01 Feb2018
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE is delighted to announce the selection of Cultivating Racial and Linguistic Diversity in Literacy Teacher Education: Teachers Like Me, by Marcelle Haddix of Syracuse University (NY), to receive the 2018 AACTE Outstanding Book Award. The award will be presented at the 70th AACTE Annual Meeting Closing Keynote session, March 3 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Reviewers praised this book for its clear and engaging writing and its well-sourced, thoughtful scholarship – as well as its timely and critical focus on diversifying the teaching workforce. The book’s copublishers, Routledge and the National Council of Teachers of English, articulate this focus in the following abstract:
01 Feb2018
By Kristin McCabe
Congratulations to the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education (New Brunswick, NJ) on its selection to receive the 2018 AACTE Best Practice Award in Support of Global and International Perspectives! The award will be presented March 1 at the Opening Keynote of the AACTE 70th Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Rutgers Graduate School of Education (GSE) offers learning opportunities that link the local and global to connect future educators, leaders, and researchers to the reciprocal influences of local communities and global society. Teacher candidates may participate in several global opportunities, including education-study abroad programs, PK-12 mentoring, and a new linguistically diverse program, “The Conversation Tree: Community-Based Language Partnerships.”
23 Jan2018
By Kristin McCabe
What makes a public school successful? A new report from the Learning First Alliance (LFA) identifies six common elements critical to success – while also emphasizing that each school must tailor its programs to the specific goals and challenges of its setting. In other words, all successful schools share key characteristics, but how these elements are implemented and integrated depends greatly on context.
LFA members, which include AACTE and collectively represent more than 10 million educators, parents, and local policy makers, contributed their sectors’ best practices and research to the compendium to advance a collective vision of how and why public schools flourish. In addition to AACTE, LFA members include AASA, The School Superintendents Association; American Federation of Teachers; American School Counselor Association; Consortium for School Networking; Learning Forward; National Association of Elementary School Principals; National Association of Secondary School Principals; National Education Association; National PTA; National School Boards Association; and National School Public Relations Association.
19 Jan2018
By Kristin McCabe
Members of the AACTE Clinical Practice Commission speak at the National Press Club January 17. Left to right: Jennifer Roth, Diane Fogarty, Kristien Zenkov, and Jennifer Robinson.
AACTE hosted a press briefing January 17 in Washington, DC, showcasing the work of the AACTE Clinical Practice Commission (CPC) and releasing the report A Pivot Toward Clinical Practice, Its Lexicon, and the Renewal of Educator Preparation.
Held in the historic National Press Club, the briefing opened with a welcome from AACTE Board Past Chair Jane Bray, dean of the Darden College of Education at Old Dominion University (VA). More than half the members of AACTE’s Board of Directors were in attendance, as were 30 members of the CPC and dozens of representatives from Washington-area education organizations, colleges and universities, news media, and AACTE staff.
16 Jan2018
By Kristin McCabe
A recent Journal of Teacher Education article proposes a new model to integrate social justice with the concept of pedagogical content knowledge. In “Foregrounding Equity in Teacher Education: Toward a Model of Social Justice Pedagogical and Content Knowledge,” authors Jeanne Dyches of Iowa State University and Ashley Boyd of Washington State University lay out the theoretical model they call Social Justice Pedagogical and Content Knowledge, or SJPACK. A recent podcast interview with the authors for the JTE Insider blog sheds light on the model.
In the interview, the authors explain that since Lee Shulman’s concept of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) was introduced in the 1980s, it has thoroughly permeated teacher preparation, but it does not explicitly link PCK to equity concerns. They wanted to tease out the different ways this would look in different disciplines.
05 Jan2018
By Kristin McCabe
Education Talk Radio host Larry Jacobs interviewed members of AACTE’s Clinical Practice Commission in a radio show December 19:
- Rodrick Lucero, Vice President, AACTE
- Audra Parker, Associate Professor, George Mason University
- Kristien Zenkov, Professor, George Mason University
19 Dec2017
By Kristin McCabe
Two new videos are available this week in AACTE’s Research-to-Practice Spotlight Series highlighting clinical preparation and partnerships of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) College of Education. The latest videos focus on the culture of continuous improvement and the program elements that set graduates up for success in the field.
The educator preparation programs at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), set candidates up for success through a variety of supports and forward-looking practices.
18 Dec2017
By Kristin McCabe
The National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY) requests proposals for workshops and other interactive sessions to be presented at its 2018 National Teacher Leadership Conference, July 8-11 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Proposals are due by February 5.
The 4-day conference will convene state and national teachers of the year (and finalists from the states) to “engage with national education leaders, administrators, policy makers, the business community, and colleagues to dynamically teach and learn in order to impact students, schools, and the profession.” Themed Teaching Tomorrow’s Leaders, the conference will offer sessions focused on four urgent problems of practice identified through a membership survey by NNSTOY:
10 Oct2017
By Kristin McCabe
The deadline to apply for a 2018 AACTE Best Practice Award or Professional Achievement Award has been extended to Friday, October 20. Act now to win recognition for your program or colleagues and to contribute to “Celebrating Our Professional Identity” at the 2018 Annual Meeting when the awards are given in Baltimore, Maryland!
Award winners are honored during the general sessions at the opening and closing of the conference, providing inspiring bookends to the experience with examples of outstanding achievement and best practice.
29 Sep2017
By Kristin McCabe
What does strong preservice preparation look like for teaching the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)? This question is explored in an article published in the May/June 2017 issue of the Journal of Teacher Education, an issue that also includes several other articles on the topic of the implications for teacher preparation of the Common Core and other new PK-12 learning standards.
A recent podcast interview for the JTE Insider blog provides insights from Mark Windschitl of the University of Washington and David Stroupe of Michigan State University, authors of the article “The Three-Story Challenge: Implications of the Next Generation Science Standards for Teacher Preparation.” JTE Graduate Assistant Bernadette Castillo conducted the interview.
05 Sep2017
By Kristin McCabe
The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) has selected a professional development partnership of the University of Toledo (OH) to receive the 2017 Christa McAuliffe Excellence in Teacher Education Award. The award will be presented October 22 at the AASCU Annual Meeting in La Jolla, California.
The winning program, NURTURES (Networking Urban Resources with Teachers and University to enRich Early Childhood Science), aims to improve the science learning and readiness scores of preschool through third grade students in the Toledo area. NURTURES is a collaboration among the university’s education, engineering, and natural science faculty; local daycare centers and nursery schools; informal science centers; and other community resources to create a complementary, integrated system of science education. The program enhances teacher understanding of science content to improve classroom practices and offers classroom extension activities and family learning opportunities.
29 Aug2017
By Kristin McCabe
“The three R’s alone don’t cut it anymore,” announces a report released August 28 on the 49th annual PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. In addition to solid academics, Americans want their schools to provide job training, more explicit focus on social-emotional skills, and “wraparound” services like health centers and afterschool programs. Respondents also want students to learn in diverse classrooms and are skeptical about vouchers and the value of standardized tests.
This year’s survey sought to learn more about last year’s discovery of a desire among the American public for schools to focus less on honors classes and more on career and technical education. The new data suggest that the public really wants both strong academics and job preparation, including classes focused on career skills, technology and engineering, and programs leading to a professional certificate or license. The less satisfied respondents are with their local schools, the more likely they are to say schools should offer more job/career skills classes.
11 Aug2017
By Shawn Karim and Kristin McCabe
During AACTE’s membership renewal season, some of our most active members are sharing what AACTE means to them. For this article, AACTE intern Shawn Karim interviewed Board of Directors member Monika Williams Shealey, who is dean of the College of Education at Rowan University (NJ). Learn more about membership here.
Monika Williams Shealey (front) poses with Holmes Scholars in front of the U.S. Capitol building during AACTE’s 2017 Washington Week.
08 Aug2017
By Kristin McCabe
A new policy brief from the Data Quality Campaign presents recommendations for states to support educator preparation through better sharing and use of information – not just for accountability but also for continuous improvement. The report, Using Data to Ensure That Teachers Are Learner Ready on Day One, calls attention to current data challenges faced by educator preparation providers (EPPs) and offers suggestions and examples for states to improve the situation.
“State education agencies already collect information about teachers, like their licenses, where they teach, and how much they improve student learning, but that information is not consistently shared with EPPs,” the brief states. “On the program side, EPPs are often frustrated by data collection and reporting requirements that do not help them answer important questions about their own program quality. And a lack of publicly available information on EPP outcomes means that EPPs and their stakeholders, from prospective teachers to K-12 principals, too often must spend their own limited time and resources to collect and synthesize information that could be provided by the state.”
The report, developed in partnership with AACTE and several other partner organizations, lists the following primary challenges to using data for EPP improvement:
28 Jul2017
By Kristin McCabe
Time is running out to apply for the 2018 AACTE Outstanding Dissertation Award! Entries must be made online by Friday, August 18. Help AACTE recognize outstanding doctoral research in educator preparation by encouraging your top recent graduates (or recent hires) to apply for this prestigious award, which includes a $1,000 cash prize.
The Committee on Research and Dissemination will review submissions this fall, and applicants will learn of their status in November (although the announcement of the winner is embargoed until February). The winner will be recognized during AACTE’s 70th Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, March 1-3, 2018.
