08 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
In just 3 weeks, AACTE will welcome thousands of members and partners to Tampa, Florida, for the 69th AACTE Annual Meeting. We eagerly anticipate the addition of your voice to our convening under the theme “Acting as One: The Power of the Professional Community.”
To make the most of your time in Tampa, be sure to create a personal schedule in our mobile-friendly Online Event Planner. (In fact, the online planner is the only place to get session information, as we no longer print program books.) Once you’ve created your personal schedule in the Online Event Planner, you can export it to your calendar or just continue to access it through the planner site.
08 Feb2017
By Sharon Robinson
Like many of you, I’ve been dismayed at the recent barrage of executive orders, controversial nominees, and heated discourse on every news feed. At the same time, the amazing display of activism and civic engagement since the inauguration has been heartening. While none of us can go to every demonstration or contact our representatives constantly, the urge to act is strong.
So what do we do? As truly significant issues of democracy are at stake, how do we choose where to direct our energies to make a meaningful difference? When such questions come to mind, I recall the voice of the 11-year-old South African boy Nkosi Johnson, who was born with HIV and became famous for his memorable address at an international conference on AIDS in 2000. This wise young man urged those assembled to get busy – even in the face of scientific unknowns and the social stigma associated with the disease that would take his life less than a year later. He said, “Do all you can with what you have, in the time that you have, in the place you are.”
07 Feb2017
By Rebecca Gutierrez
AACTE’s Research-to-Practice Spotlight Series featuring the George Mason University (VA) College of Education and Human Development continues this week with two new videos exploring the effects of the college’s clinical practice model. These videos highlight the mutual benefits enjoyed by participants at both George Mason and its partner elementary schools as well as changes that teacher candidates and their mentors are seeing in their classrooms and in their teaching styles.
The strong partnership between the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University (GMU) and its professional development schools (PDSs) brings benefits to all involved. Teacher candidates enjoy the yearlong clinical placement in a local school where they are immersed with the staff and community from the beginning and gain a real-world teaching experience. On the school side, teacher mentors who provide their expertise to help prepare candidates end up learning from their interns as well. Add in the benefit to schools of having many extra adults working toward common goals and the fresh perspectives gained by participating GMU faculty, and it’s easy to see why the PDS model is worth the effort to run.
06 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
The 29th annual conference of the Japan-U.S. Teacher Education Consortium (JUSTEC) will be held September 14-17 at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Although registration is not yet open, the submission site is ready for your paper and poster presentation proposals, due by April 5.
JUSTEC organizers seek presentations related to educator preparation in either country – or, better yet, related to collaborative research or exchange between the two. In particular, this year’s conference has three invited areas of interest:
03 Feb2017
By Deborah Koolbeck
Thanks to the tireless advocacy efforts of AACTE members and many other education colleagues and partners, action is happening on Capitol Hill affecting the U.S. Department of Education’s regulations for teacher preparation programs.
On February 1, U.S. Representative Brett Guthrie (R-KY), chairman of the Higher Education and Workforce Development Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, introduced House Joint Resolution 58 to rescind the federal regulations for teacher preparation programs.
02 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE’s Committee on Professional Preparation and Accountability has selected Nancy L. Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), to receive the 2017 AACTE David G. Imig Award for Distinguished Achievement in Teacher Education. The award will be presented at the 69th AACTE Annual Meeting Welcoming Session, Thursday, March 2, at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.
The Imig Award, named for AACTE President and CEO Emeritus David G. Imig, recognizes distinguished achievement in the formulation, implementation, or analysis of teacher education policy, or in the performance of distinguished scholarship in educator preparation.
02 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE has chosen the College of Education and Allied Studies at Bridgewater State University (BSU) to receive the 2017 AACTE Best Practice Award in Support of Global and International Perspectives. The award will be presented at the 69th AACTE Annual Meeting Welcoming Session, Thursday, March 2, at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.
BSU will be honored for its Global Learning Opportunities for Bridgewater Educators (GLOBE) program, which sends teacher candidates overseas to participate in faculty-led service-learning, student teaching, and educator exchange programs. Participants are exposed to many international sites, such as Belize, Ecuador, England, Hong Kong, and Puerto Rico. (An overview of last year’s STEM-themed trip to Tbilisi, Georgia, includes video highlights and plans for this spring’s expanded visit.) BSU student teachers who choose international placements chronicle their experiences by contributing to their international student teaching blog, BSU Teaches.
02 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE has chosen Transforming Teacher Education for Social Justice, by Eva Zygmunt and Patricia Clark of Ball State University, to receive the 2017 AACTE Outstanding Book Award. The award will be presented at the 69th AACTE Annual Meeting Welcoming Session, Thursday, March 2, at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.
Published by Teachers College Press in 2015 with a foreword by the late Peter C. Murrell (and with contributions from additional authors Jon Clausen, Wilfridah Mucherah, and Susan Tancock), this volume highlights the award-winning “Schools Within the Context of Community” partnership between Ball State and the Whitely neighborhood of Muncie, Indiana. The authors explain the situated-learning philosophy that undergirds the program and how it meshes with clinical teacher preparation, community engagement, and service-learning to both develop culturally responsive educators and elevate student learning in the partner schools.
02 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE will honor Sarah A. Nagro, assistant professor of special education in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University (VA), with the 2017 AACTE Outstanding Dissertation Award for her study The Effects of Guided Video Analysis on Teacher Candidates’ Reflective Ability and Instructional Skills. The award will be presented at the 69th AACTE Annual Meeting Speaker Spotlight Session, Saturday, March 4, in Tampa, Florida.
Nagro’s study, which also is published in the current issue of Teacher Education and Special Education, investigated the effects of offering guidance and feedback to special education teacher candidates as part of their reflection and video-analysis activities. Two groups of teacher candidates with comparable prior experience participated in semester-long field assignments during which they video-recorded their instruction four times and wrote four reflections. One group of candidates also received directed guidance and feedback on their video analysis. At the end of the semester, both groups self-reported improvements in their teaching ability, but only the treatment group showed significant growth in both their instructional skills and their reflective ability.
02 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE’s Committee on Professional Preparation and Accountability has selected Renée A. Middleton, professor and dean of the Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education at Ohio University, to receive the 2017 AACTE Edward C. Pomeroy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teacher Education. The award will be presented at the 69th AACTE Annual Meeting Welcoming Session, Thursday, March 2, at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.
Middleton was nominated for the award unanimously by her Ohio peers in the State University Education Deans (SUED) group. “Dr. Middleton is among the finest examples of a change agent and professional in higher education and serves as a role model to other deans across the nation,” writes SUED Chair Erica M. Brownstein in the group’s letter of support. “In addition to her contributions to policy and teacher education, Dean Middleton has made significant contributions in social justice, rural education, and mental health. Dr. Middleton is thoughtful about shifts in P-16 education and provides much-needed insights, connections to research, and a pragmatic perspective.”
02 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE’s Committee on Professional Preparation and Accountability has selected James Hiebert, Robert J. Barkley Professor in the University of Delaware School of Education, to receive the 2017 AACTE Margaret B. Lindsey Award for Distinguished Research in Teacher Education. The award will be presented at the 69th AACTE Annual Meeting Speaker Spotlight Session, Saturday, March 4, at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.
“Dr. Hiebert has invested a major portion of his scholarship in the process of improving teacher preparation,” said Carol Vukelich, dean of the College of Education and Human Development, University of Delaware. “He is recognized as an important scholar who has moved the field of mathematics education forward in significant ways. His work provides a model for how education faculty can design programs that have a positive impact not only on teacher education candidates’ learning but also on the learning of their students when they begin teaching. This is exactly the kind of work our field needs.”
02 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE has selected the Ball State University Teachers College (IN) “Schools Within the Context of Community” (SCC) program to receive the 2017 AACTE Best Practice Award in Support of Multicultural Education and Diversity. The award will be presented at the 69th AACTE Annual Meeting Welcoming Session, Thursday, March 2, at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.
SCC takes an innovative approach to preparing culturally responsive, community-engaged candidates. In partnership with a local neighborhood and the Muncie Community School District, the university’s Department of Elementary Education immerses both teacher candidates and faculty into the community and provides opportunities for unique mentoring relationships, service-learning projects, family engagement, and more. Both the community and the university students have benefited in numerous ways since the program started in 2009, ranging from higher elementary student achievement to cultural immersion for teacher candidates to grant funding for community improvements, such as a shared walking path on the grounds of the elementary school.
02 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE has chosen Anna Lees of Western Washington University to receive the 2017 AACTE Outstanding Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) Article Award for her article “The Roles of Urban Indigenous Community Members in Collaborative Field-Based Teacher Preparation,” published in the November/December 2016 issue of the journal. The award will be presented at the 69th AACTE Annual Meeting Speaker Spotlight Session, Saturday, March 4, at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.
The qualitative case study presented in this article used Indigenous Postcolonial Theory as a lens to explore the process and outcomes of a partnership between Indigenous community members and a teacher preparation program. The article offers scholarly insights and a model for the design and implementation of community-university partnerships in the support of preparing novice teachers to effectively work with Indigenous children and their families in urban environments.
02 Feb2017
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE’s Committee on Innovation and Technology has selected the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University to receive the 2017 AACTE Best Practice Award for the Innovative Use of Technology. The award will be presented during the Speaker Spotlight Session on Saturday, March 4, at the AACTE Annual Meeting in Tampa, Florida.
About 5 years ago, the college eliminated its stand-alone educational technology course and instead began infusing the tech content into methods courses. Because of the college’s large size, this undertaking required massive support and commitment among dozens of faculty and administrators. Their infusion initiative was based on a vision to prepare students to teach and learn with technology, achieved through four components:
