AACTE is now accepting online nominations or applications for its 2015 Writing and Research Awards, with the following submission deadlines:
Outstanding Book Award: Nominations due June 17
Outstanding Dissertation Award: Applications due August 14
Outstanding Journal of Teacher Education Article Award: Nominations from editors due October 1
The deadline to apply for AACTE’s new research fellowship was March 28, and we are ecstatic about the number of submissions we received! Nearly 80 research teams from a variety of member institutions submitted applications to study educator preparation pedagogy and/or educator workforce development.
The AACTE Research Fellowship for Educator Preparation is a new program established under the Innovation Exchange that aims to cultivate emerging scholars and support high-quality research in the area of educator preparation. Aligned with AACTE’s mission and strategic goals, the research fellowship will engage education scholars in collecting, documenting, and disseminating research on innovative educator preparation practices to fuel program improvement and influence policy decisions.
AACTE and the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) are pleased to announce the availability of new video interviews about edTPA, a nationally available teacher performance assessment created to ensure new teachers are effective from Day 1.
The first set of video interviews comes from New York State. As of May 1, 2014, New York State will require teacher candidates to pass edTPA as a requirement for initial certification, and many institutions in that state have been piloting edTPA. For the videos, we set up a roundtable discussion with teacher candidates from some of these institutions to talk about their experiences using the assessment. The video series Candidate to Candidate: Reflections on Taking edTPA shows teacher candidates discussing the challenges of edTPA, sharing advice and major takeaways they learned from the program, and offering many other valuable insights on teaching and teacher preparation. Click here to see for yourself!
Did you attend the edTPA-related sessions at AACTE’s Annual Meeting this year? If not, here’s a taste of what you missed! Click here to view a list of the descriptions and presenters for the various sessions that provided attendees the opportunity to converse with other users of edTPA.
A highlight of the conference was the edTPA breakfast hosted by SCALE, which drew more than 200 attendees. In her opening remarks, AACTE President/CEO Sharon P. Robinson championed edTPA, emphasizing that it was developed by and for the people in the room. She also encouraged audience members to advocate for edTPA in their communities. Afterward, Ray Pecheone, SCALE’s executive director, described in detail the developmental process of edTPA. He explained topics such as standard setting and state policy and announced that SCALE would conduct validity and consequential studies in the weeks ahead. Finally, attendees engaged in a question and answer session with Andrea Whittaker, SCALE’s director of teacher performance assessment, and other representatives.
Data literacy is not a new concept in education. Teachers and school leaders are constantly processing data—on student behavior, attendance, performance on assessments, district- and state-level data, etc.—and utilizing it to improve student and school outcomes. What is new, though, is the burgeoning amount of data now generated by district- and state-wide data systems, think tanks, research and policy organizations, and multiple other sources including schools themselves. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has been leading the push for equitable access to this information—and the push to develop educators who can filter out the “white noise” and home in on the data that are relevant to their classrooms and schools.
The March/April 2014 issue of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) is now available online. See what Volume 65 Number 2 has to offer!
AACTE is excited to announce a new research fellowship that aims to cultivate emerging scholars and support high-quality research in the area of educator preparation.
The AACTE Research Fellowship for Educator Preparation will engage education researchers in collecting, documenting, and disseminating research on innovative educator preparation practices to fuel program improvement and influence policy decisions.
Today, AACTE released model state legislation to recruit high-achieving students into the teaching profession and incentivize them to teach in our neediest schools.
The Teaching Fellows bill is the first released by AACTE in its initiative to develop model state legislation that is aligned with AACTE’s state policy priorities and with the recommendations from “Excellent Teachers for Each and Every Child: A Guide for State Policy,” a joint effort by AACTE and several partner organizations that was released in December 2013. The initiative reflects AACTE’s goal of promoting sound education policies—grounded in research and practice—that will strengthen the teaching profession and will have a positive impact on students.
A new report from the Wallace Foundation’s Principal Pipeline Initiative highlights practices for the preparation and support of new principals. Cultivating Talent Through a Principal Pipeline is the second in a series of evaluations of the initiative, prepared by Policy Studies Associates. It describes results from the initiative’s first 2 years as participating districts worked to beef up their principal corps through training and ongoing support.
As part of its Principal Pipeline Initiative, the Wallace Foundation last week convened its National Provider and Graduate Principal Professional Learning Community (National Provider PLC). I attended the meeting on behalf of AACTE, which is a communications partner for the initiative.
The National Provider PLC, launched in April, offers an opportunity for the initiative’s principal preparation providers, program alumni, and district administrators to collaborate in determining the most effective and efficient way to identify, develop, and support effective school leaders. Each district in the Principal Pipeline Initiative—Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC), Denver (CO), Gwinnett County (GA), Hillsborough County (FL), New York City (NY), and Prince George’s County (MD)—also participates in a local PLC. In all, 20 principal preparation programs and 20 graduate principals are involved in this change-driving work, and, of the programs, half are AACTE member institutions.
AACTE invites member institutions to apply to join a new initiative, Changing the Demographic Makeup of the Teaching Workforce, which will help 10 institutions increase the number of Black and Hispanic men receiving initial teaching certification through their programs.
The initiative will be AACTE’s first “networked improvement community” (NIC). NICs use the principles of improvement science to analyze a problem and design innovations. They leverage the community of participants to test and refine those interventions in a variety of contexts and to distribute those interventions broadly. AACTE’s NIC will focus on areas for intervention such as recruitment strategies, equity-based admissions policies, incentives to pursue a career in teaching, and others identified by NIC members.
The January/February 2014 issue of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) is now available online. See what Volume 65 Number 1 has to offer—without waiting for the mail delivery!
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of attending a meeting of the Wallace Foundation’s Principal Pipeline Initiative. The foundation regularly convenes the initiative’s participants to provide time and space for them to assess their efforts to transform the way they recruit, prepare, and support principals and to plan for further work.
In early 2013, the Wallace Foundation awarded AACTE a grant to serve as one of its communications partners engaged in disseminating research about education leadership as well as the practices and research emerging from the foundation’s Principal Pipeline Initiative.
edTPA™ passed a critical milestone this summer when the final assessments were submitted and scored as part of an ambitious two-year edTPA field-test period. Completion of this extensive field testing gives new momentum to edTPA, which is scheduled to be fully operational and available to all states and teacher candidates beginning September 18.
During the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years, more than 12,000 teacher candidates in 26 states participated in the edTPA process. The candidates came from some 250 institutions. Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Tennessee and Washington were among the states with the highest number of teacher candidates participating in the field test.
