AACTE is pleased to announce the University of South Florida (USF) as the recipient of the 2021 AACTE Best Practice Award for Innovative Use of Technology. Ilene Berson, professor of early childhood at USF, is being presented with the award at today’s virtual AACTE 73rd Annual Meeting Awards Forum.
AACTE is pleased to announce Sarah “Mia” Obiwo as the recipient of the 2021 AACTE Outstanding Dissertation Award for “Bringing Clarity to the Construct: A Content Analysis of Disposition for Urban Teaching and Learning.” The author completed her dissertation for the Ph.D. at Georgia State University, and she currently serves as assistant professor of early childhood education at the University of Memphis. She is being presented with the award at today’s virtual AACTE 73rd Annual Meeting Awards Forum.
AACTE is pleased to announce authors of the article, “Rethinking High-Leverage Practices in Justice-Oriented Ways,” as the recipient of the 2021 AACTE Outstanding Journal of Teacher Education Article Award. Published in the September/October 2020 issue of the journal, the authors of the article, Angela Calabrese Barton of University of Michigan, Edna Tan of University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Daniel J. Birmingham of Colorado State University are being presented with the award at today’s virtual AACTE 73rd Annual Meeting Awards Forum.
“There is much to admire and value about the scholarship that Calabrese Barton, Tan, and Birmingham report in this award-winning piece,” said Elizabeth Birr Moje, dean of the School of Education, University of Michigan. “Their ambitious pursuit of justice-oriented teaching practice, conducted in partnership with teachers, makes invaluable contributions to our understanding of how educators engage in socially transformative teaching.”
Collaboration benefits AACTE member institutions with complimentary access to GoReact’s platform through July and discounted access thereafter.
GoReact and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) today announced a joint venture to expand educator preparation programs’ access to video assessment tools. The partnership was announced during AACTE’s 73rd Annual Meeting, the premier event for teacher education.
Through the partnership, AACTE member institutions can receive complimentary access to GoReact’s video assessment platform for a limited time and an ongoing discount thereafter. New GoReact users will receive free access to the platform until July 31, 2021, while existing GoReact users will receive expanded usage rights during the same timeframe. All AACTE members will receive a minimum of 10% discounted pricing following the complimentary service period. More than 175 AACTE member institutions currently use GoReact within their educator preparation programs.
The 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) begins today. The conference, themed “Resisting Hate, Restoring Hope: Engaging in Courageous Action,” is being held virtually February 24 – 26. Attendees include deans, faculty, students, and administrators from undergraduate and graduate education programs, community colleges, and PK-12 schools, as well as representatives from state and federal agencies, nonprofit organizations, and foundations.
The past year has presented the educational system with many challenges. The onset of the pandemic, incidents of racial injustice, and the digital divide magnified the systemic challenges occurring in PK-16 environments that serve the nation’s most vulnerable populations—students of color, students with disabilities, students from immigrant families, students from low-income families, and LGBTQ students. Under its 2021 theme, the AACTE conference offers attendees hundreds of concurrent sessions that explore how to revolutionize U.S. educational systems and practices to better serve all learners, dismantle inequities, and assure that no child’s future is determined by their race or socioeconomic background.
AACTE’s new Member Spotlight features an individual from a member institution, highlighting how their work makes a difference in classrooms across the country. Nominate yourself or another member by providing a response to the following questions and sending to mgrenda@aacte.org.
Get to know Teresa Clark …
Position/Institution: Associate Professor of P-20 and Community Leadership, Murray State University
Number of years in your position: I am in my seventh year at Murray State. I started as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate last summer.
Alma Mater(s): Geneva College (B.A. and M.A.) and Vanderbilt University (Ed.D)
Hometown: I grew up in Beaver, PA, lived in Nashville, TN and now Murray, KY.
AACTE is in the final stages of launching the AACTE Connect360 online community. This week, Annual Meeting attendees will be among the first to preview and engage with colleagues in the new, members-only platform. As a registered attendee, members can create their profile, introduce themselves, and start or respond to a conversation during the 2021 virtual conference.
Attendees are invited to stop by the virtual Conference Community Center on Wednesday, February 24 or Thursday, February 25 for a tutorial on AACTE Connect360, where they can learn more about how to make and maintain professional connections during and after the annual conference. The AACTE team will be available to answer questions and guide members through the digital, collaborative tool. Plus, there will be plenty of opportunities to participate in online discussions with Annual Meeting colleagues over the next few days.
The Journal for Success in High-Need Schools, is seeking articles and columns for its Volume 16, Number 2, Issue theme – “Education in a Pandemic Age: Evolution or Transformation?”
The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest and by far the most severe of several pandemics (e.g., HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola) global society has experienced in recent decades. COVID-19 has dramatically affected all sectors of education and society, including teaching and learning; how schools are structured; student, teacher, and parent/family relationships; and has thrust eLearning front and center in all aspects of education. In shuttering virtually all schools and colleges and with nearly all students “sheltering in place,” COVID-19 transformed, at least in the short term, the trajectory of the decades-long evolution of online and distance learning. As teachers scramble to develop their classes online and schools struggle to make technology more widely available, families must adjust to new realities with children at home. Already there are wider impacts on work, leisure, and family life, not to mention jobs, careers, social organization, governance, international relations, and the global economy. The timing and magnitude of these changes are open to speculation, but it appears that at some level they will be long lasting, even as the duration of COVID-19 and the likelihood of future pandemics on our complex, highly interactive Earth society are unclear.
Educator preparation providers (EPPs) at six minority serving institutions (MSIs) across the United States selected to participate in Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity’s (BranchED) National Teacher Preparation Transformation Center will undergo an immersion process aimed at producing highly effective and diverse teachers.
Institutions comprising BranchED’s National Teacher Preparation Transformation Center’s Cohort 2 include Alabama A&M University in Huntsville, AL, Mount Saint Mary’s University in Los Angeles, CA, Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas, University of La Verne in La Verne, CA., Virginia State University in Petersburg, VA, and West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas. The pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade (PK-12) school district partners for these respective institutions also participate in the Transformation Center.
AACTE Board member Kimberly White-Smith, dean, LaFetra College of Education at University of La Verne, is among the featured education leaders presenting at the “Speaking Up for Public Schools” livestream discussion on Tuesday, February 23 at 2:00 p.m.
Each year Public Schools Week brings together Learning First Alliance members, educators, parents, business and community leaders, and many others across the country to show the strength—and potential—of our nation’s public schools and our students’ futures. Even now, public schools are making connections each day with their students, families and broader communities.
We will celebrate Public Schools Week 2021, Feb. 22-26, virtually. On Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 2 p.m. EST the Learning First Alliance and its members will host a discussion on what has been learned and how public schools can move forward from the Covid-19 pandemic. The event will spotlight social-emotional learning and how the educators are meeting student needs as well as future needs. The show can be viewed on LFA’s YouTube channel and Facebook page.
CoSN, the national association of school district technology leaders, recently released two reports, Driving K-12 Innovation: 2021 Hurdles + Accelerators and Driving K-12 Innovation: 2021 Tech Enablers. The Driving K-12 Innovation reports capture the top nine topics (challenges, mega-trends, and tools), according to an advisory board of approximately 100 school leaders, technologists, educators, and changemakers. AACTE was proud to serve on the advisory board that supported the development of the report for the second year in a row.
Through the Driving K-12 Innovation series, CoSN continues its commitment to sharing high-quality trend reports that support the use of emerging technology in K-12 education to transform learning. In this initiative, a global advisory board of K-12 leaders, practitioners, and changemakers engages in discourse about the major themes driving, hindering, and enabling teaching and learning innovation at schools. Their work is divided into three steps: an initial survey to select the topics for discussion; discussion; and a concluding survey to capture the final thoughts from advisory board members and discern the top topics to feature in each publication. (Learn more at cosn.org/k12innovation.)
The call to action to engage our collective consciousness by resisting hate and restoring hope through courageous action is now. After the summer of racial reckoning, institutions have re-examined mission and vision statements for what many consider a watershed moment with “talk of transformation, roadmaps, and “action steps” toward sweeping curricular reforms (Bartlet, T, 2021). The Improving Practices in STEM Teacher Preparation (IPSTP) Topical Action Group (TAG) likewise responds to the call by reimagining TAG activities and engaging members to reflect, reimagine, and take action through STEM teacher education.
To start the work for envisioning courageous action, the IPSTP TAG has invited scholars to share their work in socially just and equity-sustaining STEM practices. The invited speakers include Angela Calabrese Barton of the University of Michigan, Edna Tan of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Tanya Maloney of Montclair State University, and Kathleen Schenkel of San Diego State University.
AACTE recognizes the challenges that many of our members are facing because of the recent winter storms. We believe that your safety and well-being are most important. As such, we are extending the application deadline for the Consortium for Research-Based and Equitable Assessments (CREA). The new deadline to apply is March 5 at 11:59 p.m. EST.
We appreciate the overwhelming interest that have been expressed to join the Consortium and hope that this extension will provide much needed respite to those impacted by widespread power and utility outages, and other challenges to their everyday needs. Given the new deadline, all applicants will be notified of their application decision on March 22, 2021.
Please direct any questions about the Call for Applications to me at wjames@aacte.org.
Celebrate Excellence in Educator Preparation at #AACTE21
Join AACTE and colleagues as we honor institutions and individuals for their significant contributions to the field of educator preparation during the 2021 AACTE Awards Forum. New this year, the Awards program will be a 30-minute presentation highlighting all award winners during the AACTE 73rd Annual Meeting. The AACTE Awards Forum will take place at 2:45 p.m. ET on Thursday, February 25.
The Opening Keynote session will also offer a stellar lineup of presenters, including distinguished guests U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senator Jack Reed, U.S. Representative Alma Adams, Dr. Karen Marrongelle, and Dr. Leslie T. Fenwick. Learn more about the keynote speakers.