Author Archive

Guneev Sharma

AACTE Media Relations Intern

Webinar Offers Lessons on Assessing, Enhancing Principal Pipeline

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.

If You Don’t Say It, Who Will? Tell Your Story, With Help From AACTE

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:

NCES Report: Most New Teachers Stay in the Classroom

A new study out of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) helps debunk the oft-repeated assumption that half of new teachers leave the profession in the first 5 years. Overall, some 77% of participants in the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study continued teaching for 5 straight years, and the rate was even higher (80%) for those who had a mentor or participated in an induction program—just two of the many influences on teachers’ career paths studied for the report.

Career Paths of Beginning Public School Teachers first scrutinizes both broad and detailed career paths of 155,600 teachers who began their classroom career in the 2007-08 academic year. Then it looks at a subset of 1,440 teachers’ characteristics in their first and in their final year of teaching, covering personal demographics, student and school factors, and professional preparation and in-school supports.

How to Use Twitter With Teacher Candidates: Webinar Recording Available

Twitter can be used in a variety of ways, from celebrity stalking to news tracking to simply sharing life’s events with friends. As more and more people create accounts and become active users, Twitter’s application in teaching and learning also is growing. On September 29, Jeff Carpenter and Scott Morrison of Elon University (NC) and Michael Maher of North Carolina State University presented the second in their series of three free webinars for AACTE members on Twitter’s potential for use in teacher preparation programs.

Last Call for 2016 AACTE Award Entries

This is the final week to submit applications for the AACTE Awards Program. All entries for Best Practice Awards and Professional Achievement Awards must be submitted online by Friday, October 9, at midnight EDT.

The selection process for the awards is by peer review, led by AACTE’s standing committees. I asked one committee chair, Kevin J. Graziano of Nevada State College, how the awards program contributes to the profession. (Graziano chairs AACTE’s Committee on Innovation and Technology, which is responsible for reviewing applications for the Best Practice Award for the Innovative Use of Technology.)

Kick Off a New Appointment With Media Outreach

How are you telling your story in the media? Although teacher educators may feel perpetually short on time given their duties across colleges and partner schools, it can be well worth the effort to establish yourself as a respected resource to local newspaper reporters, radio stations, and other media outlets. A prime time to reach out is when you take on a new leadership role, giving you a window of opportunity to introduce yourself to the community while presenting the outlet an expert connection to call on in the future.

Take Donald Easton-Brooks, former professor and dean of the Colleges of Business and Education at Eastern Oregon University, who recently became dean of the University of South Dakota (USD) School of Education. To mark his new appointment, Easton-Brooks sat for a recorded interview with a local news outlet, introducing himself to the local audience and promoting his vision for the school. Here are some of the points he shared in his 15-minute interview.

Thinking of Applying for an AACTE Award? Hear From a Recent Winner

Just 2 weeks remain before the application deadline for AACTE’s 2016 Best Practice Awards and Professional Achievement Awards. To illustrate the honor of receiving such recognition from your peers, we asked one recent recipient to tell us about her experience.

In 2014, AACTE recognized the School of Leadership and Education Sciences (SOLES) at the University of San Diego with the AACTE Best Practice Award in Support of Global Diversity. Heather Lattimer, associate professor and associate dean of SOLES, said this about the honor.

Teachers Learn in the Classroom, Too

Research out of Brown University (RI) shows that teachers improve tremendously in their first year of teaching and continue to do so during their career. Researchers John Papay and Matthew Kraft discussed this work in a free AACTE webinar last month, “Toward a Broader Conceptualization of Teacher Quality: How Schools Influence Teacher Effectiveness,” which was recorded and is now available in AACTE’s Resource Library.

Papay, assistant professor of education and economics, and Kraft, assistant professor of education, shared findings from their research, recently published in Productivity Returns to Experience in the Teacher Labor Market: Methodological Challenges and New Evidence on Long-Term Career Improvement and Can Professional Environments in Schools Promote Teacher Development? Explaining Heterogeneity in Returns to Teaching Experience. These studies show that teachers’ learning develops exponentially in their early years in the classroom but also continues to grow throughout their careers at a slower rate, and teachers working in more supportive professional environments improve their effectiveness more over time than teachers working in less supportive contexts.