“Lost at Sea”: New Teachers’ Experiences with Curriculum and Assessment

By David Kauffman, Susan Johnson, Susan M. Kardos, E. Liu, Heather G. Peske. Teachers College Record, 2002

328 citations recorded by the source corpus.

To better understand how new teachers experience curriculum and assessments in the face of standards-based reform, we interviewed a diverse sample of 50 1st- and 2nd-year Massachusetts teachers working in a wide range of public schools. We found that, despite the state's development of standards and statewide assessments, these new teachers received little or no guidance about what to teach or how to teach it. Left to their own devices, they struggled day to day to prepare content and materials. The standards and accountability environment created a sense of urgency for these teachers but did not provide them with the support they needed. The absence of a coherent curriculum has implications for student achievement and teacher retention in that students may learn less than they otherwise might, and many new teachers who could have succeeded with more support may leave teaching prematurely because of the overwhelming nature of the work and the pain of failing in the classroom. This suggests an urgent need to reconsider the curricula and support provided to new teachers.

Subfields: Education, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Information Systems and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eabbd82fb289be829561f4c91910ff522b921d7d

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Citations in the corpus

Veteran teachers: commitment, resilience and quality retention (2009, background): “Other scholars such as Snoeyink and Ertmer ( 2002 ), Johnson and Kardos ( 2002 ), Johnson and The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers ( 2004 ), Kauffman, Johnson, Kardos, Liu, and Peske ( 2002 ) and Feiman‐Nemser ( 2003 ) appear also to treat ‘experienced teachers’ and ‘veteran teachers’ inte”
The Support Gap: New Teachers' Early Experiences in High-Income and Low-Income Schools. (2004, background): “Although new teachers typically expect and appreciate detailed curriculum guidance, they also hope to adapt or modify the curriculum as they see fit ( Kauffman et al., 2002 ).”
Identifying Personal and Contextual Factors that Contribute to Attrition Rates for Texas Public School Teachers (2012, background): “…that a primary reason teachers leave the profession is the increased level of accountability associated with high-stakes testing, along with the frustrations of spending more time on test-taking skills and teaching curriculum for these high-stakes tests (Kauffman et al., 2002; Tye & O’Brien, 2002).”
Curriculum design for inquiry: Preservice elementary teachers' mobilization and adaptation of science curriculum materials (2010, background): “…since the curricular resources to which they have access may not be highly inquiry-based (Beyer, Delgado, Davis, & Krajcik, 2009; Ford, 2006; Kesidou & Roseman, 2002) even when beginning teachers tend to rely heavily on them (Forbes & Davis, 2010; Grossman & Thompson, 2004; Kauffman et al., 2002).”
Curriculum Materials for Elementary Reading: Shackles and Scaffolds for Four Beginning Teachers (2006, background): “Similarly, other studies have shown that new teachers want practical, subject-specific ideas they can implement immediately in their classrooms (Chubbuck, Clift, Allard, & Quinlan, 2001; Grossman & Thompson, 2004; Kauffman et al., 2002).”
Teachers’ critical incidents: Ethical dilemmas in teaching practice (2011, background): “Thus, although much of the literature suggests that teachers value their autonomy and are not keen on being told what to do (Kauffman et al., 2002), our findings could be indicative of an occasional need for clear guidelines that would help teachers choose a course of action when facing a dilemma.”