Posts Tagged ‘ethics’

University of New Mexico and Albuquerque Public Schools Partnership Boosts Restorative Practices for Students of All Ages 

If you ever needed a perfect example of how the University of New Mexico directly feeds into the community, you don’t need to look further than the College of Education and Human Sciences (COEHS).

The new Restorative Practice Partnership between COEHS, the District Teacher Residency Program (DTRP), and Garfield Middle School is creating a fundamental pipeline of restorative practices from children, to future teachers, and to the classroom. 

“Our partnership with Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) is underscored by experiences like this for our Teacher Residents,” DTRP Director and COEHS Professor Marjori Krebs said. “By providing opportunities for our future teachers and future principals to learn the power of Restorative Practices from the Garfield Middle School students and teachers provides them with an excellent foundation for leading their own classrooms and schools.”  

Apply now for Free Student Privacy Train-the-Trainer Program

Student Privacy Train-the-Trainer Program

Since 2013, over 130 new student privacy laws have passed in 41 states, with more bills and regulations being rolled out each year that include many new requirements for educators and administrators to implement. Some state laws include the threat of jail or large fines when school staff even unintentionally violate student privacy. Unfortunately, few states have received funding or support in implementing these new laws.

This massive shift in the legal landscape makes it hard for schools and districts to keep up. This isn’t only a legal problem. As technology changes and the amount of information schools collect and maintain increases, ensuring that new educators and administrators come into their schools with the skills needed to adequately protect student privacy in their day-to-day work is extremely challenging.

Iowa Chapter Implements Initiative: Navigating Professional Risks

The Iowa Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (IACTE) is engaged in an initiative to bring the Model Code of Ethics for Educators (MCEE) to Iowa’s teacher preparation programs. Educators have the responsibility to ensure a safe environment and support the well-being of each and every child. The MCEE was designed as a framework to inform the decision-making process that educators can use to guide them through the gray areas of the profession based on five guiding principles. The National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC) began developing MCEE in 2012 and adopted it in 2015. The MCEE is designed to protect the rights of students and support educators’ commitment to the profession.

There are five principles of responsibility identified in the MCEE:

  1. Responsibility to the profession
  2. Responsibility for professional competence
  3. Responsibility to students
  4. Responsibility to parents/guardians, colleagues, the community and employers
  5. Responsible and ethical use of technology

Beliefs About Preparing Candidates to Navigate Complexities of Professional Decision-making: A Survey

The profession of education is highly complex, with educators having to make multiple decisions in their daily work. Competing tensions and multiple, greatly nuanced variables that are inherent in this field can add to the vulnerabilities and risks that educators must navigate, especially when it comes to professional decision making.

To gauge attitudes regarding teacher educators’ beliefs about the role of preparing candidates to navigate these complexities through preparation in educator ethics, current practices, and what resources might be most useful for enhancing professional ethics preparation, AACTE is collaborating with the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC), and the National Council for the Advancement of Educator Ethics (NCAEE) to conduct a brief survey.

External Connections Key to Advancing Chapter Work

Members of the Arkansas Association of Colleges for Teacher Education participate in a recent annual conference; at right, current chapter President Victoria Groves-Scott of the University of Central Arkansas addresses members.

The 47 state chapters of AACTE employ a wide variety of membership models, activity calendars, and strategic partnerships to meet the priorities of their members. While all chapters are based on the fundamental value of interinstitutional collaboration, these coalitions are not just about members talking to themselves or circling the wagons. They also provide an effective launching point for their individual and collective members to connect with external groups that lend important new perspectives and advantages.

The Arkansas Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (ArACTE) offers an example of how connections forged outside its membership boost its capacity to focus on advocacy priorities as a group–and on common programmatic concerns at the campus level.

New Survey Gauges Attitudes About Ethics in Educator Preparation

To understand more about attitudes toward professional ethics in preservice educator preparation, AACTE is collaborating with the National Council for the Advancement of Educator Ethics (NCAEE) to conduct a brief survey this spring. We invite you and your colleagues in both PK-12 and higher education to complete the survey by May 15, 2017.

This survey is intended to gather information regarding teacher educators’ beliefs about professional ethics as well as practices in educator ethics preparation across the nation. Responses will inform the future work of NCAEE, which was created following the 2015 release of the Model Code of Ethics for Educators (MCEE) by the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification.

A Sunny Start to 2017 at NASDTEC Symposium

The National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification held its annual Ted Andrews Winter Symposium January 4-6 in San Diego, California, convening educators from varied settings around the topic “Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Innovation Through Collaboration.”

The theme of partnership-driven innovation was reinforced through a number of sessions in which AACTE members presented along with colleagues from the PK-12 sector and from state education authorities. I was pleased to address the group on the topic of teacher recruitment policy and practice from providers’ perspective. Other notable sessions on the program included these:

Webinar Makes Case for Educator Candidates to Understand Legal, Ethical Expectations

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
David Thompson, University of Texas – San Antonio
troy hutchings
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.”

Member Voices: Listen to the Children

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This article originally appeared as Ena Shelley’s monthly “Transforming Education” column; it is reposted with permission. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.

“While we try to teach our children all about life, they teach us what life is all about.” – Anonymous

You are likely reading this on the brink of our national election. There have been months of bickering, insult slinging, and behavior that would not be tolerated in most of our classrooms. Certainly there are adult issues that must be addressed, yet I sometimes wonder that if we remembered more often the voices and ears of children, we might find the margins of compromise that allow debates to become more about the “us” and less about the “them.” Children truly have wisdom and perspective that adults sometimes forget or lose in the busyness of life. I am sharing three links in this column that are the voices of younger children and adolescents. What if those running for political office, as well as those who already hold a policy-making position, and the media gave more time and attention to the wisdom they have to offer?

Farewell to a Truly Great Teacher

The recent passing of Muhammad Ali was a sad time for many. Although I was not particularly a boxing fan, I count myself among the millions of individuals around the world who were significantly impacted by Ali’s teachings. As educators and teacher educators, we stand to benefit from discussing and embracing the steadfast resolve shown by this great legend.

My fascination and admiration with Ali began with a personal encounter while I was attending college in Pennsylvania. The champ trained for some of his boxing matches in Deer Lake, PA. Upon a Saturday night whim, a group of friends and I decided to visit his training camp. We arrived there not realizing that there were actually regular visiting hours—and unfortunately, we had missed them.

In Memoriam: Carol E. Smith

Steele
Carol Smith, 1949–2016

Carol E. Smith, longtime AACTE staffer who deftly guided the Association through the early standards movement and years of accreditation reforms, died June 6 in Falls Church, Virginia. She was 66.

A native of Johnson City, Tennessee, Smith gave 23 years of devoted service to AACTE. After an early career in the banking and legal fields, she joined the AACTE staff as an administrative assistant in 1985 and worked up to senior leadership as vice president for professional issues before leaving in 2008.

Her portfolio of responsibilities was vast, including orchestrating the Association’s liaison with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, contributing to the design of the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium, and convening the Task Force on Teacher Education as a Moral Community, among others.

New Principles to Help Secure Student, Teacher Privacy in Performance Assessment

A set of principles released this month gives educators and policy makers new guidance on the secure and ethical use of video and other classroom materials gathered as part of preservice teacher preparation. A task force of educators led by AACTE created the principles to ensure the privacy of those whose images and work are captured in the performance assessment of aspiring teachers.

The 27-member task force began convening last fall, meeting several times to develop the principles and supporting documents. Their brief brochure, “Securing Personal Information in Performance Assessment of Teacher Candidates,” explains the importance of videos and other artifacts in teacher performance assessment and introduces nine principles to guide those involved in creating or reviewing materials that include student images or identifying information.

Free Webinar April 26 to Discuss Curriculum, Assessment for Educator Ethics

Please join educators from Georgia in an interactive webinar where they will share how they incorporated  professional ethics training and assessments in their curriculum and used the resulting data to inform program improvements.

Preparing Preservice Educators in Ethical Decision Making Using Innovative Strategies
Tuesday, April 26, 2016, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EDT

Presenters:

  • Anne Marie Fenton, Director, Assessment, Georgia Professional Standards Commission
  • Sarah Hallstein, Teacher, Glenwood Primary School, Rome, Georgia
  • Edward Hill, Dean and Associate Professor, College of Education, Fort Valley State University
  • Troy Hutchings, Senior Strategic Advisor – Educator Ethics, Educational Testing Service
  • Jack Parish, Associate Dean, Outreach and Engagement, College of Education, University of Georgia
  • Francis Roe, Director of Field Experiences and Clinical Practice, Charter School of Education and Human Sciences, Berry College
  • Paul Shaw, Division Director, Ethics, Georgia Professional Standards Commission

Hear from these industry leaders as they walk you through their state’s work, in collaboration with Educational Testing Service, to deploy innovative strategies to prepare their state’s candidates in educator ethics.

HITE, CCSS, and Teacher Preparation: Strange But True Bedfellows

You still have time to apply for the 2016 Holocaust Institute for Teacher Educators (HITE), a week-long, all-expenses-paid professional development opportunity in June at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The deadline for applications has been extended until March 4!

AACTE member faculty are invited to apply through our online application. For more information, read this article or contact me at zvanhouten@aacte.org.

Be sure to also stop by the HITE concurrent session at AACTE’s 68th Annual Meeting in Las Vegas! The session (Education Under the Third Reich: A Case Study for the Ethics of Teaching) is scheduled for Thursday, February 25, at 10:30 a.m. in Grand Ballroom E. Add the session to your personal schedule through our Online Event Planner.