Colliding Cultures: Career Switchers Transition to Elementary School Classrooms

Examining job satisfaction factors toward retaining Malaysian TVET instructors in the teaching profession

“…pedagogical context) will demotivate the teacher even further. In a separate study by Morton, Williams, and Brindley they found pre-service teachers who were categorised as career-switchers left teaching during their early years partly because of the frustrations, naivety, and lack of pedagogical knowledge [12]. Indeed, this finding was not just limited to those schools employing careerswitchers as teachers.…”

“…Following up on this point, in several TVET institutions in Malaysia, there were several cases reported where instructors were requested to teach subjects that did not fall under their area of specialisation. Notably, the different specialities and attributes of TVET instructors, including their core-skills and practical experiences also contribute to the research findings [10,11,12]. A separate case investigated the issues surrounding the TVET institutions mandate, where teachers who were absent from technical programs before attending their teacher certification program, were asked to participate in related technical programs designated by TVET.…”

Career-changers’ ideal teacher images and grounded classroom perspectives

“…General workplace skills (Williams & Forgasz, 2009) like teaming and management, strong communication skills (Kember, 2008;Mayotte, 2003;Salyer, 2003;Tigchelaar et al, 2008), and problem-solving (Mayotte, 2003) have been reported more recently. Qualities like patience (Salyer, 2003), maturity (Fry & Anderson, 2011;Morton, Williams, & Brindley, 2006), commitment (Chambers, 2002;Haipt, 1987;Morton et al, 2006), ability to connect the subject and real-world applications (Chambers, 2002;Salyer, 2003;Tigchelaar et al, 2008), and confidence (Fry & Anderson, 2011;Tigchelaar et al, 2008) are additional positives brought to the classroom from prior career experiences. Additionally, some administrators report positive impact on classroom management as well as instruction that Troops to Teachers careerchangers have (Owings et al, 2006).…”

Influence of mentoring and professional communities on the professional development of a cohort of early career secondary mathematics and science teachers

“…ECTs pursuing teaching as a second or alternate career face unique challenges such as a difficulty adapting to school culture often very different than the workplace culture they are accustomed to (Morton, Williams, & Brindley, 2006), developing an identity as a teacher (Wilson & Deaney, 2010), and an over-reliance on traditional approaches to teaching they experienced as students, sometimes decades in the past (Chambers, 2002;Fry & Anderson, 2011;Koballa, Glynn, Upson, & Coleman, 2005). Additionally, challenges acutely experienced by early-career science teachers include a lack of access to resources such as laboratory equipment and instruments (Powell, 1997), requirements to teach courses outside their specific area of content expertise (Adams & Krockover, 1997;Watson, 2006), and lack of institutional support for implementing reform-minded pedagogical approaches such as inquiry-based instruction to target diverse learners (Luft & Roehrig, 2005).…”

“…Limited research has been conducted that investigates how ECTs made sense of their experiences navigating communities of their peers and how they perceived participation in these communities to influence their practices during their beginning years of teaching (Cuddapah & Clayton, ). Also, within the field of education it's often assumed that due to their maturity and significant life skills, ECTs who are career changers require less robust or extensive induction support than ECTs who received their pre‐service teacher training as traditionally aged college students (Fry & Anderson, ; Morton et al, ). Finally, Long et al () described the need for a new direction for research that investigates the potential for teacher education institutions and K‐12 schools to simultaneously provide support and assistance to ECTs.…”