Abstract

Old Dominion University-Teacher Immersion Residency (ODU-TIR) is a teacher residency grant supported by the U.S. Department of Education Teacher Quality Partnership Grants initiative. The principal goal of this project, as with all teacher quality partnership initiatives, is to increase student achievement by improving the quality of new prospective teachers. In this article, we describe an innovative teacher-residency program that recruits candidates with undergraduate degrees in high-need content fields, immerses them in an induction program housed in urban schools, provides them mentoring and instruction founded on research, and continues to offer professional development during the early years of their careers. We provide an overview of the academic-year residency, describe the key components of the teacher-immersion residency program, and highlight the successes and challenges of implementing this new model. Program outcomes from mentoring teachers, school administrators, and residents were collected to assess the impact of the program.