simSchool: The Game of Teaching

Today's current teacher preparation system is facing a crisis: a severe teacher shortage (Ingersoll and Smith 2003). The National Center for Education Statistics notes that of the two million new teachers who will enter the profession over the next decade, 666,000 will leave sometime during the first three years of teaching, and one million new teachers will not make it past five years (cited in Center for American Progress 2005). A major factor contributing to these high attrition rates is the fact that too many new teachers enter the classroom unprepared to make a wide range of decisions and manage a classroom of 24–31 students (Darling–Hammond and Skyes 2003). In response to this trend, researchers have stressed the crucial role of effective mentoring practices (Ingersoll and Kralik 2004); similarly, in 2003 the National Science Foundation (NSF) noted that the nation's "teacher preparation programs are disconnected from classroom practice" and put out a call for innovative ways to prepare teachers for the tasks they will face in their work (NSF 2003)