Week 1: The Teaching Profession
Total time: 120 mins
Student Materials
Attention Activity
Watch the video of the week, and have students discuss the following question in groups: "Why do people choose to enter the teaching profession and how common, do you think, is the experience documented in the video?" (10 mins)
Have a spokesperson from each group present their group's discussion ideas to the class. (5 mins)
Big Question
"What is the current status of the teaching profession in American life?"
The Problem
Teachers are leaving the profession in droves, and most of these are doing so within the first five years of teaching, revealing that they may not have realistic expectations of the profession at the outset.
Project for the Day
As a group of 3 to 4, create a "full disclosure" poster presentation to be used at a job fair for convincing high school students to become teachers while, at the same time, giving them an accurate understanding of the current state of the teaching profession.
Necessary Materials
- Access to Internet resources
- Materials for making a poster presentation (e.g. poster paper, markers, magazines with relevant pictures, glue, etc.)
Student posters should include the following:
- Salary and benefits information (both state and national) as compared with professions with similar preparatory requirements
- Data on teacher credentials, retention, performance, and satisfaction (both state and national)
- Information and citations to news stories or research on current "hot button" issues in education and teacher preparation that potential students will need to be aware of (e.g. unions, online professionalism, school violence, high stakes testing, performance-based salaries, school budgets, etc.)
In their groups, students should:
- Watch suggested videos and explore links for the week in a jigsaw manner in order to gain ideas on what to explore in the presentation (10-15 mins).
- Discuss issues related to the teaching profession which are important for teachers to recognize and gather citations and links to resources in order to support the discussion (30 mins).
- Condense discussions into a 5-minute poster presentation which accurately presents the current status of the teaching profession to high school students (25 mins).
- Present their poster presentations to the class or in an authentic setting (20 mins, depending on the number of groups).
After completing the project, students in the class should:
- Reflect on the process and findings as a class (10 mins).
- Submit questions or comments to interviewed teachers through the website (5 mins).