Welcome to our research project video showcase!

Our study, supported by the National Science Foundations' Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program through Track 4 Noyce Research, draws on a sample of Noyce Teacher Fellows to examine the influence of teachers’ personal networks and self-efficacy on the retention of early career teachers in high-needs schools. We hope that the findings of the study will be of broad interest to programs working to prepare, support, and retain early career teachers and of particular interest to the more than three hundred Noyce projects funded through the NSF Noyce Program. We’d like to hear your input and comments about our study!

I taught students chemistry in high school and I left after three years to teach at the college level.  I had a lot of support at my school but even at a "desirable suburban school", it just wasn't a very good job (lots of hours, low pay, lots of challenging teens, weird educational bureaucracy, etc).

Even with a PhD in chemistry I was not allowed to teach Honors sections because I wasn't "gifted and talented" endorsed.  

Market forces allow STEM teachers to exit public teaching at a rate greater than other fields (even when they have support and don't work at high need schools).  It would be interesting to interview the teachers who have left teaching to find out what kind of jobs they get after leaving high schools.  Are the jobs just better?  Are they satisfied with their new jobs?  What would it take to get them back in the classroom?

Thank you for your work and your video. 

Thank you for sharing this video--understanding both the support that new teachers receive and how it affects their retention is critical.  And congratulations on recruiting so many teacher participants across the country.  I'm sure your data set will be richer as a result.  Could you tell us a bit more your measures?  In particular, I was wondering what types of supports you ask about on the survey and what efficacy constructs you are measuring within your self-efficacy instrument.

Thank you for this contribution! I'm looking forward to hearing about the results of your analysis in the future. I taught high school chemistry for just over ten years myself, in what would be considered "high need" schools. I am now a teacher educator and co-PI on a Noyce funded project. As somebody who is also committed to this work, I think we should encourage the Noyce program to move away from the "high need" language. It's not that some schools coincidentally have more needs than others, it's that some schools and communities are systematically dispossessed and denied equitable resources. For example, the school where I spent most of my career as a high school teacher was founded by a hunger strike. This struggle was organized by residents in a working class Mexican community protesting the district's neglect of their neighborhood while the district built prestigious magnet schools in more affluent parts of town. This is not a situation of "high needs" and "low needs," but rather one of resource hoarding and marginalization. 

Social networks are very important and I expect this study to find some interesting results. I'm curious what people think about how these networks form and function in relationship with the status or stigma of the particular schools or districts where teachers work. Do teachers at affluent schools network with teachers at marginalized schools? Do teachers at schools that are systematically under-staffed count on their networks for different reasons than schools where resources are readily available? In other words, how do issues of equity enter into social network analysis?

Thanks for your response. My colleagues and I have also used the high needs language as defined by the NSF, so it is important for me to clarify that my comment is not meant as a critique of your use of the term. Instead, I meant it as a self-reflective suggestion for all of us doing this work to begin shifting the way we conceive of differences between schools as it relates to teacher recruitment and retention. I look forward to learning more from your study :-)

This is an awesome video highlighting your work on teacher networks and how they effect teacher retention.  Teacher retention is a huge issue, especially in the sciences and in urban areas.  The results of your work will help researchers and teachers understand what is needed to support teachers and keep them in the classroom.

Interesting project and insights,  Meltem, and thanks for sharing with all of us in the showcase! We’re doing work that leverages the kinds of connectedness you’re describing in your video, and it would be of interest to expand on this conversation through video conference at some point. I am curious to know how the schools and teachers you’re studying are addressing these connectedness and support challenges and also whether schools are providing connection opportunities for teachers with peer teachers in other schools and districts. - Dav

Meltem, thanks for sharing your project with us. This is such a powerful study that addresses issues in teacher education field. I am a firm believer that more studies need to be conducted to investigate such issues in this field. As a former STEM teacher, in my earlier career, I was influenced by various factors that retained my interests to pursue as a teacher. Some factors could include mentor-teacher, administrative support, parental involvement, infrastructure (e.g., class size, technological tools), and so on. From your project findings, if any, which factors did you see the most influential ones that affected the teachers to maintain their interests in teaching? Thank you. -Ibrahim

Dr. Alemdar, I would like to know how important is the first year experience for a new teacher to stay or quit her/his teaching career.  

I knew a young teacher (my son's fiancee) who worked for the Teaching-for-American right after she graduated in math major from Washington & Lee. She had a terrible experience at a poor school in Louisiana without proper mentoring in her first year. She signed a two-year contract.  We surprisingly found that she was delivering pizza after her first year.  I thought her background could make her a good teacher. Unfortunately, I could not convince her to pursue a teaching career any more after just the first year.  

Thank you Meltem, for sharing your interesting work and for answering all our questions and comments here! I appreciate knowing about this study, particularly the mention of your innovative use of social network analysis. My understanding of social network analysis research is that the networks are created based on behavior (evidence). Is your approach innovative because it is based on self-reporting? Or what makes it unique? Would love to know more. Thanks in advance.