Residency programs not only staunch attrition but do so in the schools where the problem is most acute. Residencies concentrate on hard-to-staff locations both urban and rural and in high-demand subject areas mathematics, science, special education, social studies, and English for bilingual learners. Teachers are recruited for their compatibility with the districts in need and start early so they can be trained to the specific needs of their host schools.
By giving agency to host schools and districts, residency programs foster healthy work environments in which residents feel welcome and supported. Most importantly, teacher residency programs produce positive outcomes for students.
Nationwide, an eye-popping 98 percent of principals surveyed by NCTR deemed teacher residents more effective than teachers prepared through other options. Teacher residencies bolster educators in many ways. Mentors, faculty, staff, and peers all contribute to encouraging, sustaining work and learning environments.
Residents also reap the rewards of excellent instruction and accreditation. Residency curricula align with apprenticeship work, enabling residents to apply what they learn immediately in real-life situations.
By completing a graduate program like the master of arts in teaching MAT at NYU Steinhardt, residents begin their teaching careers with a solid grounding in education theory and pedagogy. They also enter their profession with an impressive credential from a nationally acclaimed institution. As a resident, you will gradually take on more classroom responsibilities as you master teaching and classroom management techniques. Finally, the length of your commitment will allow you time to become part of your school community.
That experience will help you tailor your teaching to the specific needs of your students. The program attracts a minimum of 60 percent new teachers of color each year, well above the national recruitment average of 20 percent. Check eligibility requirements to see whether you qualify, then start your online application. Back to Articles. Know someone ready to launch a cutting-edge teaching career with a master's degree from one of the world's leading research universities?
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Teacher Education Reinvented. Refer a Friend Know someone ready to launch a cutting-edge teaching career with a master's degree from one of the world's leading research universities? Search for Topics. Follow Us. With the focus on rapid preparation, these programs fill a need for recruitment in schools with chronic teacher vacancies. By offering free or reduced tuition, alternative certification programs make it much more affordable to obtain a teaching degree, opening access to the teaching profession to a wider and more diverse pool of candidates who might not have otherwise considered becoming a teacher.
TFA offers grant funds as well as transitional loans and food or housing support to new recruits, prior to their earning their first paycheck. TFA also prioritizes recruiting a diverse pipeline of teachers: in New York City, 62 percent of the cohort were people of color, 53 percent came from a low-income background, and 8 percent identified as LGBTQ.
This is similar to the cohort from the NYC Teaching Fellows, which reported 66 percent of participants who self-identify as a person of color. Because program participants teach full-time, earning a full salary and benefits while completing their degree requirements, there is less need to take on student loan debt.
And though burn-out is certainly an open concern, alternative preparation programs are fast-paced and intensive by design, attracting a select pool of high achievers. On the other hand, teachers who enter the profession through these alternative pathways are less likely to remain in their schools or in the profession.
But by the third year, just 41 percent of teachers trained through the Teaching Fellows remained at their original school, compared with 60 percent of traditionally-trained teachers. The goal of many alternative certification programs, including the NYC Teaching Fellows program, is to recruit teachers into hard-to-staff schools.
By design, these programs place participants in challenging school settings, often those with high concentrations of poverty, and high teacher turnover. Based on the same IBO analysis, 36 percent of NYC Teaching Fellows, and 54 percent of Teach for America teachers were working in high poverty schools in , compared with 24 percent of teachers who had gained certification through a traditional university pathway.
Experiential learning — prior to working solo in the classroom — is largely absent from the largest alternative certification programs, despite the value it adds to teacher preparation and its proven contribution in encouraging new educators to enter the profession. Without intending it, these certification programs may actually add cost through increased teacher turnover rates in already high-need schools.
Models of Success As local districts increasingly seek policy solutions to the problems of teacher turnover, more attention has been given to teacher preparation programs. Some alternative preparation programs in other cities, and several here in New York City, provide a model for embedding in-classroom experiences into teacher training through extended residencies.
Importantly, however, there are no examples of residencies in the U. Boston has the oldest teacher residency program in the nation, in operation since It has also set the standard in many ways for residency programs that have followed in other cities, in how programs are shaped and sustained.
Since its beginning, Boston Teacher Residency has graduated over teachers, with over 70 percent remaining in the Boston Public Schools through their sixth year. This compares with a 51 percent retention rate among graduates from traditional university preparation programs.
Through this partnership structure, BPE houses the residency programs and shares program costs and decision-making with BPS. However, all courses are designed and taught by faculty of BTR. This unique oversight gives BTR considerable latitude in hiring instructors and developing and refining course content.
What makes the arrangement between the Boston Teacher Residency and UMass Boston exceptional and unique is the flexibility allotted to BTR to define the curriculum, evaluate how well it is aligned with the needs in schools and then make necessary adjustments.
In , an independent academic review of the Boston Teacher Residency shed light on how the program has impacted both the pipeline of teachers in Boston Public Schools, as well as student achievement. The researchers found that the Residency program was able to attract a much more racially diverse pool of graduates than the first year BPS teaching cohort as a whole. And the positive impact on the teaching pipeline was clear: BTR grads were much more likely to teach in STEM fields, and to remain teaching through their fifth year.
In terms of impact on student outcomes, however, the results are less clear. While BTR teachers were not more effective in raising student test scores in math or ELA than other first year teachers, by their fifth year teaching, BTR graduates outperform other veteran teachers in math outcomes. This paved the way for the district to recognize excellent teacher quality as being fundamental to school improvement efforts, and Denver Public Schools began to seek opportunities to invest in and cultivate a stronger pipeline of talented teaching professionals.
The result became the Denver Teacher Residency, a pilot program embedded in the school district, and implemented in partnership with the University of Denver Morgridge College of Education. But the valuable lessons learned over the past decade have caused the district to now prioritize residential teacher training for a majority of its teachers. The pilot program in Denver is now transitioning as the district movesto bring the successes of the residency program to scale.
From the beginning, DTR sought to make strategic investments in the people who work most closely with students and are the most influential in improving student outcomes: teachers. Many districts often overlook the importance of developing human capital in favor of other resources, such as curriculum or standards-aligned metrics. Instead, Denver Public Schools chose to prioritize developing the capacity of the teaching workforce to provide excellent instruction in all school populations, and to hone school leaders who are able to create school communities that foster excellent instruction.
As a result, the system created exceptional learning environments and built pathways both for new teachers, as well as training and professional development of teacher mentors. Denver Public Schools has indicated that it is now seeking ways to scale the program in such a way that the majority of new teachers entering DPS will have completed training in a residency program.
This vision will begin, as the original residency did, with partnerships with institutions of higher education — in this case, with eleven colleges and teacher preparation programs. Building on the strong foundation of the DTR pilot, Denver is leading the way in building a strong and diverse pipeline of highly qualified, equity-minded teachers across all of Denver Public Schools. These programs all feature similar components including paid living expenses for residents, pairing residents with a mentor teacher, and providing a full year of experience working in a New York City public school classroom.
However, existing programs do not come near to producing the number of teachers the City needs to fill classrooms each year, necessitating ongoing reliance on the Teaching Fellows. One example of a successful residency is detailed below, but it should be noted that the City has been exploring several alternative pathways to teaching that offer more robust in-classroom opportunities.
In , New York City-based education non-profit New Visions for Public Schools launched an innovative residency program designed with the intent to ensure teachers received an immersive clinical experience during their training. The program design emphasized giving teacher candidates in-classroom experience where they would be exposed to a range of student abilities, and given the tools, mentorship, and coaching to practice making decisions about appropriate academic supports and interventions.
As of , the UTR has graduated over high school teachers with a focus in special education, teaching English to speakers of other languages, math, science or English.
In a highly structured two-year program, participants earn their Masters of Education from Hunter or Queens College, and use a curriculum developed in collaboration with professionals from New Visions. In the first year of the program, participants are paired with a mentor teacher and spend a full year working as a resident teacher in a high-need high school.
District high schools that serve as host sites for residents are carefully selected based on several characteristics. Participating schools must receive Title I funding, to ensure residents are trained in an environment where student poverty is common. In addition, schools must not screen students as part of the admission process, to ensure a broad spectrum of skills and abilities are represented in the student population. Participating schools must also have enough well-developed functions of teacher collaboration in place — such as teacher team meetings, or collaborative student evaluation sessions — to expose residents to a range of possibilities within teaching.
During the year of residency, residents have numerous opportunities to hone their instructional practice in the classroom, under the direction of the lead classroom teacher who serves as a mentor.
Residents co-teach at least one class with the mentor teacher each day, and teach one class as the lead teacher, with support and feedback from the mentor. Following the year of residency, teacher candidates are hired as full-time teachers in a high-need school in New York City while completing the necessary coursework towards their degree. Positive impacts were even more pronounced in math and science, and among students of color.
Second, UTR teachers had higher retention in Title I schools with large concentration of students of color where teacher turnover tends to be the highest. Approximately 15 percent of UTR-trained teachers left teaching within three years, compared with 34 percent of other new teachers working in comparable Title I schools in New York City.
Third, the evaluation found that the Urban Teacher Residency was highly effective in recruiting, mentoring and coaching teachers of color, with close to 60 percent of the most recent graduates being teachers of color.
Teaching Residents at Teachers College TR TC is a robust teaching residency that prepares participants through a year-long, paid residency. As of , the program reported retention rates of 94 percent among program graduates.
Upon completion, residents make a commitment to teach in high-need schools in New York City for a minimum of three years. It prepares science teachers to work in four schools in New York City and Yonkers. During the month classroom residency, participants are paired with a mentor teacher in addition to regular work alongside teachers of multi-lingual learners and students with disabilities. The above models offer an intriguing glimpse of what is possible for scaling teacher residencies in New York City.
By focusing on training sites that represent a complete picture of the opportunities and challenges of teaching in urban schools, along with establishing support and guidance for developing mentor teachers, each model ensures that participants gain valuable experience crucial for effective teachers.
These programs successfully reduce financial barriers to participating, by offering reduced tuition, as well as stipends for living expenses during the year of residency. And while each program is both highly selective and rigorous, teacher candidates are given significant support throughout the program, and into their teaching career.
Among nations that score highest on the Programme for International Student Assessment PISA , an international educational assessment of 15 year olds, many of the leading nations share a strong teaching profession.
A recent comparative analysis of the top performing systems found that educational districts in Australia, Canada, Finland, and Singapore share several practices that are typically common to teacher residencies. For example, these systems all feature teacher training programs that are highly selective and very rigorous, requiring in-depth clinical training in the classroom.
The collaborative nature of teaching is cultivated in high-performing systems: rather than novice teachers struggling in isolation, schedules allow teachers adequate time to plan, collaborate, and conduct inquiries into their teaching practice.
The strong performance of students in these nations is clear. But the strength of the teaching profession is equally impressive. To better prepare early career teachers for the profession and to reduce turnover, New York City needs to invest in a large-scale, paid, year-long teacher residency program.
There is clear evidence that residencies significantly improve teacher retention. Absent a major shift in state and federal education policy that would require year-long clinical teacher preparation prior to certification, it is necessary for the City to direct resources to make experiential learning a standard for all teachers who enter the profession through city-funded alternative certification pathways. Residency programs in other cities vary in programmatic design, but there are certain key features common to all successful residency programs.
Residents work under and alongside a single, accomplished mentor teacher in a high-functioning classroom. Successful residency programs ensure that each resident is paired with an expert teacher, with whom they collaborate and co-teach, and who serves as a mentor teacher, offering feedback and evaluation. This relationship has clear benefits for the resident, who gains in-depth classroom experience along with guidance in developing their teaching practice.
The mentor teacher also benefits from increased salary as well as opportunities to practice advanced leadership skills and the presence of a committed and qualified co-teacher in their classroom.
Residencies are year-long commitments for teacher candidates. Being immersed in the work and life of a classroom for a full school year provides teacher candidates opportunities to experience a full curriculum cycle and how a classroom and individual students evolve through various transitions that take place over time.
The first month of school, weeks leading up to state exams, or transitions after extended holiday breaks are all times when students may exhibit particular academic or behavioral needs and a resident teacher benefits from observing and learning from the full academic cycle of these transitions.
Likewise, schools benefit from yearlong placements because residents, in their role as co-teachers, effectively reduce class sizes and contribute to larger school improvement goals by serving as additional instructional staff. Not all residential programs are able to offer living stipends to residents in addition to reduced or free tuition. However, it is considered a global best practice to provide a modest living stipend for the residency year.
It ensures that while residents are focused on developing the skills they will need as teachers, they are not forced to take on additional student debt or juggle secondary work schedules which compromise the quality of their residential experience. A clear parallel can be found in the medical profession, where government funds support stipends for medical students during their residency training as well as subsidies for medical teaching hospitals.
A stable workforce of well-trained physicians is considered a public necessity, and is supported through public funds. Similarly, ensuring consistently well-prepared teachers is essential for a strong, equitable education system. Residency programs reflect a collaboration between a school district and an institution of higher education, with shared responsibilities of program development, oversight and evaluation, and an emphasis on quality.
Furthermore, successful residency partnerships must intentionally focus on quality and continuous improvement from the beginning. Ideally, each school that hosts a cohort of residents would spend a year in a partnership development phase with the approved teacher preparation provider.
Additionally, each school where residents work would need to recruit and prepare mentor teachers. These mentor teachers require skill-building to ensure they are familiar with adult learning patterns, and have the necessary tools to provide instructional coaching to residents and integrate them into the daily routines of their classrooms.
The focus on quality requires time and investment from participating schools, and accordingly requires financial compensation for dedicated staff. There are currently no examples of implementing teacher residencies on a large scale in the U. To phase in a program in New York City that could reliably train as many as 1, teachers hired in City schools each year would require some upfront costs.
Currently, taxpayers subsidize the costs of placing under-prepared and under-supported teachers in classrooms where it is expected that a large percent will leave the profession within a few years. A more strategic investment in high-quality teacher preparation will strengthen the pipeline of teachers, ensure more equitable access to strong teachers across schools, and reduce costs associated with high teacher turnover in the long run.
Several variables would affect the true cost of launching a large-scale teacher residency program in New York City. Key factors to consider include whether the full cost of tuition would be covered and the amount of stipend offered to both residents and mentor teachers. In addition, programmatic costs need to be factored in, including: school-based staff to liaise between residents, the university partner, and the schools where residents are placed; professional development and coaching for mentors; and program evaluation.
Residencies also offer potential for some cost offsetting in schools where residents are placed. Prepared to Teach, a project within Bank Street College of Education that supports school districts in implementing teacher residencies, has outlined various cost models for how to redistribute some funding in order to support teacher residencies. While contractual issues that would need to be addressed, by assigning these functions to residents, schools may decrease expenses while also giving residents valuable opportunities to hone their teaching skills.
Organizations like Prepared to Teach that support the work of scaling teacher residencies in other cities emphasize the importance of phasing in the residency program while phasing out quick-entry programs. This is done so that immediate hiring needs continue to be met, while simultaneously bringing cohorts of residency-trained teachers into the system. As these teachers enter the workforce, the school district can anticipate improved retention rates and associated cost savings.
These cost saving can then be reallocated back into the residency program, improving its financial sustainability. To begin to introduce a large-scale teacher residency program, the City could adopt a five-year phase-in time frame. In the first year the City would continue to recruit enough teachers to fill shortage areas through the NYC Teaching Fellows. At the same time, the City would invest in additional recruits into a residency-style program.
Rather than being placed directly into the classroom as current Teaching Fellows are, these candidates would be enrolled into a year-long co-teaching residency. Priority for the residency would be given to candidates seeking certification in high-need subject areas, including TESOL, Math, Science, or other specific teacher shortage areas.
Department of Education study found novice residency program teachers felt more prepared in seven of eight teaching activities than nonresidency novice teachers in the same district. Only in the area of teaching the subject matter did the nonresidency teachers score higher in feeling more prepared.
One pronounced difference: In handling discipline and managing the classroom, 57 percent of residency teachers felt prepared in this area versus 40 percent for nonresidency teachers.
Early results show teacher residency programs create lower teacher attrition rates, even in urban schools. In an NCTR study of 19 residencies in 14 cities across the United States, the three-year attrition rate for teachers was 16 percent versus the national average of 33 percent , and the five-year attrition rate was 29 percent versus the national average of 50 percent.
And residency teachers tend to stay within the same school districts. A report by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance found 82 percent of teacher residency program graduates remained in the same school district from spring to fall , compared with 72 percent of teachers from traditional programs.
With less-experienced teachers, the difference was more pronounced. During the same time period, 81 percent of the teacher residency program graduates remained compared to 66 percent of nonresidency graduates. Residency graduates were more prepared than typical new teachers, school principals reported in the NCTR study. Of the principals, 89 percent said residency graduates positively affect the culture of the school, are more effective than teachers from other preparation pathways, and they would recommend hiring a residency graduate to their colleagues.
Mentors also benefit from the relationship with residency teachers. Of the mentors in the NCTR study, 92 percent reported being a mentor made them a more effective teacher. Mentors receive coaching from residency program staff, learn from other mentors, and receive additional professional development.
Mentors also reported learning how to be more effective while listening to program staff teach the new teachers, and while explaining their teaching strategies to the mentees. In the NCTR study, Lindsay Fena, a second-grade teacher with Aspire, explained the benefits of mentoring, saying being a mentor helped her plan better, stay more organized, and improved her teaching methods.
And that benefit bodes well not just for the novice teacher, but for student learning, too. Now Accepting Applications for the Teacher Residency program Our embedded approach to teacher education places you in a high-need urban classroom from the first day of school. Visit the Teacher Residency program page to explore our innovative teacher preparation model. Back to Articles.
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