17 May2017
By Zachary VanHouten
AACTE’s Washington Week is just around the corner! From June 4-7, we’re offering a robust series of activities for faculty, students, state chapters, and partners under the theme “Diverse Perspectives, Deep Partnerships, One Profession.” Whether you’ll start the week at the Holmes Summer Policy Institute or the State Leaders Institute or plan to join us midweek, you certainly won’t want to miss the grand finale June 6-7: AACTE’s Day on the Hill, our premier advocacy event.
What can you expect at Day on the Hill? First, you should know that it’s actually 2 days long – one full day of advocacy training and orientation in the hotel, followed by a day of meetings on Capitol Hill. You can download the draft agenda here.
12 May2017
By Matthew Wales
Last year, AACTE received a record-setting 513 session proposals for its 2017 Annual Meeting in Tampa. Given the limited number of spaces available for presentations, we were able to accept only 44% of the proposals received.
Looking to present at AACTE’s 2018 Annual Meeting in Baltimore? Then you will want to make your proposal stand out from the others. To help increase your chances of being selected in our competitive, peer-review process, here are five tips to help your proposal rise to the top:
09 May2017
By Kristin McCabe
Cynthia B. Dillard
Are you developing, implementing, or evaluating policies or practices that help increase the numbers and improve the experiences of teachers of color? The Department of Teacher Education at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) wants to hear from you! Paper proposals are due May 15 for a September event, “Teacher Diversity Matters: A National Symposium on Preparing, Recruiting, and Retaining Teachers of Color.”
The symposium, to be held September 15 at NKU, will feature a keynote address from Cynthia B. Dillard of the University of Georgia titled “You Are Because I Am: The Necessity of Identity, Mutuality, and Equity in Teacher Education.” Other sessions will highlight accepted papers from researchers, practitioners, and students based in PK-12 and higher education.
08 May2017
By Jerrica Thurman
Are you planning to attend the 2017 AACTE Washington Week next month? Be sure to book your hotel, the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel in Arlington, VA, by May 12 to take advantage of AACTE’s group rate, which includes complimentary high-speed Internet in guest rooms and meeting spaces.
Conveniently located near Reagan National Airport, the hotel offers stunning views of the Potomac River and the Washington skyline – an inspirational setting to convene with other teacher educators from across the country under the event’s theme “Diverse Perspectives, Deep Partnerships, One Profession.” The hotel will host all of our Washington Week events before we head to Capitol Hill Wednesday morning.
04 May2017
By Rene Roselle
Registration is now open for AACTE’s Leadership Academy, June 25-29 in Providence, Rhode Island. One of this year’s faculty members is René Roselle, who attended as a participant just 4 years ago. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
In spring 2013, I was given the opportunity to become associate director of teacher education at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education. Having been a faculty member for 8 years, I felt ready to expand my knowledge of the university and school by serving in new way. We had hired a new executive director of teacher education, and the role of associate director was newly created to support the director. Although I was familiar with the setting, having been a faculty member and doctoral student at UConn since 2001, I had no real preparation for the new role – until a colleague recommended the AACTE Leadership Academy.
04 May2017
By Aaron Goldstein
As part of next month’s Washington Week, themed “Diverse Perspectives, Deep Partnerships, One Profession,” AACTE state chapter leaders will hear from several policy leaders in this year’s State Leaders Institute (SLI).
Held June 4-5 at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, this event fosters dialogue pertaining to education policies in each state and develops capacity for state chapters of both AACTE and the Association of Teacher Educators to address major policy and advocacy themes facing educator preparation.
03 May2017
By Ciera Simms and Kristin McCabe
Last week, AACTE’s inaugural Quality Support Workshop drew dozens of faculty, administrators, assessment and accreditation coordinators, and other educators to Fort Worth, Texas, April 24-26 for interactive sessions and hands-on collaboration.
The event – the first in AACTE’s new series of regional workshops – opened Monday afternoon with a facilitated discussion of the topic “Quality Assurance in Education: What Should a Profession Expect?” AACTE’s Mark LaCelle-Peterson and Linda McKee led participants in considering what evidence they need to evaluate their students and programs, how they obtain this evidence, and how different measures combine to build a framework for quality assurance as well as continuous improvement.
24 Apr2017
By Jerrica Thurman
(April 24, 2017, Washington D.C.) – Today, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) launches its inaugural Quality Support Workshop in Fort Worth, Texas. The workshop, which runs through Wednesday, is the first in a new series of regional events focused on supporting teacher preparation providers to improve program quality. By providing a forum for educators to share experiences about program innovation and construct solutions to shared problems of practice, the Quality Support Workshops aim to meet the present-day needs of teacher educators.
Offered through the Association’s Quality Support Center, these workshops deliver professional development for assessment, accreditation, and documenting quality assurance in convenient sites around the country. Each event connects participants with specialists in facilitated, hands-on sessions where faculty can share strategies and develop customized, actionable plans for use in their home institutions.
21 Apr2017
By Deborah Koolbeck
Why bother engaging in advocacy?
As we say on AACTE’s Advocacy Center: “It sounds funny, but at least where public policy is concerned, it’s true: If you are not at the table, you are probably on the menu. The educator preparation profession engages in advocacy to help shape policy that will affect the field. While AACTE advocates on behalf of the profession at the federal level, your voice as a constituent is also critical – in Washington, DC, as well as in state and local issues.”
13 Apr2017
By Matthew Wales
Are you a new dean or department chair – or simply looking to advance your career as an academic administrator? Get off to a strong start with AACTE’s Leadership Academy this June in Providence, Rhode Island.
The annual Leadership Academy, a popular professional development event for new administrators, has been reimagined for 2017 to provide even more of what you need. Our experienced faculty will guide your learning and provide beneficial information and strategies around allocating resources, managing conflict, and promoting your programs and institutions. To learn more about this year’s content, be sure to visit the detailed 2017 Leadership Academy schedule online.
12 Apr2017
By Kristin McCabe
Have you signed up yet for AACTE’s online short course Designing Assessments to Measure Student Outcomes? If not, we’d love to have you join us for the next session, opening May 1.
In this free 3-week seminar on the popular FutureLearn platform, you’ll learn about key assessment principles and how to design and use rubrics and surveys. Topics include –
11 Apr2017
By Kristin McCabe
A pair of webinars last month offered an overview of how and why content knowledge for teaching (CKT) can be embedded in education course work, looking particularly at the preparation of elementary teachers in English/language arts (ELA) and mathematics. Recordings and slides from the webinars, which were presented by experts from TeachingWorks (University of Michigan) and the ETS® Educator Series (Educational Testing Service), are now available in the AACTE Resource Library: Click here for the ELA presentation and here for math.
Nicole Garcia and Sarah Scott Frank of TeachingWorks joined with Geoffrey Phelps and Heather Howell of ETS to present strategies to engage preservice teachers in real-life content problems they are likely to encounter in elementary classrooms. Rather than looking deeply at the teacher education curriculum or specific designs of programs or field experiences, the webinars sought to ease teacher educators into the concept of CKT and high-level considerations for preparation programs.
Nicole Garcia
Sarah Scott Frank
Geoffrey Phelps
Heather Howell
04 Apr2017
By Kristin McCabe
In an AACTE major forum held March 3, a panel of teacher educators from three state universities discussed the power of partnering with nonschool sites in communities to help prepare effective teachers. “Community-Based Teacher Preparation as Praxis: Preparing Effective Educators Through Research-Practice Partnerships” was organized by the editors of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE)to bring attention to pioneering work under way on this emerging practice.
JTE Coeditors Dorinda Carter Andrews and Gail Richmond of Michigan State University served as moderators for the panel, which included the following presenters:
04 Apr2017
By Rebecca Gutierrez and Michelle Kotek
On March 4, AACTE convened representatives from organizations working with different stages of the educator pipeline to speak at the major forum “Acting as One to Support Educator Development.” The forum, one of six held during the 69th Annual Meeting, covered issues such as student recruitment, candidate support across the continuum of preparation through induction, the role of school-university partnerships, and ensuring novice teachers are prepared to engage their students in deeper learning. In the interest of collaborating as one across this continuum, panelists discussed how their roles intertwine by sharing their perspectives on the best way to achieve a national, cohesive effort supporting high-quality educator preparation.
The forum was moderated by Michael Dennehy, director of college access and completion at Boston University (MA). Panelists included Dan Brown of Educators Rising, Kimberly Tobey of the National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs (NACCTEP), and Linda Darling-Hammond and Maria Hyler of the Learning Policy Institute.
04 Apr2017
By Amanda Lester and Rodrick Lucero
On the last day of the 69th AACTE Annual Meeting in Tampa, Florida, the AACTE Clinical Practice Commission (CPC) held a major forum to unveil and discuss the 10 “Essential Proclamations and Tenets for Highly Effective Clinical Educator Preparation” identified in the CPC’s work. These proclamations and tenets, which undergird a forthcoming white paper, were released during the forum as part of a draft executive summary of the paper.
The event started with a panel presentation and discussion moderated by CPC member Jennifer Robinson, executive director of the Center of Pedagogy and associate professor at Montclair State University (NJ). Panelists included Michael Alfano, Central Connecticut State University; Diane Fogarty, Loyola Marymount University (CA); John Henning, Monmouth University (NJ); Rene Roselle, University of Connecticut; Jennifer Roth, Poudre School District (Fort Collins, CO); and Christine Smith, University at Albany, State University of New York.
