Rethinking Recruitment: The Comprehensive and Strategic Recruitment of Secondary Science Teachers

The shortage of science teachers has spurred a discussion about their retention and recruitment. While discussion about retaining science teachers has increased dramatically in just the last few years, science teacher educators have not attended to the recruitment of science teachers with the same tenacity. This paper is our effort to initiate this discussion and to focus on secondary science teachers. We begin by suggesting why recruitment is important and explore related research. We then suggest a comprehensive and strategic orientation towards recruitment that serves as a mechanism to examine current practices in the field. In presenting this position paper, we hope that science teacher educators will contemplate their own recruitment practices and begin discussing the recruitment process more openly with one another.     

Beginning secondary science teacher induction: A two‐year mixed methods study

Those who study secondary science teachers are often concerned with preservice or in‐service teacher development. Science teacher educators have acknowledged that this focus is limited, as the induction years of beginning teachers are an important component of teacher development. This mixed methods study focuses on the induction years of beginning content specialists, with the intention of adding to the literature in this underexamined area. The secondary science teachers in this study were followed during their first and second year of teaching in order to understand the changes in their beliefs, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and practices as a group, and as they participated in different induction programs. Analysis by induction program revealed that first year teachers who participated in science specific induction programs strengthened their beliefs, PCK, and practices. By the end of the second year, regardless of program, most of the teachers shared similar beliefs and PCK. However, the teachers in the science specific induction programs continued to enact more interactive learning environments that had more investigations and laboratories than did their peers in the other induction programs. For those who work with beginning science teachers, this study suggests that the induction of science specialists is an important area of work. It also explores the complex process of induction, and calls for more research into how beginning secondary science teachers learn and what types of induction experiences can best support beginning science teachers. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 1199–1224, 2011