AACTE Workshop Participant Notes Value of Bringing a Team
At AACTE’s Quality Support Workshop–South in Fort Worth, Texas, a team from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was among the participants enjoying the facilitated sessions and targeted support for each team. One member of the UTRGV team offered the following testimony about her group’s experience. Take advantage of the next workshop, August 10-12 in Minneapolis, by registering here.
A team of three program coordinators from my college joined me, the associate dean for assessment and accreditation, in attending a recent AACTE Quality Support Workshop in Fort Worth. Attending as a team served to build capacity among the program coordinators for a common understanding of our responsibility as teacher educators to use valid measures of candidate performance that can inform practice and help us improve our programs.
The workshop structure provided multiple concurrent-session time blocks and several thematic strands of sessions from which participants could choose. For some members of my institution’s team, attending all of the sessions in a particular strand (e.g., the three-part series “Quality Assurance: What Is It and How Do We Create It?”) was especially beneficial, building deeper understanding of the ideas by presenting them in a scaffolded way along with opportunities to explore examples and establish connections with our own programs.
The workshop presenters were very knowledgeable and delivered their sessions using dynamic and engaging formats, which contributed to the team having a great experience. Although members of our team split up to select the sessions that best fit each of our needs, we came back together during the lunch breaks and at the end of the day to debrief and share what we’d learned.
The benefits of coming together – as a team of colleagues and together with peers at other institutions – around best practices in assessment and focusing on the continuous improvement of our programs will continue to pay off, enabling us to better serve our teacher candidates and the students they will teach.
NOTE: The registration and hotel deadline for the Midwest workshop is July 25 – be sure to secure your spot today!
Alma Rodríguez is associate dean for assessment and accreditation at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley College of Education and P-16 Integration.
Tags: assessment, events
