30 Jan2017
By Kristin McCabe
Are you looking for assistance in preparing your programs for accreditation or state review? Or maybe you’re in need of guidance on refining your internal quality assurance system, or using performance assessments with your teacher candidates, or just making sense of all the data and other evidence you’re collecting?
AACTE is ready to help you with these and other needs. In fact, you have several options to choose from just this semester, with more being rolled out later in 2017. Whether you prefer to take a convenient online course, hire a trained consultant, or bring your colleagues together for hand-on, facilitated planning, we aim to provide the support you need.
27 Jan2017
By Christine Tambini and Sara Hiller
A preliminary schedule of sessions is now available for AACTE’s regional Quality Support Workshop in Texas. From April 24 through 26, you can engage in your choice of facilitated workshop sessions, plan with your team, take part in roundtable discussions, and connect with peers at the Sheraton Fort Worth Downtown Hotel.
Whether you are an accreditation or assessment coordinator, clinical faculty member, dean or department chair, or even a state agency official, this workshop will offer you valuable resources and custom support for your quality assurance challenges. During the four 90-minute main session blocks, you’ll choose from topics covering both broad and specific aspects of performance measurement, approaches to preparing for accreditation, diversity and equity concerns, program improvement, and more.
24 Jan2017
By Kristin McCabe
As part of the Quality Support Center, AACTE is partnering with Educational Testing Service (ETS) to support members’ use of teacher performance assessments. The new NOTE assessment developed by ETS in collaboration with TeachingWorks (see this video interview with Deborah Ball) is now in a pilot phase. AACTE members in eligible states may wish to participate in the pilot with their students and/or recent alumni, as noted in the following announcement from ETS.
Elementary education teacher candidates can earn $750 by participating in a multistate pilot of the ETS® NOTE Assessment Series, a new simulation-based licensure test. Qualified teachers are encouraged to apply for the pilot study in selected states.
13 Jan2017
By Linda McKee
In just a couple of weeks, I’ll be leading AACTE’s first online course with FutureLearn, “Designing Assessments to Measure Student Outcomes.” I am thrilled to be bringing AACTE’s online professional seminars to this robust global platform with enhanced content and an innovative social-learning model. Won’t you join me for this enriching experience?
The assessment course opens January 30 and runs for 3 weeks, requiring about 3 hours per week of your time. Each week, we’ll explore a different aspect of assessment, starting with an overview of foundational issues such as validity and reliability before moving on to designing and using rubrics and surveys.
11 Jan2017
By Jerrica Thurman
Wondering what’s happening at AACTE this year? Come visit our all-new AACTE Gallery at the 2017 Annual Meeting in Tampa, Florida, to interact with the latest offerings from the Innovation Exchange and the Quality Support Center. You’ll have an opportunity to peruse the featured showcases, network with members and partners engaged with AACTE’s initiatives, and maybe even win a prize!
The Gallery will be located in Room 21, directly across from the Conference Community Center, in the Tampa Convention Center. It will be available during four time blocks:
10 Jan2017
By Jerrica Thurman
Registration is now open for the preconference events at the AACTE Annual Meeting in Tampa, Florida. All three will be held Wednesday, March 1. Sign up now to secure your spot – space is limited! – at one of the following:
10 Jan2017
By Jerrica Thurman
How do you do continuous improvement? Are you looking to make better use of data to move your program forward? Is your institution working toward accreditation or other quality assurance targets?
AACTE’s new Quality Support Workshops provide a forum for educators to address these questions and develop viable solutions with guidance from expert facilitators. These regional events were developed in response to the needs of the field and offer opportunities to share resources and build actionable strategies for program assessment, accreditation, and continuous improvement goals.
This year, AACTE will bring these workshops to three regions: Fort Worth, Texas, April 24-26; Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 10-12; and Seattle, Washington, November 9-11.
15 Dec2016
By Sharon Robinson
I am excited to announce AACTE’s plans to enhance the online professional seminars offered through our Quality Support Center. Thanks to a new partnership with FutureLearn, a global leader in online learning, our short courses on quality assurance topics will relaunch in 2017 with clearer presentations, better graphics, and a broader peer community.
AACTE originally developed the series of six courses in 2015 in response to your request for affordable and widely accessible training on how to use data wisely, build evidence for state and national program reviews, and address other quality concerns. Hundreds of you have already taken at least one of these courses, and your enthusiasm and valuable feedback informed our decision to ramp up the offerings. In short, we are engaging in our own continuous improvement!
08 Nov2016
By Kristin McCabe
Did you miss AACTE’s webinar last month on what teacher candidates need to know about the intersection of educator dispositions, ethics, and law? Don’t worry – you can watch the recording at your convenience in AACTE’s Resource Library. You’ll find it, along with the presentation slides, here.
David Thompson, University of Texas – San Antonio
Troy Hutchings, Educational Testing Service
Presenters David Thompson of the University of Texas at San Antonio and Troy Hutchings of the Educational Testing Service opened their presentation with a case study that illustrated the complexity of factors at play not only in teacher-student relationships, but also in teacher-supervisor and other adult interactions. They discussed different frameworks that can guide teachers’ decision making and how teachers might reconcile conflicts between these frameworks to “navigate the gray areas.”
02 Nov2016
By Kristin McCabe
The AACTE Annual Meeting always presents a full schedule of opportunities for registrants, even before the conference officially begins. The 2017 event in Tampa, Florida, will uphold this tradition with a wide variety of preconference meetings, workshops, and other events on the schedule for March 1.
As always, several affiliate organizations and leadership groups will hold business meetings, including the Florida state chapter, various deans’ organizations, and AACTE’s Board of Directors, standing committees, and topical action groups. (Separate registration may be required for some of these meetings–if in doubt, check with your group!) Special events will also be offered for participants in certain AACTE initiatives, and an assessment–focused workshop is available for anyone to register.
24 Oct2016
By Linda McKee
Registration is now open for AACTE’s first Quality Support Workshop, to be held April 24-26 in Fort Worth, Texas. Bring your team for 2 days of hands-on, expert-facilitated learning and planning around performance assessment, continuous improvement, and quality assurance.
The event is the first in a new series of regional workshops announced last month, offered through the AACTE Quality Support Center. A core component of AACTE’s mission is to support institutions’ continuous improvement efforts. With learning outcomes focused on topics of national or local interest, these workshops will provide accessible, targeted support for teams of faculty and staff.
11 Oct2016
By Kristin McCabe
AACTE will host an interactive webinar next week discussing the intersection of educator dispositions, ethics, and law—and how teacher educators can assist their candidates in navigating the broad range of gray areas that they will face as professionals. Please join us!
Beyond the Obvious: The Intersection of Educator Dispositions, Ethics, and Law
13 Sep2016
By Rodrick Lucero
When I was advising prospective teachers at my former institution, I encountered many candidates who had strong potential as educators but struggled to pass the licensure tests. For some of these students, it was helpful to offer practice tests, with feedback, to help combat their test anxiety, but it was challenging for me to find time for this work.
So when I recently met Stephanie Shapiro, the partnerships manager of a test-prep company that offers just this kind of service to teacher candidates–some of it for free–I was intrigued and persuaded her to join AACTE as a new affiliate member. I asked her to share how her organization, Teachers Test Prep, is helping teacher candidates pass their exams. Here’s her response:
01 Aug2016
By Kathryn Opatick
Are you looking to expand your understanding of quality assurance processes? Give your practice a boost with an affordable and convenient Online Professional Seminar (OPS), offered through AACTE’s Quality Support Center.
Joseph Lubig, an associate dean at Northern Michigan University, has completed five of the six seminars on assessment and accreditation. He says he especially enjoyed OPS #5: Preparing for Accreditation and its practical assistance for meeting the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) standards, including legacy standards of the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC).
19 Jul2016
By Mark LaCelle-Peterson
Assessment matters for teachers. Teachers target and differentiate instruction based on evidence gathered in classroom assessments. Teams of teachers in schools review assessment evidence to understand student needs and to guide curriculum development. Parents, teachers, and students themselves make use of assessment results to make the most of learning opportunities. Assessment and interpretation of assessment results is also sometimes a particular challenge for novice teachers, and it is often the subject of school and district professional development efforts. With so many tests, so many strategies, and so much evidence, assessment is a wide and sometimes confusing topic.
