14 Dec2018
By Kim Metcalf and Michael Dantley
In our last blog, we invited you to contribute to the strategic planning process by reacting to a draft of the plan that outlined the vision, mission, strategic priorities and core values of our Association. Thanks to all of you who provided your insights. In today’s update, we’ll share some of what we heard and how we plan to incorporate your ideas going forward.
In addition to providing concrete feedback on the draft text, many of you also asked for a plan that is more forward-thinking and that outlines how AACTE can help shape the future as well as navigate the challenges and opportunities that it presents. For example, how will trends such as competency-based and technology-enabled instruction influence both the daily work of the educators we prepare and our own programs? How can we best confront the teacher shortage in partnership with PK-12 leaders and state policy makers, while also ensuring the quality of the education workforce? What more can we and the same partners do to ensure that the profession is diverse and that educators are prepared to effectively instruct all learners?
14 Dec2018
By Donna Cooner and Wendy Fothergill
AACTE hosted its final webinar of this year’s series on principal preparation sponsored by The Wallace Foundation on Wednesday, December 12. As co-hosts, we discussed “Principal Preparation for the Complexity of the Work” with invited guests: Dr. Traci Gile, a principal at Lopez Elementary in Fort Collins, Colorado, Travis Hargreaves, an assistant principal at Cherry Creek Academy in Denver, Colorado, and Donald Kotnik, an assistant principal at Mountain View High School in Loveland, Colorado. Presenters discussed how Colorado State University’s (CSU) School Leadership Institute helped bridge their preparation program to practice for participants.
The Institute consists of two retreats for CSU graduates who are currently in their first few years of school leadership. Institute fellows on the panel shared how their involvement not only improved their practice as leaders, but offered a desperately needed support network for a job that is often isolating. Presenters also shared the importance of contributing to the ongoing research project associated with the Institute and communicating the challenges of the profession through focus groups. This research, and their voices in the focus groups, will not only impact current preparation programs, but also the larger professional community.
13 Dec2018
By Dana Dunwoody
AACTE, the 2018 Holmes Council, and the National Association of Holmes Scholars Alumni (NAHSA) invite current doctoral-level Holmes Scholars to submit a proposal for the 2019 AACTE Holmes Scholars Dissertation Funding Competition (DFC). The competition will take place 10:00 a.m. on Friday, February 22, during the Holmes Preconference Meeting at the Louisville Marriott Downtown in Louisville, KY.
The purpose of the DFC is to defray expenses of a Holmes Scholar’s doctoral research project. This funding competition helps take Holmes Scholars to the next level and provides a collegial and competitive space. This experience is designed to enhance Scholars’ competitiveness as they prepare to enter the job market.
13 Dec2018
By Carlos Richardson
Congratulations to Evandra Catherine, Holmes Scholar of the Month for December 2018!
Catherine is an active member of the Holmes Community where she has attended and actively contributed to a number of Holmes conferences and retreats. Catherine is a doctoral student at Virginia Commonwealth University whose research interests include emotion socialization of preschool-aged Black boys, preschool teachers’ emotion socialization behaviors, preschool exclusionary discipline policy and professional development on emotional competence for preschool teachers.
12 Dec2018
By Conra D. Gist
The Third Annual Diversified Teaching Workforce (DTW) Institute will convene on February 21, 2019 at the AACTE Annual Meeting in Louisville, KY. The Institute will convene a group of national leaders at colleges and universities across the United States to spotlight and explore innovative efforts for addressing racial/ethnic teacher diversity across five key areas: recruitment and retention, teacher preparation, mentorship, induction and professional development, and advocacy. Recognizing the need to create spaces within professional networks to discuss and unpack the challenges and possibilities for increasing teacher diversity, the institute offers presentations on current research, opportunities to converse in working groups, and panel sessions focused on best practices from teacher preparation and teacher diversity pipeline leaders. A brief overview of potential panels at the Institute include:
11 Dec2018
By Katrina Norfleet
The University of Idaho (UI) has received a nearly $1 million grant from the U.S Department of Education to support the second cohort of its Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Education Program (IKEEP), which prepares and certifies culturally responsive Indigenous teachers to meet the unique needs of Native American students in K-12 schools. The first IKEEP cohort began in 2016 with nine students. The new grant will allow an additional eight scholars to begin training in the summer of 2019.
“I am so very pleased that the University of Idaho’s College of Education, Health & Human Sciences (CEHHS) is home to the IKEEP program,” said CEHHS Dean Ali Carr-Chellman. “This U.S. Department of Education grant will help some of our highest needs schools in the state of Idaho to have not only highly qualified teachers, but teachers with a clear sense of culturally responsive curricular approaches. I am deeply impressed by the dedication and perseverance of Drs. Vanessa Anthony-Stevens and Yolanda Bisbee in their pursuit of the IKEEP program for the betterment of all of Idaho.”
Anthony-Stevens and Bisbee, along with Christine Meyer and Joyce McFarland recently shared insights into the IKEEP model in the following Q&A:
11 Dec2018
By Jerrica Thurman
AACTE members Donna Cooner and Wendy Fothergill at Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins were featured in a recent episode of Education Talk Radio to discuss their university’s School Leadership Institute. CSU launched the institute a year ago to identify effective ways to support new PK-12 principals and administrators.
The institute helps identify effective ways to support principals in their critical first year on the job based on feedback from recent program graduates. The goals of the Institute are
11 Dec2018
By Deborah Koolbeck
The U.S. Department of Education (Department) announced that it will allow TEACH grant recipients who met or are meeting their TEACH grant service requirements and had their grant converted to a loan to have this conversion reconsidered. While there are no details yet, the TEACH Grant webpage states that the Department will share its process for reconsideration by January 31, 2019. This is available only for those recipients who were meeting the requirements and had their loans converted due to noncompliance with the certification requirements.
During the course of the year, stories have arisen of TEACH grants being erroneously converted by the servicer, FedLoan. While the Department is moving into negotiated rulemaking on the TEACH grants starting in January, it is taking action in the meantime to change processes to protect recipients. In addition to reconsideration, the Department is also making a universal annual certification deadline of October 31, starting in 2019.
11 Dec2018
By Jeff Rea
This article originally appeared on oswego.edu and is reprinted with permission from the SUNY Oswego Office of Communications & Marketing.
The SUNY Oswego School of Education has joined three other educator-preparation schools in Bank Street College’s Prepared to Teach-New York Learning Network, an initiative designed to develop sustainable funding pathways for residency programs that embed teacher candidates in schools and communities for two full semesters.
Prepared to Teach-NY, recipient of a $500,000 grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York, cites evidence to support a sea change in what represents "student teaching" in the state. The new model takes a page from residencies in medical professions for deeper, richer, authentic experiences linking school placements to concurrent education coursework.
11 Dec2018
By Meghan Grenda
In July 2018, AACTE and the National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs (NACCTEP) entered into an 18-month pilot partnership program to foster collaboration through the common goals of advocating for, advancing, and diversifying educator preparation programs. Since then, the partnership has grown with community colleges from seven states: California, Oregon, Maryland, Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, and Texas. If you are part of a community college educator preparation program interested in connecting with 4-year degree-granting institutions, then you can join the partnership too!
The partnership helps strengthen the teacher pipeline, bring diversity to the field, and advance the preparation of educators. In addition to receiving NACCTEP benefits, all partners receive AACTE benefits, including the following:
06 Dec2018
By Anne Marie Fenton
The profession of education is highly complex, with educators having to make multiple decisions in their daily work. Competing tensions and multiple, greatly nuanced variables that are inherent in this field can add to the vulnerabilities and risks that educators must navigate, especially when it comes to professional decision making.
To gauge attitudes regarding teacher educators’ beliefs about the role of preparing candidates to navigate these complexities through preparation in educator ethics, current practices, and what resources might be most useful for enhancing professional ethics preparation, AACTE is collaborating with the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC), and the National Council for the Advancement of Educator Ethics (NCAEE) to conduct a brief survey.
05 Dec2018
By Jon Clausen, Chrystalla Mouza, Elizabeth Langran and David Slykhuis
Members of AACTE’s Committee on Innovation and Technology at the 2018 National Technology Leadership Summit in Washington, DC (L to R Shaunna BuShell, Guy Trainin, Jon Clausen, Lara Luetkehans, and Arlene Borthwick)
At the AACTE 71st Annual Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, the AACTE Committee on Innovation and Technology (I&T) will host a free preconference symposium Thursday, February 21, on “Action Steps to Address the Challenge of Integrating Technology in Teacher Preparation.” Members of the AACTE Committee, leaders from the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education, and representatives from accreditation and standards organizations will share strategies, exemplars, and tools for education leaders to make informed decisions, develop processes, and assess the impact of their efforts to infuse technology throughout educator preparation programs. Participants will focus on four themes related to action steps education leaders can take to address the challenge of technology integration throughout teacher education. These include
04 Dec2018
By Katrina Norfleet
When it comes to teacher education, how can you distinguish problems, which can be solved, from dilemmas, which can only be managed? This question is the featured discussion of the Journal of Teacher Education article published in the Sept/Oct 2018 issue, Marching Forward, Marching in Circles: A History of Problems and Dilemmas in Teacher Preparation, authored by Jack Schneider, assistant professor of education, College of the Holy Cross.
In a recent podcast interview for JTE Insider blog, Schneider offers insights on the article during his chat with podcast host JTE graduate assistant Mary Neville. “It’s kind of a funny piece in that it tries to come up with a number of typologies for the history of teacher education,” said Schneider. During the interview, Schneider identifies four contextual factors, three core dilemmas and four periods of history of teacher education.
04 Dec2018
By Jerrica Thurman
In Fall 2017, AACTE member institution Towson University’s College of Education launched a pilot program, SIMTeach@TU, to strengthen its clinical and practice-based curriculum through virtual simulation. The program features eight faculty who develop problem-based case scenarios for teacher candidates to experience real-world human interactions with avatars via the virtual reality technology called Mursion. The training simulations recreate the most demanding interpersonal challenges that teacher candidates may confront in the classroom with PK-12 students. It allows preservice teachers to practice and master the complex interpersonal skills necessary to be effective in difficult situations.
“We see simulation—or approximations of practice—work as part of the trajectory of getting our preservice teachers ready to work with real students in classrooms,” said Laila Richman, associate dean of the College of Education at Towson. “We think about this as the first phase of a university-based clinical curriculum that moves them towards being able to work with students.”
04 Dec2018
By Donna Cooner and Wendy Fothergill
Strong leadership is a necessary catalyst for student learning, yet the complexity of the work makes it sometimes hard to focus on the role of instructional leader. AACTE will host a free webinar, Supporting Novice Principals on the Job: Principal Preparation for the Complexity of the Work on Wednesday, December 12, from 3:00-4:00 p.m. EST. Please tune in to attend the webinar, part of a series on principal leadership sponsored by The Wallace Foundation.
Topics will include
