05 Oct2021
By NAEd
The Evaluating and Improving Teacher Preparation Programs commissioned paper series is part of the Evaluating and Improving Teacher Preparation Programs project by the National Academy of Education (NAEd) that aims to identify best practices among existing models of evaluation tools and provide recommendations for the development of new models.
The commissioned papers will be published on a rolling basis, and the first two papers are released now.
Download both papers.
22 Sep2021
By Michael Rose
One of the important coalitions AACTE is a member of is the Committee for Education Funding (CEF), which is the oldest and largest coalition of education associations and calls for an increase in federal funding for education. CEF’s current campaign is “5 Cents Makes Sense,” which calls for 5 cents of every federal dollar to be spent on education. The campaign’s official hashtag is #5Cents4EdFunding.
Each year, CEF publishes a Budget Book, which analyzes the President’s budget proposal and its impact on federal education programs. AACTE contributed two articles to the Book. One is on TEACH Grants, the federal program that supports the recruitment of high-quality teacher candidates for hard-to-staff fields and schools. The other article is on the Teacher Quality Partnership program, which is the only federal initiative designed to strengthen and reform educator preparation at institutions of higher education.
22 Sep2021
By Regina Grossman
The National Association for Secondary School Principals (NASSP) is calling on federal officials to provide support for school leaders being threatened and undermined by those who disagree with school guidelines on COVID-19 best practices.
While the pandemic has impacted every one—school leaders are bearing the brunt of conflicts over masks, quarantines, vaccines, and other highly charged issues. They have been faced with hostile community members, threats to their own safety or safety of the school, and with non-compliance with rules that are meant to keep us all safe.
Teresa M. Hill, Principal at Walden Grove High School in Arizona and NASSP member, tells of her experience with threats at her school: “One month ago, seven people refused to leave our campus demanding a quarantined student attend class. After a lockdown of the front office for three hours, we were forced to arrest three of them. This has resulted in multiple threatening and intimidating voice messages, emails, and social media comments directly targeting me. Calling me a Nazi, a fascist, using profanity, and being told to ‘eat the end of a shotgun’ is beyond disturbing. Two weeks later, three men threatened and intimidated an elementary principal in my area by demanding a citizen’s arrest while holding zip ties in their hands.”
09 Sep2021
By Jacqueline Rodriguez
In case you missed it, there is another opportunity to learn about how to use ESSER funding to recruit into Educator Preparation Programs (EPP).
As you know, in the past year, Congress has set aside billions for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund. To help educator preparation programs effectively allocate those funds, AACTE created an Advocacy Toolkit with examples from EPPs across the nation who are expanding their recruitment using federal dollars. In this workshop, GoReact and AACTE put together a panel of national, state, and university teacher preparation professionals. We explored one state—Tennessee—which used ESSER funds to support a statewide Grow Your Own Program to address teacher shortages and diversify the profession.
01 Sep2021
By Ward Cummings
AACTE recently joined the Learning Policy Institute to announce the formation of the Teacher Licensure Collaborative (TLC), a partnership of interested states building on the work of the Whole Child Policy Table, to advance revisions of state licensure and certification standards to incorporate whole child practices and ensure alignment with the science of learning and development.
Led by the Learning Policy Institute, with support of AACTE, the TLC will help advance revisions of state licensure and certification standards, incorporate whole child practices—including social and emotional learning (SEL)—and ensure alignment with the science of learning and development.
30 Aug2021
By Nichole Spalding
The Practice-Based Learning Opportunities Affinity Group will host its first meeting on September 29, 2021, 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET. This Affinity Group (AG) will explore practice-based learning opportunities (PLOs) as a model for supporting teacher educators’ use of high-leverage practices (HLPs) and evidence-based practices (EBPs). PLOs afford educators opportunities to apply content knowledge and pedagogy in coursework, professional development workshops, and authentic classroom situations. During interactive meetings, the AG will explore topics such as practice and the role it plays in teacher learning; practice-based learning opportunities, such as structured video analysis, simulated interactions, microteaching; strategies for connecting simulated practice opportunities with authentic practice opportunities; and strategies for developing prerequisite knowledge for candidates and teachers.
30 Aug2021
By Jacqueline Rodriguez
In the past year, Congress set aside billions for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund.
To help educator preparation programs effectively allocate those funds, GoReact and AACTE put together a panel of national, state, and university teacher prep professionals. They’ll dig into one state—Tennessee—that has used ESSER funds to support a statewide Grow Your Own Program to address teacher shortages and diversify the profession.
In this free workshop, our panelists will
- Analyze one particular state’s strategy for ESSER funds
- Share how ALL teacher prep programs can effectively use emergency relief funds
- Provide a resource AACTE has developed to support EPPs and Local Education Agencies to create a pathway into teaching
- Answer participant questions
12 Aug2021
By Jacqueline Rodriguez
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 This fall, AACTE is excited to continue supporting an opportunity for members to try out the PlanWise™ tool, a Chrome Extension developed by ETS and focused on delivering formative assessment practices and strategies. The PlanWise™ tool meets teachers where they are in a number of ways, including providing suggestions for formative assessment strategies to teachers and pre-service teachers while they are lesson planning in Google Docs.
Five AACTE member institutions have participated in introductory sessions and have determined that they are interested in trying out the PlanWise™ tool with their pre-service teachers. We are welcoming an additional five institutions to try out the tool this fall.
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20 Jul2021
By Sarah Wood
This article originally appeared in Diverse Issues in Higher Education and is reprinted with permission.
The “fragility of our democracy” was made evident by the events of Jan. 6 at the United States Capitol, which was incited by rhetoric around election fraud, according to Harvard University’s James Bryant Conant University Professor Dr. Danielle Allen.
As misinformation and government-related conspiracy theories continue to divide the nation, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the Educating for American Democracy initiative co-hosted a webinar on Tuesday to discuss the need to promote civic readiness within the K-12 education system.
The event, “Monitoring Civic Learning Opportunities and Outcomes: State of the Field and Future Directions,” noted inadequate support for civics education from policymakers and education leaders.
12 Jul2021
By Caitlin Kanaly
Have you tried using video in your methodology courses? As the place where student teachers connect theory to practice, methods courses are perfect for video—whether you teach in person or online.
Many teacher ed programs relied on video for remote instruction during the pandemic, but some used it long before 2020—and for good reason. Research shows that video plus feedback improves student skills. In methods courses, video gives you a way to
- Show students what theoretical methods look like in practice.
- Enable students to practice methods in small groups.
- Record and give personalized feedback as students apply methods in the field.
12 Jul2021
By Timothy Boerst and Meghan Shaughnessy
Timothy Boerst and Meghan Shaughnessy
Working in teacher education programs at the University of Michigan and Boston University, we are well-versed with practice-based teacher education, including the usage and importance of video to connect the university classroom and K-12 schools. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, video has been crucial in engaging with our teacher candidates in practice-based work.
At the AACTE 2021 Annual Meeting in February earlier this year, we shared how we used video in our work as teacher educators over the 2020-21 academic year. Our presentation, “Using Video to Learn to Do the Work of Teaching When Schools are Closed,” highlighted the ways in which we used video at the University of Michigan to support practice-based work when methods courses were conducted online. While we have robustly used video in our programs for over a decade, the last year forced us to explore new possibilities.
06 Jul2021
By Jacqueline Rodriguez
Don’t miss your opportunity to pilot test PlanWise™ tool, a Chrome Extension developed by ETS and focused on delivering formative assessment practices and strategies.
AACTE, in collaboration with ETS, is excited to provide all of its members with this exciting opportunity. The PlanWise™ tool meets teachers where they are in a number of ways, such as providing suggestions for formative assessment strategies to teachers and teacher candidates while they are lesson planning in Google Docs. After an initial pilot with K-12 teachers, novice teachers noted the value and the utility of the tool in identifying a variety of new formative assessment strategies and indicated that the strategies increased their use of formative assessment with students.
30 Jun2021
By Michael Rose
Earlier this year, AACTE reconstituted the Higher Education Task Force. The task force, which was previously led by AACTE, will share information about the policy work underway in the teacher preparation world with our higher education colleagues and inform Congress and other key officials about important developments related to the field. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the change of administrations and other factors, the task force was dormant for a short time. But AACTE’s colleagues eagerly accepted our invitation to rejoin.
Task force participants are from the major associations of higher education, whose members are presidents of institutions of higher education. Members include the American Council on Education (ACE), American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), Association of American Universities (AAU), Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU), American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) and UNCF.
29 Jun2021
By Trisha DiZio and Jacqueline Rodriguez
There is wide recognition that history and civics have been neglected disciplines in American K-12 education. Recent events, including the January 6 insurrection of the U.S. Capitol, underscored this point and the need to elevate learning in these essential disciplines.
The Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative has garnered broad cross-partisan and stakeholder support as a way to re-imagine and re-prioritize the important civic mission of K-12 public education. AACTE became an EAD organizational Champion in 2021 and is developing professional development that addresses inquiry-based civic instruction in our member educator preparation programs. AACTE is participating in the upcoming webinar, Monitoring Civic Learning Opportunities and Outcomes: State of the Field and Future Directions, on July 13
22 Jun2021
By Jacqueline Rodriguez
AACTE is excited to announce a new opportunity for members to pilot the PlanWise™ tool, a Chrome Extension developed by ETS and focused on delivering formative assessment practices and strategies. The PlanWise™ tool meets teachers where they are in a number of ways, including by providing suggestions for formative assessment strategies to teachers and teacher candidates while they are lesson planning in Google Docs. After an initial pilot with K-12 teachers, there is increased interest in expanding use of the PlanWise™ tool to teacher candidates. Many novice teachers in the initial pilot valued the utility of the tool in identifying a variety of new formative assessment strategies and indicated that the strategies increased their use of formative assessment with students.
