14 Jan2016
By Jerrica Thurman
Event apps for conferences are no longer a novelty. Businesses and associations everywhere are adopting this technology to facilitate interaction with their audiences—and AACTE is no exception! In response to member requests, and to keep AACTE’s meetings up to speed with industry standards, the Association now offers a custom-designed online Event Planner with full mobile functionality.
“We developed the Event Planner to help our members better manage their time and receive real-time updates during AACTE events,” said Alexandr Gumbar, AACTE’s director of information technology, who created the platform 2 years ago and recently completed its mobile version.
The online planner takes the place of a printed conference program. A digital planner is not only more environmentally friendly than a printed one, but also more accurate: It can nimbly reflect the latest scheduling changes to provide the most up-to-date information during the event. AACTE’s application also guides you around the conference, assists with creating your agenda, notifies you of important announcements, and facilitates your feedback through surveys.
12 Jan2016
By Lillian Chenoweth
Accreditation work involves considerable project management to track logistics and the activities of stakeholders. Resource management is a usual business practice of academic units, but the tools are not typically suitable for tracking projects with due dates and multiple actors. Tune in to AACTE’s upcoming Online Professional Seminars (OPSs) to learn about specialized software and methods for managing assessment cycles, quality assurance systems, and accreditation submissions.
In a session starting January 25, OPS #6: Leveraging Accreditation for Quality Improvement will cover topics such as ethical considerations, tools, checklists, site visits, mock visits, and walk-throughs. Or join us starting February 8 for OPS #5: Preparing for Accreditation, where we’ll cover teamwork, readiness, calendar planning, document control, best practices, and more.
07 Dec2015
By Guneev Sharma
Did you miss the latest installment in the Principal Pipeline Initiative webinar series, “Assessing and Enhancing Commitment”? Don’t fret: We’ve posted the recording to our Resource Library, along with other archived content from this fall’s series, sponsored by the Wallace Foundation.
Presenters in this third webinar in the free series included participants in the pipeline initiative: Debra Morris of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Michelle Young of the University Council for Educational Administration and the University of Virginia, and Jevelyn Bonner-Reed of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (NC). These panelists discussed their experiences and concerns related to planning, implementation, data collection, preassessment protocols, mentoring, and assessment as well as the impact of the district and partner activities on student learning, principal quality, and school improvement.
01 Dec2015
By Hannah Maes and Kristin McCabe
Did you know that AACTE’s six Online Professional Seminars (OPSs) can be taken in any order? In fact, the seminars have no prerequisites, meaning you can skip what you already know and jump right in to the professional learning you need most.
Or are you looking for a well-rounded understanding of assessment and accreditation issues for educator development, program improvement, and quality assurance systems? Then start from the beginning and run through the complete sequence of courses.
Offered through AACTE’s Quality Support Initiative, the seminars are scheduled to be not only flexible but also convenient. Each course is completed asynchronously over a 3- to 4-week period, and multiple session options let you work around your schedule. We’ll be starting several course sections this month, including some that run over the holidays, if that suits your needs—see the current schedule of available dates.
03 Nov2015
By Hannah Maes
The immediate value of taking part in AACTE’s Online Professional Seminars is obvious: You get to enhance your peer network while gaining knowledge on crucial issues in the field, from assessment and data use to quality assurance systems and the nuts-and-bolts of preparing for national or regional accreditation. But there are other, long-term advantages to participating in the seminars offered through AACTE’s Quality Support Initiative.
The OPSs provide a framework that allows you and your institution to focus on your faculty. The professional development offered through the seminars strengthens your performance in your current position and prepares you for future ones. By developing participants’ skills regarding assessment and accreditation, the OPS series builds individuals’ confidence and enhances their competence.
16 Oct2015
By Hannah Maes
Data are ubiquitous in this day and age, and making sense of all the numbers and trends can be overwhelming. Yet using data wisely is critical to be able to learn from experience and determine strategic directions for improving what we do. So where do we start—how do we identify what information we need and appropriate sources to use? How do we recognize patterns in the data and their lessons for our work? And how do we put it all together to improve our programs and demonstrate our accountability?
05 Oct2015
By Hannah Maes
What constitutes “quality” in assessment? Educators have to know how to design assessments and scoring rubrics that are appropriate to their students’ specific situations as well as fair, valid, and reliable.
AACTE’s Online Professional Seminar (OPS) #1: Building Quality Assessments addresses this question in a 3- to 4-week introductory course that is free and open to all educators. By connecting simultaneously with experts and their peers in the field, OPS participants get the chance to compare their experiences, learn from each other, and discover best practices for assessment design.
28 Sep2015
By Hannah Maes
Have you tried AACTE’s Online Professional Seminars (OPSs) yet? Trish Parrish, assistant vice president of academic affairs and professor of education at Saint Leo University (FL), has completed three already! Here’s what she had to say when I recently asked her about the experience with AACTE’s Quality Support Initiative.
When Parrish started working on her first OPS, her husband was confused to see her in the student’s role. “He said, ‘But you’ve already prepared all your classes for tomorrow!’ And I replied, ‘Well, yes, but now I am taking my class!’ ” In fact, the time commitment on top of her already-full workload had Parrish worried at first, but she decided to give it a try—and now she has completed the first three OPSs in AACTE’s series. “I’ve definitely enjoyed it,” she says.
01 Sep2015
By Angela Maynard Sewall
On Thursday, September 10, AACTE will offer the first free webinar in a series focused on preparing effective principals through collaborations among higher education institutions and school districts. Please register now to join us at 1:00 p.m. Eastern!
The webinar, Principal Pipeline Initiative: Laying the Foundation, is offered with support from the Wallace Foundation as part of its multiyear effort to strengthen the development and support of principals in large urban districts. For this webinar, participating district representatives will be on tap to provide their insights and to engage in discussion with a faculty member from a higher education institution to compare their experiences and to discuss goals and results from the partnership work.
10 Aug2015
By Christine Tambini
Registration is now open for AACTE’s 68th Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, February 23-25, 2016. Take advantage of discounted registration by the Early Bird deadline of October 14.
As a profession, educator preparation faces hard questions and tensions that challenge programs’ ability to pursue a common vision of quality. Together, educator preparation providers will tackle these issues as they converge in Las Vegas for AACTE’s 2016 Annual Meeting – the premier event for the profession. Get empowered with proven strategies and unconventional approaches for building a stronger workforce, institution, and community.
04 Aug2015
By Jerrica Thurman
AACTE is undertaking a new effort to strengthen its Innovation Exchange by developing better navigation tools, adding fresh resources, and boosting engagement opportunities for the professional community.
“The Innovation Exchange must be an interactive platform for bringing together and amplifying the innovative work our members do,” said Rodrick Lucero, vice president of member engagement and support.
28 Jul2015
By Lucy Berrier
Nominations for the 2016 AACTE awards are open on AACTE’s submission site. But what happens to your application once you submit it?
28 Jul2015
By Mark LaCelle-Peterson
AACTE is pleased to open registration for its first in-depth Online Professional Seminar (OPS), Creating a Quality Assurance System, with the first 4-week section launching August 10 and additional sections beginning throughout the fall semester. Participants from AACTE member institutions receive a significant discount on the registration fee, but the seminars are open to the public as part of the Association’s Quality Support Initiative.
Already, hundreds of educators have participated in the two free introductory seminars, OPS #1: Building Quality Assessments and OPS #2: Using Data for Improvement. Additional sections of these two free seminars are still open for registration on a first-come, first-served basis.
13 Jul2015
By Angela Maynard Sewall
Beginning this fall, AACTE will host a series of four free webinars on preparing effective principals through collaborations among higher education institutions and school districts.
The webinars will feature participants in the Wallace Foundation’s Principal Pipeline Initiative, a multiyear effort to strengthen the preparation and support of principals in six high-need urban districts: Prince George’s County (MD), Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC), Denver (CO), New York City, Hillsborough County (FL), and Gwinnett County (GA).
The initiative, for which AACTE has served as a communications partner, builds on over a decade of research that identified four key parts of a pipeline to develop successful principals: rigorous job requirements, high-quality preparation, selective hiring, and on-the-job evaluation and support.
07 Jul2015
By Tim Finklea
More than 200 participants from a variety of education settings just completed the first Online Professional Seminar (OPS) in the series being offered by AACTE’s new Quality Support Initiative. With another 250-plus registrants signed up for the second free seminar starting next week, the series is off to a strong start—and there is still space in upcoming cohorts!
The focus of each OPS is a topic relating to quality assessment and/or accreditation. Seminars are 3-week, interactive online courses for current and aspiring professional educators, PK-16. Courses are open to all educators, whether AACTE members or nonmembers, and the first two seminars in the series—Building Quality Assessments and Using Data for Improvement—are offered free of charge. These two introductory OPSs can be taken in any order.
