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?
06 Oct2015
By Michelle Kotek
A new video in AACTE’s Research-to-Practice Spotlight Series focuses on a thriving partnership in Colorado from the perspectives of novice teachers prepared in a professional development school model. This blog highlights one teacher’s experience and offers insights from his assistant principal about the program’s success.
The forward-thinking partnership between Colorado State University (CSU) and the local Poudre School District employs a professional development school (PDS) model to prepare teachers who are ready to teach on Day 1. Their classroom is the classroom: Instead of taking their classes off site at the university, prospective teachers receive their lessons and then put them into practice in the same school building—with real kids and under the tutelage of a real teacher. While the program’s elements are fairly typical, its particular success comes from each course’s clinical component and support from a robust professional community.
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.
25 Sep2015
By Kristin McCabe
Teacher educators and teacher candidates have new resources in two high-level summaries of the research on learning. By distilling and organizing the existing research on cognitive science and educational psychology, the reports offer teacher candidates concise summaries of high-impact practices grounded in scientific evidence and professional consensus around PK-12 learning. Teacher preparation programs might find them valuable as resources to tie together learning science concepts that are integrated across multiple courses.
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.
23 Jul2015
By Amanda Lester and Rodrick Lucero
Principals’ leadership is a critical factor in schools’ success, and school leader preparation programs play a key role in facilitating that success. But what are the components of programs that effectively prepare emerging principals to serve as leaders of learning in 21st-century schools?
AACTE, in cooperation with a national foundation, is conducting a brief survey of its members to better understand the landscape of university-based principal preparation programs: the context in which they operate; the challenges they face; and the degree to which improvements are seen as important. A report is planned for early 2016 summarizing the findings from this survey as well as others under way.
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.
06 Jul2015
By Sharon Robinson
As another ambitious teacher preparation innovation captures national attention, I invite you to join me in taking stock of how widespread creative change has become in this field. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently announced the launch of their brand-new research laboratory and graduate program to prepare teachers and school leaders. The educator preparation field, already rife with innovation, welcomes the new Woodrow Wilson Academy of Teaching and Learning as the latest partner in a robust entrepreneurial environment.
While I do not embrace the negative rhetoric that accompanied the new program’s announcement, I am keenly interested in the work. In fact, the Academy’s goals are quite aligned with those being addressed by many other educator preparation providers and organizations. Foundation President Arthur Levine and his partners at MIT will find themselves in good company as they pursue their particular reform interests and share their findings.
29 Jun2015
By Diana Lys
I recently had the pleasure and honor of delivering the keynote address for the 2015 edTPA Mid-Atlantic Implementation Conference in Towson, Maryland. As a longtime supporter and champion of observation- and performance-based educator preparation and assessment, I was eager to share with peers from across the nation who are at different places on their journey with edTPA.
First, I wanted to commend each person for being there. By the virtue of their attendance and leadership, participants were helping shift the negative tone of dialogue around teacher preparation by highlighting innovative practices and committing to positive change. At the core of the narrative is a shared rallying call to ensure each teacher candidate enters tomorrow’s classroom ready to teach.
26 Jun2015
By Jerrica Thurman
AACTE issued a press release June 24 announcing a new Clinical Practice Commission, which has already begun working on an ambitious agenda to better define what constitutes high-quality clinical teacher preparation. Read on to learn more, or contact Vice President Rodrick Lucero, who chairs the commission, for more information.
01 Jun2015
By Linda McKee
Educator preparation faculty at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY, like to meet with faculty in other departments to compare notes about how their teacher candidates are doing and how best to support them across study areas.
“That’s just the environment we work in. They are all of our students, as they major in education and an area of the liberal arts and sciences,” explains Kate DaBoll-Lavoie, professor and immediate past chair of the Department of Inclusive Childhood Education at Nazareth. “We want them to succeed. We support our colleagues.”
For the past 2 years, DaBoll-Lavoie and her colleagues have brought to the table new data that have enriched the conversations and helped to focus them on specific needs of students.
22 May2015
By Zachary VanHouten
The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) continues its data collection efforts for the planned 2016 edition of its Teacher Prep Review. As part of this pursuit, NCTQ is once again utilizing state open-records requests for information from public institutions that have chosen not to comply with NCTQ’s information requests—and at least one state is considering a change to open-records law.
The subject of lawsuits from NCTQ in Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin, several institutions around the country asserted that course syllabi are the intellectual property of their faculty and therefore covered by copyright law – protecting them from NCTQ’s open-records requests.
01 May2015
By Mark Ginsberg
I am honored to assume the role of chair of AACTE’s Board of Directors at such an exciting time for the organization and the profession as a whole. Nine weeks into my yearlong term, I’m eager to share my excitement with you about the work we’re doing together.
Most visible so far is our focus on accreditation, particularly our efforts to initiate a collaborative dialogue with the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). This dialogue aims to address concerns expressed by many AACTE members while continuing our support for CAEP as the field’s unified accrediting body.
Although important—in fact, critical—for our field, our work with CAEP is but one of a large portfolio of topics on AACTE’s agenda.
30 Apr2015
By Linda McKee
What a difference a year makes.
Last spring, Phil Munkvold was in his final months of college at Minnesota State University (MSU) Mankato, finishing his clinical experience and preparing his edTPA portfolio.
Thanks to a strong partnership between the MSU Mankato program and the school where Munkvold student taught, he was exposed to the edTPA process as well as the school’s staff and its students shortly after he moved to Minnesota from another state to continue his teacher preparation.
28 Apr2015
By Yupin Bae
AACTE’s 2015 Professional Education Data System (PEDS) survey is now accessible online. If you have not already done so, please complete the survey by Friday, May 15.
As you know, AACTE members annually access this system to report their program/school data and submit Parts A and B of the PEDS survey for summary tabulations. Because these data are used by many education constituents in a variety of ways, AACTE invites all other educator preparation providers to join in the effort and do the same in order to paint a more complete picture of the field of teacher preparation.
