or to evaluate program coverage and effectiveness among all APEC members. However, the information collected does provide the basis for what has already been achieved and what remains to be done.
Appendix A: Research Framework for APEC Study on Teacher Induction		Describes the origins of the study and details the major research questions addressed and the two components into which the study was broken.
Appendix B: Exploratory Survey of APEC Members on Teacher Induction		The exploratory survey sent to APEC member economies eliciting information about their teacher induction programs, policies, and strategies. Results from answered surveys are discussed in depth in Chapter 2.
Appendix C: APEC Members' Teacher Induction Program Highlights and Important Features		A chart detailing highlights and important features of teacher induction programs of those APEC member economies that completed the exploratory survey.
Appendix D: APEC Teacher Induction Study Draft Site Visit Guidelines, November 1, 1995		A generic guideline to be used during interviews with individuals involved in the design and management of teacher induction programs throughout APEC member economies.