As the AACTE 2025 Annual Meeting approaches, AACTE is pleased to present an overview of recommended accommodations in Long Beach, CA, where you can save at the group rate.
Early bird registration for the AACTE 2025 Annual Meeting, set to take place February 21-23 in Long Beach, CA, has officially opened. This year’s theme, “Beyond the Horizon: Charting the Course for Educator Preparation,” promises to be a transformative event, reflecting AACTE’s ongoing commitment to revolutionizing education for all learners.
The Annual Meeting will bring together educators, researchers, policymakers, and thought leaders from across the nation to explore and address the critical advancements in educator preparation. The meeting will delve into innovative strategies and practices designed to enhance educator preparation programs and, ultimately, improve educational outcomes for students.
Do you want to feature your work at the AACTE 2025 Annual Meeting in Long Beach, CA, being held February 21 – 23? The theme, “Beyond the Horizon: Charting the Course for Educator Preparation,” illuminates the continuous forward-thinking AACTE members make in their work and aligns with the current Call for Proposals, as AACTE seeks those that share perspectives on addressing current issues and providing innovative ways to approach that which has yet to be considered in educator preparation.
Top 5 Tips for Submitting a Successful Annual Meeting Proposal
The deadline to submit a proposal is June 28. Learn more on AACTE’s website.
The deadline for AACTE’s Call for Reviewers for the 2025 Annual Meeting has been extended to June 14, 2024. The Association is seeking member-institution representatives to volunteer to represent AACTE’s principles in evaluating content for papers and presentations at the 2025 Annual Meeting.
We highly encourage candidates interested in reviewing Strand IV: Deepening the Impact of Education Research and Research to Practice and Strand V: Prioritizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to apply, as these strands receive the largest number of submissions.
To celebrate its 75th anniversary, the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) is seeking proposals for a special issue on Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Volume 76, issue three. Generative AI is an artificial intelligence model that can create new content, mimicking certain styles or patterns in existing data. While AI has been part of the educational landscape for an extended period, generative AI is a relative newcomer. As a consumer product, generative AI broke into the mainstream with the release of Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT) in November 2022. Since then, educators have been grappling with its implications for learning in K-12 and, as a result, in teacher education.
Advancing the conversation and the knowledge base around generative AI in education aligns with AACTE’s position to advance the quality of Educator preparation and enhance the educational experience for all students.
The Call for Proposals and Call for Reviewers for the AACTE 2025 Annual Meeting is now open. The conference theme, “Beyond the Horizon: Charting the Course for Educator Preparation” aligns the meeting with the Association’s vision and mission to revolutionize education for all learners by elevating education and educator preparation through research, professional practice, advocacy, and collaboration. Representing the institutions and programs that prepare the greatest number of professional educators in the United States and its territories, and in partnership with international colleague organizations, AACTE is the incubator for bold ideas and discoveries to drive impactful applications based on evidence-based reasoning.
The “Shifting from Preparing to Sustaining a Teacher Workforce” session provided participants with a project overview of shifting from preparing to sustaining a teacher workforce. The Teacher Educational Global Learning Futures Collaborative (TEGLFC) presentation addressed the need to globally connect educators to “visualize new futures for education.” The panel presented an innovative team-based model that provides all students with a “deeper and personalized learning” by developing expert teams of educators and improving ways that will empower educators as they enter the profession. TEGLFC invites teacher preparation programs, as well as students, to join this cooperative venture which will serve as a network to “leverage the collective power of teacher preparation programs across the globe.”
At the AACTE 2024 Annual Meeting in February, incoming AACTE Committee on Innovation and Technology members Peña Bedesem (Kent State University) and Jon Margerum-Leys (Oakland University) attended the Featured session “AI Integration in Education: Bridging the Gap for Future Educators.” In the following article, they recap the panelists’ presentation.
AACTE at its best has always brought together viewpoints representing philosophy, innovation, and implementation. The featured panel on artificial intelligence (AI) integration certainly did that. Moderator David Slykhuis, Ph.D., (Valdosta State University) led a wide-ranging conversation among Arizona State’s Punya Mishra, Ph.D., Marie Heath, Ed.D., (Loyola Marymount); and Diane Lauer, Ed.D., Chief Academic Officer of St. Vrain Valley Schools in Colorado.
While all three panelists brought expertise regarding artificial intelligence, each offered a unique perspective. Mishra served as the proponent of innovation, Lauer the experienced implementer, and Heath the philosophical conscience of the group.
The session “Diversifying the Teaching Profession: Strategies for Success” provided invaluable insights into evaluating, reimagining, and implementing supportive models for diversifying the teaching profession. The presenters reflected and provided various perspectives to emphasize the importance of having a diverse teaching workforce to support culturally and linguistically diverse students across the United States. Key highlights from the presentation include the importance of providing high-quality instruction for our students, which begins with teachers, leaders, and districts nationwide through excellent lines of work in teacher preparation, professional learning, education policy, and diversity, equity, and inclusion by explaining local and national strategies to diversify the teaching profession.
In this session, the discussion centered on the need to diversify the teaching profession locally and nationally. More specifically, the focus was on the innovative work being done by The Public Education Business Coalition (PEBC) in Colorado, which has a proven track record of successfully reaching and attracting a diverse pool of potential educators across the United States. With a national reach, the PEBC is leading the charge in promoting high-quality instruction by collaborating with teachers, leaders, and districts nationwide. Their work spans various areas, including teacher preparation, professional learning, education policy, diversity, equity, and inclusion. By leveraging their expertise in these areas, the PEBC is helping to create a more inclusive and equitable teaching profession that better reflects the diverse student population in our schools.
The session “Election 2024: Implications of Federal and State Races for Educator Preparation” at the AACTE 2024 Annual Meeting provided a comprehensive analysis of the potential impacts of the upcoming elections on educator preparation programs (EPPs). The panel comprised political strategists, policy experts, and representatives from membership organizations, offering diverse perspectives on the subject.
XQ’s featured session included clips from “The First Class,” a new documentary about a high school in Memphis. The film includes powerful examples of project-based learning.
It was wonderful seeing so many of you at the AACTE 2024 Annual Meeting. In keeping with this year’s theme, “Ascending New Heights: Propelling the Profession into the Future,” there were inspiring conversations about how to support and empower educators at a time of tremendous change.
We heard how states are looking at their teacher pipelines post-pandemic — and the need to prepare educators for the continued challenges of absenteeism and learning loss. Speakers addressed the importance of representation and diversity in the profession and the desire to bolster educators to succeed with a whole-child instructional approach.
The AACTE panel session on “Promoting Integrity and Social Responsibility in Teacher Education” sponsored by The Kern Family Foundation was an enlightening experience, bringing together a diverse panel of educators to discuss innovative strategies and projects aimed at integrating character education and social responsibility into teacher preparation programs.
In this session, speakers from various universities shared their projects and insights on developing character, leadership, and social responsibility among educators and students. Panelists emphasized the importance of integrating character education into teaching practices, not as an additional task but as a foundational aspect (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005). The discussions highlighted successful strategies, such as collaborative partnerships with schools, embedding character into the curriculum, and fostering a learner-focused environment. The session also addressed the challenges educators face today, including the need for support in navigating complex issues and creating inclusive, respectful learning environments.
Attending the AACTE 2024 Annual Meeting Featured Session, “Competency-Based Education & Teacher Education: Next Steps” provided invaluable insights into reimagining traditional higher education models. The presenters compellingly reasoned how competency-based programs can bolster equity and accessibility by offering flexible, personalized pathways for a diverse range of learners (Patrick, 2021). Key highlights included the backward design process for developing competency-based curricula and the significance of authentic, performance-based assessments.
The session underscored how competency-based education fundamentally shifts the focus to actual student learning and the application of knowledge. As discussed, students progress by demonstrating mastery of real-world teaching competencies, rather than by accumulating seat time or credits (Klein, 2013). This mastery-based approach accommodates individual pacing and learning needs, thereby making teacher licensure more attainable for non-traditional students.
Get ready to embark on a journey that will transform how you approach teacher preparation. The upcoming AACTE 2024 Annual Meeting is set to feature a hands-on exploration of ATLAS, an online video library by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. In this AACTE Learning Lab, participants will uncover the multitude of ways ATLAS is being utilized by educator preparation programs (EPPs) to enhance teacher candidates’ exposure to effective teaching and cultivate their reflective abilities.
Higher education is going through a seismic change — traditional methods are crumbling as the value proposition is increasingly questioned in our public discourse. Student needs are changing, while the ways education and work are delivered are transforming.
Howard Teibel, president of Teibel Education Consulting, will deliver the closing keynote of the AACTE 2024 Annual Meeting on February 18 from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. to explore cultivating resiliency as change is at the forefront in educator preparation programs across the nation.
Teibel will pose the questions: What skills enable emotional resiliency that allow us to lead this kind of change effort? How can we best orient faculty, deans, and their colleagues to focus and build this shared commitment?
