Teacher Resilience Toolkit: Building a support network for (future) teachers within school-university partnerships
Upon inquiry students answer “I’m okay” or “I’m struggling”. Imagine that you would have a tool to deepen your dialogue with these students. Or, that you would be able to offer a resilience toolkit to be used within school-university partnerships. That is exactly what we developed.
Due to increasing challenges in education, many novice teachers drop out within the first five years of their careers (Dekker et al., 2021). We need to support our (future) teacher’s resilience, since it can reduce burnout and prevent dropout (Arnup & Bowles, 2016). Therefore, together with pre-service teachers, the Marnix Academy developed resilience tools for (future) teachers to be used as boundary objects (Dingshoff et al., 2023) in school-university partnerships.
The development started with identifying challenges of (future) teachers regarding their resilience. Guided by the professional, emotional, motivational and social dimension of teacher resilience of Mansfield et al. (2016), interviews and research workshops were conducted with pre-service and in-service teachers as well as school and institute-based teacher educators. The data revealed the need for low-threshold resilience tools, and offered an overview of challenges per dimension. Additionally, leads for developing such tools shared by the participants were listed.
The challenges gathered were discussed in the research team after which the pre-service teachers chose relevant challenges, keeping in mind fellow students: e.g., managing pupil behavior, dealing with stress, and setting boundaries. For these challenges prototype tools were designed using the listed leads and leads the in-service teachers found by exploring their curriculum. Furthermore, literature was searched and expert input on mindfulness and self-compassion (Toonen, 2022) was incorporated. Iteratively, the prototypes were tested and refined through research workshops, again involving both pre-service and starting in-service teachers as well as school and institute based teacher educators.
Ultimately, the Teacher Resilience Toolkit consists 21 tools with additional resources (e.g., extra exercises and videos) available online. Each tool includes instructions for users and tips for supporting them, making it useful for both (future) teachers and educators. Further research is needed to assess the long-term impact of the toolkit. Nevertheless, the project provided insights into the challenges teachers face and how to develop low-threshold tools. The collaboration with in-service teachers and the iterative feedback process were crucial, demonstrating the importance of stakeholder involvement in educational research.
References
Arnup, J., & Bowles, T. (2016). Should I stay or should I go? Resilience as a protective factor for teachers’ intention to leave the teaching profession. Australian Journal of Education, 60(3), 229–244.
Dekker, M., Gaikhorst, L., & Schreurs, B. (2021). De uitval van beginnende leraren in het primair onderwijs [Starting teachers dropping out in primary education]. Pedagogische studiën, 98, 153-157.
Dingshoff, M., Nieman, E., & Boonen, A. (2023). Boundary crossing: Grenzen overbruggen in de interprofessionele samenwerking tussen school, kinderopvang en welzijnswerk [Boundary crossing: Bridging boundaries in interprofessional collaborations between school, child care and social services]. Hogeschool Utrecht, Kenniscentrum Sociale Innovatie.
Mansfield, C., Beltman, F., Broadley, T., & Weatherby-Fell, N. (2016). Building resilience in teacher education: An evidence informed framework. Teaching and Teacher Education, 54, 77-87.
Toonen, L. (2022). Hartenreis: Een inspiratie-doeboek om jouw authentieke stem te vinden en te volgen [Journey of the heart: An inspirational book to find and follow your authentic voice]. Palmslag.