08 Dec2015
By Matthew Wales
AACTE will host its second annual Job and Information Fair during the 68th Annual Meeting at The Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. Promote your program or organization for just $150!
The event will be held Wednesday, February 24, 2016, 1:15 – 3:15 p.m. in the Conference Community Center and open to all Annual Meeting attendees.
Tables will be available in two areas:
- Job Fair – This option is for institutions and affiliates looking to advertise, and potentially interview, AACTE Annual Meeting attendees regarding positions available.
- Information Table – This option is for institutions and affiliates looking to market, promote, and exchange ideas and best practices from programs currently ongoing within their organization.
08 Dec2015
By Gail Richmond and Alyssa Hadley Dunn
The events that recently took place at the University of Missouri are not isolated incidents. Sadly, they are only the most recent examples of a growing trend and reflect the injustices on campuses and in communities across the United States and worldwide. Rather than use this space to recapitulate these events, we instead consider how and why the field must be responsive to these injustices, how we should use these events to make decisions about instruction and about the culture we establish in our classrooms, and how we might use our scholarship to aid in the struggle for justice.
On one hand, acts of injustice seem incompatible with the culture of higher education—which is supposed to support rational thinking, human rights, and informed debate. Yet even at institutions of higher education, where most individuals consider themselves scholars, each of us carries with us experiences, prejudices, and perspectives that are not informed by scholarly work or debate. We cannot take the position that we are “above” the prejudices and stances which have long personal and sociological histories.
08 Dec2015
By Zachary VanHouten
AACTE and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) are now accepting applications for the 2016 Holocaust Institute for Teacher Educators (HITE) in Washington, DC. Now entering its 9th year, the institute is open to any full-time faculty member specializing in secondary education in an AACTE member college or school of education. Favorable consideration will be given to those applying along with a colleague from the same institution but each colleague must complete an application.
Applicants selected to participate in the program will attend a weeklong workshop in June to be hosted by the USHMM in Washington, DC. Participants will receive extensive training on content and pedagogy of teaching the Holocaust/genocide and must agree to conduct a follow-up activity that employs the training they receive.
08 Dec2015
By Gail Richmond
The editors of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) invite manuscripts for a special issue on preparation for teaching to changing standards (e.g., Common Core, Next Generation Science Standards, C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards). Manuscripts are due February 15, 2016.
The Common Core State Standards for mathematics and for English/language arts have been adopted by more than 40 states. Many states have either adopted or are considering the Next Generation Science Standards. The C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards was intended to provide guidance to states wishing to revise their standards.
08 Dec2015
By Julie Baker
The second annual Tennessee edTPA Conference was held November 12–13 at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville. Attendees from 13 Tennessee institutions, and one guest from North Carolina, collaborated to learn more about edTPA and develop new skills to share with faculty, staff, and candidates on their campuses.
The growing interest in edTPA across the state was evidenced by this year’s attendance, which grew by about 10% to 130 educators. The busy first-day agenda included a keynote presentation on the recently released edTPA Administrative Report, 13 breakout sessions, and lunch conversations among attendees with similar responsibilities. The second day was equally full, with local evaluation training facilitated by Cathy Zozakiewicz from the Stanford Center on Assessment, Learning, and Equity.
08 Dec2015
By Christina Tschida
The author leads AACTE’s topical action group on Coteaching in Clinical Practice. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
Does your institution use a coteaching model of clinical practice? Are you interested in learning more about coteaching as a model to prepare teacher candidates? You are invited to join the Coteaching in Clinical Practice Topical Action Group (TAG) of AACTE—a space for dissemination of research on coteaching, sharing of implementation experiences, and development of collaborative research efforts.
07 Dec2015
By Guneev Sharma
Did you miss the latest installment in the Principal Pipeline Initiative webinar series, “Assessing and Enhancing Commitment”? Don’t fret: We’ve posted the recording to our Resource Library, along with other archived content from this fall’s series, sponsored by the Wallace Foundation.
Presenters in this third webinar in the free series included participants in the pipeline initiative: Debra Morris of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Michelle Young of the University Council for Educational Administration and the University of Virginia, and Jevelyn Bonner-Reed of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (NC). These panelists discussed their experiences and concerns related to planning, implementation, data collection, preassessment protocols, mentoring, and assessment as well as the impact of the district and partner activities on student learning, principal quality, and school improvement.
07 Dec2015
By Patricia Alvarez McHatton
We have all heard that old saying, “You don’t know what you have until it is gone.” Delistray (2013) identified 11 things that we don’t appreciate until they are gone. Several, such as love in the time of youth, innocence, and our dreams, can be particularly poignant. Others, such as free/cheap/student-reduced pricing, we get to recoup once we hit our golden years. I would add membership with AACTE as an additional item to the list.
07 Dec2015
By Mary Bold
As questions arise in your work to prepare for accreditation, have you wished for a chance to engage in a Q&A session with someone from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP)? You’re in luck: AACTE’s upcoming Online Professional Seminars (OPS) #3, #4, and #5 will include just such an opportunity.
A CAEP representative will be available for asynchronous conversation, not directly “in” our courses but through them, using a Google Doc to ensure anonymity in relaying OPS participants’ questions. The CAEP staffer will be able to post answers in the document through an external link, but he will not have a view of participant discussions.
07 Dec2015
By Renée A. Middleton
There are certain professions within our society that carry with them an inherent respect. Doctors, nurses, firefighters, soldiers – the list goes on. These people save lives. They care for the sick. They run into burning buildings. They defend our freedom.
These people, without question, deserve our gratitude and appreciation.
There is, however, another profession that deserves that same level of respect, a profession that, for whatever reason, does not always seem to receive it: teaching.
Teachers work with minds. Teachers work with hearts. Teachers work with souls. They are preparing the next generation of doctors, nurses, firefighters, and soldiers (and countless other professionals). And yet, many people act as though that’s something that anybody can do. It isn’t. Teaching requires years of schooling and training, and even then, the job is not easy.
04 Dec2015
By Sharon Robinson
Today, USA Today published a special centerfold feature on literacy in America, accompanied by a digital campaign by Mediaplanet. I was pleased to have the opportunity to author a piece for the campaign, published as “Expanding Literacy Beyond Language Arts.” In the article I describe work that colleges of education are doing to boost literacy among America’s PK-12 students. The 275 words available in USA Today scarcely begin to tell this story, but the message is an important one to get out. Here are a few additional words I’d like to share.
Literacy has become a keystone for all other learning, particularly because of our changing expectations around assessment. Beginning with the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act and evolving into today’s college- and career-ready standards such as the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards, students now must show competence in all disciplines via writing, speaking, and critical thinking.
01 Dec2015
By Hannah Maes and Kristin McCabe
Did you know that AACTE’s six Online Professional Seminars (OPSs) can be taken in any order? In fact, the seminars have no prerequisites, meaning you can skip what you already know and jump right in to the professional learning you need most.
Or are you looking for a well-rounded understanding of assessment and accreditation issues for educator development, program improvement, and quality assurance systems? Then start from the beginning and run through the complete sequence of courses.
Offered through AACTE’s Quality Support Initiative, the seminars are scheduled to be not only flexible but also convenient. Each course is completed asynchronously over a 3- to 4-week period, and multiple session options let you work around your schedule. We’ll be starting several course sections this month, including some that run over the holidays, if that suits your needs—see the current schedule of available dates.
01 Dec2015
By Guneev Sharma
To help you tell your story, AACTE is hosting a three-part webinar series this fall titled “If You Don’t Say It, Who Will?” which offers strategies for how to engage your internal networks and PK-12 partners as well as how to be sure the media and other audiences hear your messages. Won’t you join us in our ongoing campaign to debunk myths about educator preparation and teacher quality?
The first webinar in the series ran November 16, as dozens of you tuned in for “If You Don’t Say It, Who Will? Engaging Internal Networks to Tell Your Story” led by AACTE Director of Marketing and Communications Jerrica Thurman. This event taught participants how to create engagement and communication within their institutions to build a stronger channel for promoting the meaningful work happening in their educator preparation programs. Thurman also shared strategies for recruiting students, faculty, communication officers, and others to spread the word about the impact their program is making. In addition to discussing how to develop dynamic key messages and to identify news worthy to share, Thurman walked participants through the steps to develop a successful communications strategy:
01 Dec2015
By Sharon Robinson
Wendy Bradshaw, in a photo from her Facebook profile
It’s sad but true: In October, a veteran teacher in Florida resigned because the conditions under which she was required to work did not support best practice. Despite her love of teaching and her “highly effective” ratings in evaluations, Wendy Bradshaw was trapped in an untenable position because she was required to deploy practices that were developmentally inappropriate for her young students.
Based on her extensive training in human growth and development, this highly credentialed professional with bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees would not persist in activities that she knew to be harmful to her students. “Developmentally appropriate practice is the bedrock upon which early childhood education best practices are based, and has decades of empirical support behind it,” she writes in her resignation letter. “However, the new reforms not only disregard this research, they are actively forcing teachers to engage in practices which are not only ineffective but actively harmful to child development and the learning process.”
01 Dec2015
By Zachary VanHouten
In new guidance released last month, the U.S. Department of Education issued five executive actions and outlined four policy recommendations for members of Congress to consider as they examine the accreditation process and begin weighing reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.
Although the guidance is motivated by concerns over institutional accreditors, AACTE will follow developments closely to monitor potential impact on programmatic accreditors, including the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation.
In the interest of strengthening oversight and transparency in accreditation, the Department plans to post copies of documents relating to accreditation for each institution, arranged by accreditor, in addition to data on “key student and institutional metrics”—to be drawn heavily from the Department’s College Score Card web site.
