Research shows that teachers who have repeated experience teaching the same grade level or subject area improve more rapidly than those whose experience is in varied grade levels or subjects. Increase stability in teacher job assignments.
Accomplishing this goal will require the implementation of policies and practices to increase teacher retention and reduce turnover in schools.
Policymakers should focus on program and investment strategies that build an experienced teaching workforce of high-quality individuals who are continually learning.
Research that learning on the job matters most professional#
These efforts will ensure that those who enter the professional tier of teaching have met a competency standard from which they can continue to expand their expertise throughout their careers. The benefits of teaching experience will be best realized when teachers are carefully selected and well prepared at the point of entry into the teaching workforce, as well as intensively mentored and rigorously evaluated prior to receiving tenure. More-experienced teachers support greater student learning for their colleagues and the school as a whole, as well as for their own students.Īlthough the research does not indicate that the passage of time will make all teachers better or incompetent teachers effective, it does indicate that, for most teachers, effectiveness increases with experience.Teachers’ effectiveness increases at a greater rate when they teach in a supportive and collegial working environment, and when they accumulate experience in the same grade level, subject, or district.As teachers gain experience, their students not only learn more, as measured by standardized tests, they are also more likely to do better on other measures of success, such as school attendance.Gains in teacher effectiveness associated with experience are most steep in teachers’ initial years, but continue to be significant as teachers reach the second, and often third, decades of their careers. Teaching experience is positively associated with student achievement gains throughout a teacher’s career.
Findingsīased on their review of 30 studies published within the last 15 years that analyze the effect of teaching experience on student outcomes in the United States and met specific methodological criteria, the authors found that: In contrast, older studies often used less precise methods, such as cross-sectional analyses, which compare distinct cohorts of teachers with different experience levels during a single school year. Specifically, by including teacher fixed effects in their analyses, researchers have been able to compare a teacher with multiple years of experience to that same teacher when he or she had fewer years of experience.
The goal of this paper is to provide researchers and policymakers with a comprehensive and timely review of this body of work.Ī renewed look at this research is warranted due to advances in research methods (including the use of teacher and student fixed effects) and longitudinal data systems that have allowed researchers to more accurately answer this question. Do teachers continue to improve in their effectiveness as they gain experience in the teaching profession? This paper aims to answer that question by critically reviewing recent literature that analyzes the effect of teaching experience on student outcomes in k-12 public schools in the United States.
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