Three beginning teachers' perceptions and experiences who completed the University of Illinois' year-long preparation program

This case study reports the results from three beginning teachers' perceptions and experiences who completed an experimental university/public school year-long teacher preparation program. The attempt was to understand why the teachers made certain decisions and actions in their classrooms, and to examine what may have influenced their ideas about teaching.The teachers were located in three different communities and taught at three different elementary grade levels. The grade levels observed were one, two, and four. From December to May, observations in the classrooms were combined with interviews of the teacher of the class.The findings of the study emphasized that these three teachers did not start their teaching as typical beginning teachers. They used what they knew were their strengths and were successful using these to develop their classroom programs. They adjusted to their first school jobs without a great deal of difficulty or formal mentoring. Positive classroom management and discipline was enforced with few major problems. It appeared that their personal experiences in their lives also contributed to their successful first year of teaching. Given this information about these beginners, future teacher education programs may wish to consider extending classroom clinical experiences in various grade levels, establish the curriculum for the preparation of teachers using a theme or organizer as a central core for developing a classroom program, designing the method courses that are structured in a clinical fashion, provide students with an opportunity as a cohort to learn from one another, and for institutions to possibly begin becoming more selective concerning personal characteristics of teacher candidates.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio