The Preparation and Education of First-Year Teachers: A Case Study

The purpose of this case study was to provide a policy analysis of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) standard that requires teacher preparation programs to follow their recent graduates during their first years of teaching to demonstrate their positive impact on student growth, satisfaction with their preparation, and effective teaching practices. Using the Colorado Teacher Quality Standards as a conceptual framework, this qualitative study used interviews and observations at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year to discover five first-year teachers' perceptions of their preparation, needs, level of confidence in all areas of teaching, and the ways in which they could have been better or more prepared for the classroom. Their annual teacher evaluations provided insight to their evidence of effective teaching and impact on student growth. Overall, the first-year teachers felt prepared for their first year of teaching and demonstrated effective teaching strategies, but they needed more training on meeting the needs of students with diverse abilities, as well as how to successfully implement curriculum. Their greatest success during the year was experiencing student growth.