"Choosing to Teach: Enacting Values in Practice" Study
A Comparison of Context-Specific Teacher Education Programs Preparing Beginning Teachers to Serve in Jewish, Catholic and Urban Public Schools
Leader: Eran Tamir
Senior Research Associates: Karen Hammerness (Stanford University), Bethamie Horowitz (New York University), Kavita Kapadia (University of Chicago)
"Choosing to Teach: Enacting Values in Practice" is a research study jointly designed and conducted by the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education and the Alliance for Catholic Education at the University of Notre Dame (ACE). In this qualitative study, we are investigating new teachers' decisions to teach, their decisions to become trained in particular teacher education programs, and their decisions to teach in particular schools. The study focuses on beginning teachers in Jewish, Catholic and urban public schools who have chosen to prepare to teach in mission-driven, context-specific teacher education programs.
Our collaborative investigation aims to illuminate the impact of context specific teacher education programs on the ways teachers: 1) teach in their specific schools, 2) develop career commitments to their respective fields of education, and 3) form their religious and professional identities. This study offers a more nuanced understanding of what draws people into teaching and what keeps them there. It explores how their work as teachers intersects with their personal background, teacher preparation, and evolving personal and professional selves to shape their practice and commitments.
Read the Choosing to Teach Study's 2007 "Urban Teacher Education Program (UTEP) Report" [PDF] by Eran Tamir, John Watzke, Susan Kardos, and Sharon Feiman-Nemser.
In early May, 2005 a small group of DeLeT (Day School Leadership Through Teaching) Fellows, alumni, and faculty and a small group of University of Notre Dame’s ACE (Alliance for Catholic Education) teachers and faculty (30 in all) embarked on a three day retreat to Thompson Island, one of Boston’s harbor islands. Read more about it and view pictures. A follow-up retreat was held in April 2008. Read about it here.
For more information: Eran Tamir (etamir88@brandeis.edu)