Doctoral Candidates Report on Alternative Certification Programs

Alternative teacher certifications are becoming a nationwide trend as a stopgap for districts facing teacher shortages in their schools. But are these alternative programs adequate preparation for sending new teachers into the classroom? This past summer, a group of five HGSE doctoral students headed to Prince George's County, Maryland to find out.

Thanks to a grant from the Maryland Department of Education, the county charged Kristy Cooper, Ed.M.'07; Meredith Mira; Shari Dickstein; Julia Hayden, Ed.M.'07; and Thomas Nikundiwe, Ed.M.'07, with evaluating four existing alternative certification programs in use across the district (and one that might be reinstated). Used mostly to fill vacancies in subjects including math, sciences, and foreign languages, teachers trained in these programs are found at both the elementary and secondary school levels. Details of the evaluated programs vary, but each provides incoming teachers with a summer's worth of classes, mock instruction experience, and mentorship before they head into classrooms this fall.

"The million dollar question is, 'How prepared are teachers going through these programs to teach in their own classrooms?'" says Mira. "Prince George's County wanted to know if their children were benefiting from these teachers' instruction."

Research ranged from qualitative to quantitative and included classroom observation, interviews with program participants and managers, and a survey to determine how valuable each participant's relationship to his or her model teacher or mentor was in preparing them to teach.

"We tried to find out how the teachers trained in the program felt about the experience," says Mira. "If you haven't been able to see someone model good practice, it's harder to be successful."

For Dickstein, this kind of research is the perfect complement to two years at the Ed School spent researching teacher training in urban settings. "We were able to talk a lot about how the training links to notions of confidence in new teachers," she says. "We were trying to determine what's effective and what's not in terms of sustaining them year after year."

Field notes from the group totaled 260 pages, and the doctoral students took two days together to do data analysis and a literature review of effective teacher programs. They found that teachers included both recent college graduates as well as midcareer changers, and, while the programs adequately prepared students to manage classrooms, participants felt least prepared to work with English learners and special needs students.

While of all the doctoral candidates Dickstein's research interests most closely aligned with the summer project, each member of the team used skills they've acquired while at HGSE to enrich the final outcome.

For Cooper, whose research focuses on what makes an effective K-12 school, this was her first time as a project manager. She feels that the past three years spent at the Ed School provided her with the skills to lead the other team members, who are all currently entering their third year in the doctoral program. "I couldn't have done this three years ago," says Cooper, of the interviewing, observing, and research study designing needed to be project manager. "These are all skills I gained through coursework or other research projects."

Mira is working on issues surrounding the development of social awareness of high school-aged youth, and this was her first shot at conducting research without a senior researcher on board. "I had the experience conducting interviews that allowed me to establish a rapport with the subjects," she says. "It was exciting because we were the sole researchers...we successfully nailed down what we wanted to say and I felt like a professional."

The group handed off study results in late August to Prince George's County's Department of Research and Evaluation. Their recommendations include best practices from each of the current programs. "Each one had various strengths," says Cooper. "For example, within the county's Resident Teacher Program, all involved have a long history with the school district, and the New Teacher Program excels when it comes to the way they run training sessions." The other two programs -- Teach for America and the University of Maryland's Masters Certification Program -- also have areas of expertise that the group feels the others could benefit from.

"Our report was not intended to be evaluative," says Mira. "Instead, we tried to focus more on best practices that Prince George's County could consider as a whole."

With almost double the new teachers entering the district from 2007 to 2008 arriving via alternative teacher certification routes, capitalizing on the positive aspects of each program is more important than ever.