Helping good teachers become great teachers is at the heart of Dr. Judy
Wahrman’s research into the quality of instruction that Ohio’s school
children experience.
Wahrman, associate
professor of education, is one of six
lead researchers participating in
Ohio’s Teacher Quality Partnership
(TQP), a statewide effort to examine
how the preparation and
development of new teachers affects
the success of their students.
The
group is using the academic
performance of students as a way to
measure the teachers’ success.
“Quality teachers are critical
to the success of their students, and
historically very little has been
done to track and assess the
effectiveness of recent teacher
education graduates in the
classroom,”
Wahrman explained.
“We are working to identify the
characteristics, attributes and behavior
of teachers whose students make
more academic progress than expected.
From these results we hope to
supply teachers and teacher
education programs with the
direction needed to help them
become truly effective.”
TQP is funded by a number of
partners, including Procter &
Gamble, the Ohio Department of
Education and the Ohio Board of
Regents. The multi-year research
project also has the support of all 50
Ohio colleges and universities that
offer teacher preparation programs.
According to Wahrman, TQP is an
innovative research initiative. “This
is an unprecedented commitment by
a state’s universities and colleges,
both public and private, to put
themselves on the line by looking at
what they do and by asking: ‘Are we delivering on the promise we’re
making to our students? And how
can we improve our preparation of
teachers?’” Wahrman said.
The research team is examining
four different groups of teachers:
new graduates, novice teachers,
experienced teachers and teachers
who have an alternative education
license (AEL). Wahrman, along with
a colleague from the University of
Cincinnati, is studying the AEL
group. She is comparing the
effectiveness of teachers who go
through a traditional teacher
education program with those who
go through an alternative education
license program, like the one
sponsored by the state of Ohio.
“Even though there are
relatively few teachers in Ohio who have an AEL, only 500 of the 7,000
Ohio teachers who graduated from
2000 to 2005 have the licensure.
That is not the case nationally. In
states like Delaware, one-fifth of the
teachers have an AEL,” Wahrman
stated. “Prior to our efforts, no
research has been done on the effectiveness
of these teachers.”
The research for the entire
project is expected to be completed
in 2008. At that time, TQP hopes
to make recommendations on future
public policy decisions and teacher
education practices – in Ohio and
across the nation.
“The single most important
thing we can do to raise students’
academic achievements is to do a
better job of preparing teachers and
putting high-quality teachers in
every classroom,” Wahrman added.
“The results of this research will
give us the tools needed to ensure
that our graduates will inspire and
develop their students’ abilities to
the fullest.”
