Early career teachers' beliefs about their preparedness to teach: Implications for the professional development of teachers working with gifted and twice-exceptional students

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Author(s)
Rowan, Leonie
Townend, Geraldine
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2016
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Teachers have a major impact upon the educational achievements and psychological well-being of gifted students. Interestingly, however, relatively little is known about how well-prepared early career teachers believe themselves to be to take up this challenge. This makes the development of appropriately targeted and specifically focused professional learning opportunities challenging; responding to this significant gap in the literature—and its implications for the support of early career teachers—this article reports on results from a large-scale, mixed-methods Australian research project that investigated 971 newly graduated ...
View more >Teachers have a major impact upon the educational achievements and psychological well-being of gifted students. Interestingly, however, relatively little is known about how well-prepared early career teachers believe themselves to be to take up this challenge. This makes the development of appropriately targeted and specifically focused professional learning opportunities challenging; responding to this significant gap in the literature—and its implications for the support of early career teachers—this article reports on results from a large-scale, mixed-methods Australian research project that investigated 971 newly graduated teachers’ beliefs about their preparedness to meet the needs of diverse students. Drawing upon this unique data-set, the paper identifies three key areas where beginning teachers felt less than prepared: teaching students with diverse abilities, supporting students with disability and communicating sensitively with parents. The paper then identifies implications of this research for the professional development of teachers.
View less >
View more >Teachers have a major impact upon the educational achievements and psychological well-being of gifted students. Interestingly, however, relatively little is known about how well-prepared early career teachers believe themselves to be to take up this challenge. This makes the development of appropriately targeted and specifically focused professional learning opportunities challenging; responding to this significant gap in the literature—and its implications for the support of early career teachers—this article reports on results from a large-scale, mixed-methods Australian research project that investigated 971 newly graduated teachers’ beliefs about their preparedness to meet the needs of diverse students. Drawing upon this unique data-set, the paper identifies three key areas where beginning teachers felt less than prepared: teaching students with diverse abilities, supporting students with disability and communicating sensitively with parents. The paper then identifies implications of this research for the professional development of teachers.
View less >
Journal Title
Cogent Education
Volume
3
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2016 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution
(CC-BY) 4.0 license.
Subject
Education systems
Curriculum and pedagogy
Specialist studies in education
Teacher education and professional development of educators