11 Feb2014
By Kristin McCabe
A March conference being hosted by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) includes a veritable “who’s who” of speakers in its ambitious program that includes several faculty from AACTE member institutions.
Deborah Loewenberg Ball of the University of Michigan, Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University (CA), Andy Hargreaves of Boston College (MA), Mark Ginsberg of George Mason University (VA), James Hennessy of Fordham University (NY), Pedro Noguera of New York University, Robert Pianta of the University of Virginia, and other teacher educators will join dozens of other representatives from various education circles at “Teaching & Learning 2014” in Washington, DC.
07 Feb2014
By Mary Harrill
Data literacy is not a new concept in education. Teachers and school leaders are constantly processing data—on student behavior, attendance, performance on assessments, district- and state-level data, etc.—and utilizing it to improve student and school outcomes. What is new, though, is the burgeoning amount of data now generated by district- and state-wide data systems, think tanks, research and policy organizations, and multiple other sources including schools themselves. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has been leading the push for equitable access to this information—and the push to develop educators who can filter out the “white noise” and home in on the data that are relevant to their classrooms and schools.
05 Feb2014
By Aimee Hall
This post also appears on the AACTE Annual Meeting site.
Once again, AACTE has partnered with a local charity to give back to our Annual Meeting host community. Indianapolis’ School on Wheels will be collecting donations outside the Conference Community Center at the 2014 AACTE Annual Meeting.
School on Wheels works to break the cycle of homelessness by providing one-on-one tutoring and educational advocacy for school-aged children impacted by homelessness. Since its founding in 2001, it has trained over 2,200 community volunteers as tutors, provided tutoring to 3,913 school-aged homeless children, and distributed 2,148 backpacks filled with school supplies and 11,351 school uniforms to homeless children. In 2013, School on Wheels was named nonprofit volunteer program of the year by the United Way of Central Indiana.
04 Feb2014
By Kristin McCabe
The March/April 2014 issue of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) is now available online. See what Volume 65 Number 2 has to offer!
- In this month’s editorial, “Research as a Catalyst for Change,” JTE‘s editors at Penn State University relate the issue’s contents to AACTE’s 66th Annual Meeting theme, Taking Charge of Change. Heralding the theme as an opportunity to champion the role of research in informing policy and practice, the editors highlight the articles’ contributions to knowledge about innovative practices in the development of both preservice and in-service educators.
03 Feb2014
By Christine Tambini
AACTE is excited to announce a new research fellowship that aims to cultivate emerging scholars and support high-quality research in the area of educator preparation.
The AACTE Research Fellowship for Educator Preparation will engage education researchers in collecting, documenting, and disseminating research on innovative educator preparation practices to fuel program improvement and influence policy decisions.
31 Jan2014
By Alicia Ardila-Rey
A new resource from AACTE’s Professional Education Data System (PEDS) shows that although minority-serving institutions collectively represent a small percentage of AACTE members, they are responsible for the preparation of a disproportionately large number of minority teachers.
30 Jan2014
By Sarah Pinsky
Today, AACTE released model state legislation to recruit high-achieving students into the teaching profession and incentivize them to teach in our neediest schools.
The Teaching Fellows bill is the first released by AACTE in its initiative to develop model state legislation that is aligned with AACTE’s state policy priorities and with the recommendations from “Excellent Teachers for Each and Every Child: A Guide for State Policy,” a joint effort by AACTE and several partner organizations that was released in December 2013. The initiative reflects AACTE’s goal of promoting sound education policies—grounded in research and practice—that will strengthen the teaching profession and will have a positive impact on students.
28 Jan2014
By Aimee Hall
This post also appears on the AACTE Annual Meeting site.
AACTE and TeachingWorks are collaborating on a strand of sessions at the 66th Annual Meeting that will examine the challenges of preparing novice teachers for practice and explore potential solutions. This strand will provide a forum for sharing ideas and learning from programs that are taking on the challenges of building practice-based teacher education. It will also address implications of the Common Core State Standards for teacher preparation.
24 Jan2014
By Sarah Pinsky
Last week, President Obama signed an omnibus spending bill funding the government through the end of the fiscal year. This $1.1 trillion plan restores approximately two thirds ($1.6 billion) of the cuts made to the U.S. Department of Education in last year’s sequestration.
Perhaps most important to educator preparation programs, the omnibus maintains funding for Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) grants, which fund partnerships between institutions of higher education and high-need school districts to create clinical and/or residency programs at the prebaccalaureate or graduate level. This means that the U.S. Department of Education will fund a new round of grants to partnerships seeking to reform teacher preparation programs. Stay tuned for more updates from AACTE on how to apply for this grant funding.
17 Jan2014
By Deborah Schussler and Lisa Johnson
The authors are members of AACTE’s topical action group on Teacher Education as a Moral Community. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
A recent National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) report evaluates teacher preparation programs for their attention to an important element of preparation: classroom management. Unfortunately, the report’s few helpful suggestions get lost in the slough of misguided assumptions and questionable claims by the report’s authors.
17 Jan2014
By Omar Davis
The pace of change is quickening as educator preparation programs engage in a variety of reform efforts. Are you interested in learning more about how they are taking charge of change? A major forum at AACTE’s Annual Meeting in Indianapolis will highlight reforms in several programs and the ways they are working with PK-16 partners and communities to meet emerging challenges.
During this forum, the following panelists will share their efforts and partnership work to reinvent programs at their institutions:
17 Jan2014
By Alicia Ardila-Rey
AACTE invites institutions to participate in a job fair for AACTE Holmes Scholars® to be held Sunday, March 2, at the 2014 Annual Meeting in Indianapolis.
AACTE proudly continues to host the Holmes Scholars® Program, one of the great benefits of AACTE membership. This unique program provides mentorship, peer support, and rich professional development opportunities to doctoral students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds who are pursuing careers in education.
16 Jan2014
By Lisa Johnson Kiefer
On January 30, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EST, AACTE will host a free webinar for members called “Assessing School Leader Preparation Program Quality: An Update on the Quality Measures Tool.”
Presenter Cheryl King, director of leadership for learning innovation at the Education Development Center (EDC), will explain how the EDC’s Quality Measures™ tool has helped school leader preparation programs assess their strengths and weaknesses and improve the quality of their curriculum, pedagogy, and clinical components. This webinar is available to AACTE members courtesy of a grant from the Wallace Foundation as part of its Principal Pipeline Initiative.
14 Jan2014
By Alicia Ardila-Rey
If you are interested in international education and in preparing globally competent teachers, here are some resources and opportunities to consider:
Summer 2014 Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad Program in China
The Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad Program provides opportunities for overseas experiences to teachers and other PK-12 personnel, teacher educators, and administrators with responsibilities for program or curriculum development in fields related to humanities, languages, and area studies. Seminars are designed to provide a broad and introductory cultural orientation to a particular country. The program is geared toward educators with little or no experience in the host country who demonstrate the need to develop and enhance their curriculum through short-term study and travel abroad.
14 Jan2014
By Sarah Pinsky
The Education Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) met in Washington, DC, last month, considering two new model state bills: the “Student Achievement Backpack Act” and the “Course Choice Act.”
The “Student Achievement Backpack Act” creates a data “backpack” for each K-12 student in the state that would include an electronic learning profile as well as information on the student’s prior teachers, including teachers’ years of experience and licensure information. The act would also authorize parents and K-12 district employees to access these backpacks, which would be transferable between schools and districts. The bill does include provisions to safeguard students’ privacy.