Preparing Future Educators for Their Careers

I instruct student teachers during their practicum at Brooklyn College, and last semester, given the variety of local school board policies regarding employee free speech, my students and I attended a seminar on teachers’ constitutional rights. While my student teachers found it interesting, they didn’t fully grasp how boards influence school policy and the day-in, day-out lives of teachers. This got me thinking: What should we be teaching student teachers during their preparation coursework? What supports do they need?

For example, do we need to spend more time helping student teachers navigate community values and/or politics? Do we need to devote more attention to the Common Core shifts in literacy and mathematics instruction? Or do we need to include at least one class session on how teachers can and should use artificial intelligence to plan and evaluate the effectiveness of their lessons? What is most essential in teacher preparation?

My fellow student teaching advisers, student teachers, and I have routinely gone back and forth in discussing if what we are teaching future educators is sufficient or if changes need to be made. I have gathered some of their opinions, collected during a recent series of interviews.

Think People, Not Just Courses

We still lose many teachers in their first two to five years of service. That should tell us that we need to do more to welcome new teachers into the profession in ways that let them know that they are valued personally and professionally—so says Tabitha Dell’Angelo, who serves as the interim dean of the School of Education at the College of New Jersey.

Dell’Angelo believes that it’s critically important for new teachers to have mentors with whom they can collaborate and get honest feedback and guidance as they learn the culture of a new school. She adds that this should not be a one-way relationship. Mentors and administrators also need to be open to and encourage new ideas that young teachers may bring to the table, as well as realizing that all teachers need to know that administrators trust and respect their professional knowledge and will have their back when necessary.

The College of New Jersey takes this seriously within the design of its teacher preparation programs. A Professional Development School Network at the college brings administrators from across the state together, throughout the year, to discuss, collaborate, and plan for the success of their pre-service teachers.

Dell’Angelo also suggests that teacher preparation programs build partnerships with the mentors or cooperating teachers they work with during clinical practice. Building those relationships, providing continuing education, giving explicit instruction in how to mentor... all could help develop the student teachers whom they then serve.

At Brooklyn College, we also conduct outreach to our mentor teachers regularly throughout a student’s practicum and incorporate mentor feedback into the grades of our students.

Become Clear on the Core Purpose of Teaching

What new teachers this year need, in terms of preparation, isn’t radically different from what they’ve always needed. Technologies, information delivery systems, and what we think we know have always been in flux and will continue to change, says  Jeremy Glazer, assistant professor of Content Area Teacher Education at Rowan University.

Yet, what doesn’t change, adds Glazer, is that new teachers will continue to need deep knowledge in their content area, the ability to think critically and systematically, and the ability to engage students in learning so that they can help them navigate the same. The need to be a critical consumer of information, particularly in the era of social media, remains important.

Norman Eng, a lecturer in Childhood, Bilingual and Special Education at Brooklyn College, agrees with Glazer. Eng says that the challenges facing teacher candidates are perennial and should not change much year to year: Planning and executing meaningful lessons, differentiating instruction to meet diverse needs, assessing students effectively, managing the class, and developing a high-impact teaching portfolio are examples of impactful teaching practices that are tried and true.

At the same time, Eng is clear that this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also expose our teaching candidates to the latest pedagogical research and evidence-based practices, such as gaining expertise in the current teaching approaches that schools across the nation are moving toward—for example, replacing balanced literacy instruction with a focus on the science of reading. Nor does this mean that student teachers shouldn’t be introduced to generative artificial intelligence (gen AI), as gen AI can massively affect how students interact with information.

Currently, a cohort of student teachers in the childhood program at Brooklyn College, New York, are experimenting regularly with AI tools like MagicSchool and ChatGPT to plan lessons, teach, and assess students in grades one through six as part of the City University of New York pilot project called Building Bridges of Knowledge. Student teachers at Brooklyn College also utilize online resources such as Culturally Situated Design Tools to ensure that the lessons they are designing are culturally situated. This integration of AI and other tech tools is supporting college students at Brooklyn College to use these instructional planning aides ethically, responsively, and effectively.

For these student teachers, the goal is to gain not only competency and fluency in these tools, but also the in-demand career skills that they can highlight in their résumé and teaching portfolio. We must not only prepare teachers for their first year, based on the current state of knowledge and the world, but also prepare emerging teachers for a career within a world that is different than it is now.

Prioritize Fluency Within Teaching Practice

Heather R. Ngoma, director of Rutgers University’s Alternate Route Program, asks her candidates each year to both reflect on insights gained after teaching their first lessons and give feedback on the effectiveness of their teaching preparation program overall. The importance of mastering timing and pacing for lessons is overwhelmingly featured in candidate takeaways.

Ngoma has found that many teaching candidates, in their practicum, lose track of time and miss opportunities for effective lesson closure, while others overstuff their lessons with too much content, leaving students overloaded. There are also candidates whose lessons are too lean and consequently find themselves trying to fill the void caused by underplanning.

Experienced educators know when students are not appropriately engaged. Based on this anecdotal data, Ngoma has, therefore, been focusing her coaching of early-career educators on developing effective pacing practices.

Garret Schmidt, a student teacher who is currently completing his practicum at P.S. 150 in Brooklyn, New York City, echoes much of what has been said above. He also highlights that the quality of teacher preparation programs is not just about the topics being addressed but also about how they are being discussed. He stresses the value of being able to talk about failures and successes in student teaching with instructors who still actively participate in citywide classrooms, as well as with student teaching peers, in reducing his anxieties over becoming an educator.

Concurrently, he would like to participate in additional role-plays, readings, discussions, and activities where he might analyze videos, and to examine scripts that could greatly benefit all student teachers—particularly concerning activities focused on good classroom management strategies.

And while student Emma Goldberger appreciates that many Brooklyn College classes consider the urban environment and prioritize culturally responsive education, she would like her classes to further address the realities of teaching in communities outside of New York City.

The needs of teacher candidates are both timeless and urgent: They are timeless in that educators have always needed a strong grounding in how best to manage classrooms and engage students in cognitively rich instruction. This need remains ever present. And they are urgent in that those of us charged with supporting the next generation of educators, within teacher preparation programs, could do more to make new teachers feel welcome.

Teacher certification program managers might consider providing guidance to school administrators as well as those teachers mentoring our students during their clinical practice. These partnerships will continue to remain critical if we are to truly help our student educators bridge the gap between theory and practice.