Innovation at Lesley University: Assessment System to Support Continuous Improvement

By Saroja Barnes

The Innovations Inventory of AACTE’s Innovation Exchange is an online database highlighting members’ pioneering practices in educator preparation that have shown a positive impact on issues of student learning, preparation program advancement, or educator workforce needs. This blog post is one in a series highlighting entries from the inventory. To request inclusion of your institution’s innovations, contact Kristin McCabe at kmccabe@aacte.org.

Faculty in the Graduate School of Education at Lesley University (MA) have built a comprehensive e-portfolio and assessment system to provide data on candidate performance and support continuous improvement processes. The assessment system aligns key formative assignments in initial, professional license, and advanced professional development programs to standards-based program outcomes. Candidates submit all assignments to an e-portfolio system, where faculty score them based on valid and reliable rubrics. The assessment system also contains data on candidate performance on state exams and summative performances from clinical experiences.

Teaching: More Complex Than Rocket Science

By Julie Underwood

American teachers touch the American future every day. They do so by producing good citizens, good employers, good workers, and good people. As teacher educators, we prepare these leaders.

In today’s political climate, too many people take a simplistic approach to teaching and learning. It’s not hard to find someone who will argue that to teach, all you need are good intentions. Nearly everyone has been in school, so many people believe this makes them expert on how to teach and even on how to train teachers. Similar logic would lead us to conclude that since everyone has been born, we could all be obstetricians and medical educators. Teaching and teacher training are not simple tasks.

Meet the Chair: Julie Underwood

By Kristin McCabe

AACTE’s Board of Directors is headed this year by Julie Underwood, dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Underwood is a nationally recognized authority on school law and has coauthored several books on the topic. Her background includes work in higher education and at the National School Boards Association, where she served as associate executive director and general counsel from 1998 to 2005.

Innovation at Georgia State University: NET-Q

By Elizabeth Ross

The Innovations Inventory of AACTE’s Innovation Exchange is an online database highlighting members’ pioneering practices in educator preparation that have shown a positive impact on issues of student learning, preparation program advancement, or educator workforce needs. This blog post is one in a series highlighting entries from the inventory. To request inclusion of your institution’s innovations, contact Zachary VanHouten at zvanhouten@aacte.org.

Georgia State University (GSU) is the largest producer of minority educators in the state of Georgia and graduates approximately 500 teachers annually. GSU’s Network for Enhancing Teacher Quality (NET-Q) program aims to increase teacher quality in urban and rural areas in Georgia. The program includes both pre- and postbaccalaureate initiatives for educators serving high-need school districts in these settings.

NET-Q boasts a partnership with at least 15 rural PK-12 schools, local businesses, two historically Black colleges, and the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

edTPA ‘Myth Busters’ Document Sets Record Straight

By Valerie Fry

edTPA has been nationally available for nearly a year, and some 520 educator preparation programs in 34 states are already using it. Unfortunately, there are many misunderstandings and misperceptions about this assessment that threaten to compromise its utility. In response, the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) and AACTE have created a new Myths and Facts document to promote accurate and informed conversations on edTPA.

This clarifying document is publicly available and gives faculty, policy makers, PK-12 educators, and others a fuller understanding of edTPA and why support for performance assessment of beginning teachers continues to grow. The educators who have collaborated to develop, use, and share edTPA encourage thoughtful discussion about how edTPA is being implemented to support teacher candidates and preparation programs.

Visit edtpa.aacte.org to learn more about edTPA.

CAEP Announces Fall Conference

By Tiffany S. Erickson

The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.

In partnership with AACTE, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) invites you to attend its 2014 Fall Conference (“CAEPCon”) at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC. This fall’s CAEPCon, “Excellence in Educator Preparation: Building Our Profession on Evidence,” takes place September 29–October 1, 2014. Hundreds of supporters of improving teacher quality will gather together to share innovative ideas about accreditation’s role in ensuring candidate readiness. Registration is now open at http://caepnet.org/events/caepcon/.

People who attend CAEPCon will have the opportunity to learn about excellence in educator preparation, share their best ideas for building the profession, and grow in their understanding of the CAEP accreditation process. CAEP is committed to the role it plays in ensuring all teacher candidates are classroom ready.

Three New TAGs Approved, Open for Membership

By Kim Murray

AACTE is pleased to announce that three new topical action groups (TAGs) have been established and are accepting new members:

The Research in Teacher Preparation TAG is dedicated to identifying current research gaps in teacher preparation literature to guide collaborative research projects among TAG members.

The Assessment of and for Student Learning TAG is dedicated to determining which national and local assessment standards and tools are most valuable to establish “core assessment principals” and developing a paradigm of PK-12 student performance assessment that is appropriate for the 21st century.

Redesigned AACTE Web Site Streamlines Design, Content

By Sharon Robinson

I am pleased to announce that today marks the official launch of the redesigned AACTE.org.

In service to our members and the broader educator preparation community, AACTE undertook a major overhaul of its web site over the past year. Last August, many of you responded to our request for feedback on our web site. Based on your thoughtful input, we have transformed our information-sharing platform to be a more useful, supportive asset for our ongoing collaborative work.

In a time when information is almost exclusively created, shared, and accessed electronically, it is important that our electronic information-sharing tools be technologically current, well-designed, and user friendly. This redesign of AACTE.org serves as a smart, relevant electronic business card among power players in the greater education community—and more important, as a go-to resource for members like you.

Innovation at CSU Fullerton: Partnering With Schools to Improve Science and Content Literacy

By Zachary VanHouten

The Innovations Inventory of AACTE’s Innovation Exchange is an online database highlighting members’ pioneering practices in educator preparation that have shown a positive impact on issues of student learning, preparation program advancement, or educator workforce needs. This blog post is one in a series highlighting entries from the inventory. To request inclusion of your institution’s innovations, contact Jessica Milton at jmilton@aacte.org.

Beginning in 2009, California State University (CSU) Fullerton has enjoyed a partnership with neighboring Placentia Yorba Linda Unified School District to support science instruction in the classroom. The partnership has served not only to improve the practice of teacher candidates in science instruction, but also to improve K-5 student achievement in science and content literacy. Throughout their time in the classroom, candidates jointly plan, teach, and reflect on their lessons.

Since the partnership began, student achievement scores have experienced double-digit gains, and teacher candidates report greater confidence in their science pedagogy. Proficiency levels in one school increased from 25% to 44% in just 1 year of partnership work. Candidates’ confidence to engage students in science increased from 77.5% to 97.5%, and the percentage reporting confidence in their content knowledge in science increased from 57.5% to 90.0%.

Oklahoma Restores Teacher Induction Program

By Aaron Goldstein

Thanks to heavy involvement by the Oklahoma Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (OACTE), Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin recently signed HB 2885 into law, restoring the state’s teacher induction program.

The Oklahoma Teacher Induction Program (OTIP), which had been suspended since 2010, provides professional support, mentorship, and coaching for beginning teachers. Under the new law, school districts can voluntarily offer the induction program during the 2014-15 academic year; it becomes mandatory in the 2015-16 academic year. Furthermore, the bill permits teacher mentors to support more than one beginning teacher, and it establishes a paid teacher internship program at teacher preparation institutions.

AACTE to Survey Members on Data Use in Programs

By Alicia Ardila-Rey and Cap Peck

In the next few days, Chief Representatives at 400 randomly selected AACTE member institutions will receive an invitation from the Association to complete a survey on data use in their teacher preparation programs.

As readers of this blog know, teacher preparation institutions are under increasing pressure to provide data on the effectiveness of their programs and to use these data to make decisions about ongoing program improvement. However, a growing body of research shows that using data to make decisions about policy and practice involves much more than collecting, aggregating, and analyzing information. In order to understand what it takes to go from collecting to effectively using data, AACTE and the University of Washington have been collaborating over the last 2 years on a Spencer Foundation-sponsored project focused on describing how teacher education programs are learning to use new sources of outcome data for the purposes of program improvement.

Notice of TQP Funding Opportunity: Applications Due July 15

By Aaron Goldstein

Updated to reflect new application deadline.

Applications are now available for a new slate of Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) grants, the federal government’s only investment in reforming teacher preparation in institutions of higher education. Interested applicants will have to act quickly, though—the deadline for letters of intent is June 27, and full applications are due July 15.

Last week, in the Federal Register, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced the availability of approximately $35 million in new awards for fiscal year 2014 under the TQP grant program.

8 State Chapters Win AACTE Grants

By Elizabeth Ross

AACTE has awarded funding to state chapters in California, Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin in the 2014 State Chapter Support Grant competition.

The grant program, now in its 4th year, directs $50,000 of member dues toward strengthening the capacity of state chapters to operate as an organization and to advocate on behalf of the interests of teacher preparation in the state, as well as toward bolstering the relationship between the state chapters and AACTE. This year, chapter leaders were invited to apply for funds for support of the following priority areas: Policy and Advocacy, Professional Issues, and Chapter Development and Capacity.

Innovation at Bradley University: PDS Partnership

By Jessica Milton

The Innovations Inventory of AACTE’s Innovation Exchange is an online database highlighting members’ pioneering practices in educator preparation that have shown a positive impact on issues of student learning, preparation program advancement, or educator workforce needs. This blog post is one in a series highlighting entries from the inventory. To request inclusion of your institution’s innovations, contact Jessica Milton at jmilton@aacte.org.

The Bradley Professional Development Schools (PDS) Partnership was established in 1995 to address the needs of the eight PDS sites affiliated with Bradley University (IL). Inspired by a full-service community schools model, the partnership extends beyond teacher education to include all five departments in Bradley’s College of Education and Health Sciences.

NASDTEC Task Force to Develop Model Code of Educator Ethics

By Kristin McCabe and Omar Davis

A new effort by the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC) will attempt to develop a national framework for PK-12 educator ethics.

Beginning with a meeting June 19-21 in Maryland, the Model Code of Educator Ethics Task Force will review existing codes of ethics over the coming year and draft a consensus document that could be adopted by states, which currently have varying guidelines in place. A public review period is planned before the model code is finalized in summer 2015.