26 Jan2015
By Kristin McCabe
The Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform Center (CEEDAR Center) will sponsor a free webinar, “Innovation Configurations in Action,” this Wednesday, January 28, at 1:00 p.m. EST.
Developed last year, innovation configurations are program evaluation tools that help determine the extent to which evidence-based practices are taught, observed, and applied in teacher preparation and professional development programs.
20 Jan2015
By Sharon Robinson
This post also appears on the Public School Insights blog of the Learning First Alliance.
Last week, the White House announced a new push to protect students’ digital privacy, as ever-expanding data collection efforts heighten concerns from parents and advocacy groups about appropriate uses of the data. Institutions of higher education share the administration’s priority to protect elementary and secondary students and uphold diligent safety and privacy practices in preparing teachers for the classroom. Ultimately, safeguarding student data is everyone’s business.
13 Jan2015
By Cap Peck
Academic leaders in teacher education are currently faced with unprecedented policy pressures related to collecting, reporting, and acting on an intensifying array of program outcome measures. Moreover, many of the state and federal policies driving these pressures are saturated with paradox, attempting to address multiple and often contradictory goals. Perhaps the most fundamental of these is related to the essential tension between policy goals related to identifying and eliminating “low-performing programs,” and those related to “program improvement.” Coping with contradictory discourses and policies related to accountability, program improvement, and “data use” has become one of the facts of life experienced by virtually all contemporary teacher educators.
16 Dec2014
By Omar Davis
The AACTE Holmes Scholars® Program is one of the Association’s hallmark offerings on diversity and will be featured in a variety of sessions at the 67th Annual Meeting in Atlanta, February 27-March 1.
In addition to dedicated preconference programming, attending Holmes Scholars will participate in the full range of Annual Meeting offerings under the theme Advancing the Imperative, from major forums and general and concurrent sessions to the town hall meeting and the job fair.
16 Dec2014
By Gloriatine Jones
The December 2014/January 2015 issue of Educational Horizons is now available from Pi Lambda Theta.
Thanks to a partnership with Phi Delta Kappa and Pi Lambda Theta, all AACTE members receive free online access to this magazine for future teachers as a benefit of their AACTE membership. Chief Representatives also receive each issue by mail.
10 Dec2014
By Sharon Robinson
A version of this post also appears on the edTPA web site.
When Georgia begins requiring edTPA for teacher certification in 2015-16, it will be the final phase of an implementation process marked by small steps to help educators learn more about performance assessment and then bigger steps to include, inform, and support key audiences.
09 Dec2014
By Andrea Whittaker and Nicole Merino
A version of this post also appears on the edTPA web site.
A team of teacher preparation experts experienced with edTPA will be available beginning in January 2015 to support the implementation of edTPA by teacher preparation programs across the country.
The National Academy consultants will be recruited and trained by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) in partnership with AACTE.
25 Nov2014
By Kristin McCabe
As teacher educators wait to see the U.S. government’s latest proposal for rating their programs, a new report commissioned by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) attempts to lay out a useful framework of “key effectiveness indicators” to answer the fundamental question: How do we identify high-performing preparation programs that routinely produce effective teachers (as well as programs that do not)?
28 Oct2014
By Kristin McCabe
Georgia, Ohio, Montana, New Hampshire, and Utah have been selected to receive technical assistance from the University of Florida College of Education’s Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform (CEEDAR) Center. The center supports states in developing educators to prepare students with disabilities for colleges and careers.
20 Oct2014
By Gloriatine Jones
The October/November 2014 issue of Educational Horizons is out!
Thanks to a partnership with Phi Delta Kappa and Pi Lambda Theta, all AACTE members receive free online access to this magazine for future teachers as a benefit of their AACTE membership. Chief Representatives also receive each issue by mail.
Here are some highlights from the current issue to share with your students:
09 Oct2014
By Kristin McCabe
Recognizing the fact that students in many high-need schools continue to have disproportionately low access to great educators, on Tuesday the Coalition for Teaching Quality (CTQ) released Excellent Educators for Each and Every Child: A Policy Roadmap for Transforming the Teaching and Principal Professions. The Coalition also held House and Senate briefings on Capitol Hill with practitioners to help explain the importance of these strategies to address the inequity of opportunity.
In the policy roadmap, CTQ—which comprises more than 100 civil rights, disability, rural, youth, higher education, principal, and education advocacy organizations, including AACTE, dedicated to ensuring that every child has fully prepared and effective educators—presents a vision for a continuum of the teaching and principal professions to ensure every child has well-prepared and effective educators.
02 Oct2014
By Lucy Berrier
The AACTE Board of Directors met September 11-12 in Atlanta, Georgia. The meeting agenda, led by Chair Julie Underwood (University of Wisconsin Madison), dealt with topics from the Innovation Exchange and membership engagement to the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), as well as information around the organization’s operations and federal and state policy updates.
President/CEO Sharon P. Robinson reported on the operations of the organization, highlighting the Innovation Exchange, growth in membership, a successful 2014 Annual Meeting, and a strong first application cycle for the Research Fellowship.
30 Sep2014
By Omar Davis
The annual National edTPA Implementation Conference will be held October 24 – 25 at the University of California, Los Angeles. Preregistration closes October 13, and space is limited!
This year’s conference, titled “Implementation for and as Learning,” will convene higher education administrators, state agency representatives, clinical supervisors, and others engaged in edTPA implementation. Lorrie Shepard of the University of Colorado at Boulder will be featured as the keynote speaker.
Come share your experiences and hear others’ perspectives of how edTPA is being used in teacher preparation programs nationwide.
Visit http://edtpa.aacte.org/events for more information and to register.
30 Sep2014
By Andrea Hajek and Kristin Hamilton
The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is recruiting practicing teachers as well as undergraduate and graduate preservice teachers to participate in field tests of the revised National Board certification process. This is a great opportunity to help shape the future of the teaching profession and experience a sample of the performance-based assessment that thousands of teachers have called transformative.
19 Sep2014
By Kristin McCabe
With the school year now in full swing, we know it’s a challenge to stay on top of your professional reading. Here are a few hot assignments you won’t want to miss:
1. Journal of Teacher Education
The latest issue of AACTE’s journal offers fascinating insights into the professional development and practice of teacher educators. Based on the premise that “while research on teaching informs research on teacher education, the latter needs a specialized knowledge base of its own” (see the issue’s editorial), articles address general and specific elements of that knowledge base, professional identity, core practices, and more.
Extra credit:Read the latest research to be published in future issues of the journal! It’s posted on a rolling basis in Sage’s Online First system.
