CLASSROOM PERFORMANCE OF NEW TEACHERS: CHARACTERISTICS AND QUALIFICATIONS

This presentation focuses on the description of classroom performance of beginning teachers at their first year of employment with the aim of establishing how prepared they are to manage teaching and learning with their students. 27 beginning teachers, graduated from five Chilean universities teaching programs for basic and secondary education, were observed in a classroom for 90 minutes. These classes were analyzed and evaluated by a pair of researchers from three perspectives: the level of performance in management and evaluation of the teaching-learning process, according to the rubrics of the classroom observation instrument (COI); the type of education and learning effectiveness offered in their classrooms, according to the Global Judgment Rubric (GJR) of teacher performance; and, finally, the innovative condition of educational actions implemented by beginning teachers in terms that go beyond the traditional forms of practice. The results show that most beginning teachers show only basic performance over all dimensions of the COI; despite this, they seem to have better tools to face the challenges of teaching management in the fields of classroom environment management and the interactions they implement and of managing learning activities and tasks for their students. The type of education offered has several elements that implement approaches to effective teaching. Novice teachers are taking actions that provide evidence of overcoming some aspects of traditional education: they develop a culture of learning in the classroom; their students know not only the learning to achieve, but also begin to understand the relationship between the former and the proposed tasks. Also, these teachers are focused on understanding and reasoning rather than the acquisition and management of information, emphasizing learning activities that enhance the relationship and integration of concepts and the preparation of responses with some degree of complexity. Results like these are very useful in our country. Teacher training institutions need feedback and detailed information on the effectiveness of their graduates during the first years of employment for timely and appropriate responses to strengthen their initial training programs. Chile needs to implement public policies and support mechanisms for new teachers that enable professional development and avoid early school desertion.