JTE Senior Advisers Convene at AERA Conference
Seeking to identify promising research areas in teacher preparation as well as roles for the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) in advancing and disseminating the field’s knowledge base, JTE editor Stephanie Knight (Penn State University) and AACTE assembled a group of advisers for a meeting last week in Philadelphia.
The meeting, held in conjunction with the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), also included AACTE President/CEO Sharon P. Robinson and the following advisers:
- Jorgelina Abbate-Vaughn, University of Massachusetts-Boston (chair of AACTE’s Committee on Research and Dissemination)
- Dan Goldhaber, University of Washington-Bothell
- Etta Hollins, University of Missouri at Kansas City
- Paul LeMahieu, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
- Jane E. West, AACTE Education Policy Consultant
- Jennie Whitcomb, University of Colorado at Boulder
- Suzanne Wilson, University of Connecticut
Although she frequently hears the claim that teacher preparation has “no research base,” Knight said, working on the journal has shown her otherwise. One aim of the meeting was to identify ways of sharing that knowledge base more explicitly both within and outside the profession.
Wilson, a well-known researcher who recently moved to Connecticut from Michigan State University, facilitated the discussion. During a major forum at AACTE’s recent Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, she had expressed an interest in defining a set of research questions that are most promising (or perhaps most urgent) in the field. The group obliged with several nominations, encompassing the following topics:
- Identify what works in clinical preparation and in the larger context of school-university partnerships
- Define core or “high-leverage” practices and how to teach them
- Validate assessment instruments
- Study models for preparing all educators to meet students’ social-emotional needs
- Investigate program design
The recommendations may be used by the JTE editors and AACTE to inform future journal themes as well as Association and journal policies. In addition, the group discussed model dissemination vehicles for the research, such as AERA’s new series of research briefs and the Carnegie Foundation’s Knowledge Network briefs.
Meeting participants will be acknowledged as senior advisers to the journal for the 2014-2015 academic year. This group, which holds no official authority over the journal, supplements the 7-member editorial board (the AACTE Committee on Research and Dissemination) and the 60-member board of reviewers, in addition to hundreds of ad hoc reviewers.
For more information about the journal, visit http://jte.sagepub.com.
