Pulse Checks on Teaching Conditions and Teacher Well-Being

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Intensifying teacher stress has contributed to growing concerns about teacher well-being and an increased policy focus on reversing teacher attrition. To ensure the teacher workforce is receiving support aligned to specific and evolving needs, many states and districts are assessing the quality of teacher working conditions and teacher well-being. 

Consider Pulse Checks. Teaching conditions are typically examined by states and districts on an annual basis. However, the recent demands for changing teaching and learning formats require more frequent monitoring and assessing of teaching conditions. States and districts can make better investments by creating targeted “pulse checks”—quick response surveys—that assess teacher experience as they implement new models of instruction, address student learning loss, and consider growing needs around social and emotional supports. 

Regional Center Collaboration. Using the GTL Center's Teaching Conditions Survey as a foundation, the Region 1 and Region 9 Comprehensive Centers partnered with the State Education Agencies in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Illinois, and Iowa to form a Community of Practice (CoP) on assessing teaching conditions in rapidly evolving and adapting learning settings (e.g., remote, hybrid).  
 

Our Approach

The CoP explored existing measures of teaching conditions, identified new measures, and developed a framework that CoP members and other districts or school leaders can use to assess teaching conditions and teacher well-being within new remote and hybrid learning models. Together, the Collaborative developed a set of rapid pulse check surveys. The surveys focus on four critical constructs of teaching conditions and teacher well-being:

• Time
• Learning Environment and Resource Management
• Supporting the Social and Emotional Health of Students and School Staff
• Professional Learning and Teacher Leadership