There is a long-held but inaccurate belief that new teachers’ expertise and talent is mostly innate and that it peaks and plateaus within their first few years of teaching. William Slotnik and Bryan Goodwin explain that school systems need to abandon this conventional wisdom and instead build true talent development systems that support the careerlong development of teachers’ professional practices. The path forward requires school districts to understand how people develop expertise and create ways for teachers to develop their talent at all stages in the process.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BloomB.S. (1985). Developing talent in young people. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
2.
BoydD.J.GrossmanP.L.LankfordH.LoebS.WyckoffJ.H. (2008). Teacher preparation and student achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31 (4), 416–440.
3.
CoyleD. (2009). The talent code: Greatness isn’t born. It’s grown. Here’s how. New York, NY: Bantam Dell.
4.
EricssonK.A.KrampeR.T.Tesch-RömerC. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100 (3), 363–406.
5.
HarrisD.SassT.R. (2011). Teacher training, teacher quality and student achievement. Journal of Public Economics, 95 (7-8), 798–812.
6.
HattieJ. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York, NY: Routledge.
7.
HowellW.S. (1982). The empathic communicator. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
8.
JoyceB.ShowersB. (2002). Student achievement through staff development (3rd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
9.
KahnemanD. (2011). Thinking fast and slow. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
10.
KaneT.J.RockoffJ.E.StaigerD.O. (2008). What does certification tell us about teacher effectiveness?Evidence from New York City. Economics of Education Review27 (6), 615–631.
11.
KiniT.PodolskyA. (2016). Does teaching experience increase teacher effectiveness? A review of the research. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.
12.
NewellA.SimonH.A. (1972). Human problem solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
13.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2014). Measuring innovation in education: A new perspective. Paris, France: Author.
14.
PapayJ.J.KraftM.A. (2015). Productivity returns to experience in the teacher labor market: Methodological challenges and new evidence on long-term career improvement. Journal of Public Economics, 130, 105–119.
15.
WhiteheadA.N. (1929). The aims of education. New York, NY: The Free Press.
