D.C. Is the Place to Be for ‘Invigorating’ State Leaders Institute

By Judy Beck

D.C. is the place to be this June for the AACTE State Leaders Institute! If you are involved in leading a state chapter, I hope you will join me June 4-5 for this great advocacy event as part of the AACTE Washington Week.

Let me begin by saying this: Way to go, teacher education colleagues! Speaking and acting as one, we were able to advocate recently for the repeal of the federal regulations for teacher preparation programs. We need to continue the forward momentum. Our work is not done. It has never been more imperative to bring a strong unified voice to both the national and state discussion. That is why I encourage you to participate in the State Leaders Institute (SLI) during AACTE’s Washington Week.

AACTE Day on the Hill – Come Join the Advocacy Fun!

By Deborah Koolbeck

Why bother engaging in advocacy?

As we say on AACTE’s Advocacy Center: “It sounds funny, but at least where public policy is concerned, it’s true: If you are not at the table, you are probably on the menu. The educator preparation profession engages in advocacy to help shape policy that will affect the field. While AACTE advocates on behalf of the profession at the federal level, your voice as a constituent is also critical – in Washington, DC, as well as in state and local issues.”

Hone Your Leadership Skills at AACTE Academy June 25-29

By Matthew Wales

Are you a new dean or department chair – or simply looking to advance your career as an academic administrator? Get off to a strong start with AACTE’s Leadership Academy this June in Providence, Rhode Island.

The annual Leadership Academy, a popular professional development event for new administrators, has been reimagined for 2017 to provide even more of what you need. Our experienced faculty will guide your learning and provide beneficial information and strategies around allocating resources, managing conflict, and promoting your programs and institutions. To learn more about this year’s content, be sure to visit the detailed 2017 Leadership Academy schedule online.

Preconference Workshop Hones Educators’ Skills, Understanding of Rubrics

By AACTE Committee on Professional Preparation and Accountability

On March 1, approximately 45 educators participated in an AACTE preconference workshop (in advance of the 69th Annual Meeting in Tampa) designed to help them gain knowledge and skills related to accountability, continuous improvement, and quality assurance in their educator programs. Back by popular demand from the 2016 Annual Meeting, the session, “Rubrics, and Validity, and Reliability: Oh My!” was organized and led by members of AACTE’s Committee on Professional Preparation and Accountability.

Over the course of 4 hours, participants reflected on how they are meeting expectations regarding the assessment of teacher candidate performance, compared and contrasted their assessment approaches with participants from other institutions, and considered the impact their candidates are having on PK-12 student learning. In small groups, attendees engaged in hands-on activities introducing them to the rationale for using rubrics, developing and implementing strong holistic and analytical rubrics, ensuring that rubrics provide for the collection of reliable and valid information related to targeted tasks, and increasing understanding about the importance of this work in the context of accountability.

Dive Into Assessment Data, Accreditation Standards, More at AACTE Workshop

By Kristin McCabe

Are you preparing for a CAEP accreditation visit? Wondering how to apply evidence from your candidates’ performance assessments to make sure your program prepares them for key practices? Or perhaps you’re looking for new ideas for recruiting and supporting a more diverse candidate pool? Find the guidance you need at an AACTE Quality Support Workshop!

In just over 6 weeks, AACTE will bring expert facilitators and a selection of workshop sessions to Fort Worth, Texas, April 24-26. We’ve just posted a detailed schedule with descriptions of session choices to help you plan your time effectively (download the PDF here).

AACTE Celebrates 69th Annual Meeting ‘Acting as One’ in Tampa

By Kristin McCabe

Last week, AACTE was honored to welcome nearly 2,000 members, partners, and friends to hot-and-sunny Tampa, Florida, for the 69th Annual Meeting. Together we shared research, innovative practices, questions, and answers in a robust program addressing the theme “Acting as One: The Power of the Professional Community.”

Over the coming weeks, Ed Prep Matters will bring you a variety of reports from the Annual Meeting, including videos and slides from the general sessions and major forums just as soon as they’re available. Meanwhile, you can view (and share!) our conference photos on Facebook, browse the Twitter feed, and enjoy the following recap videos from Association TV.

Call for Proposals, Reviewers for 2018 AACTE Annual Meeting ‘Celebrating Our Professional Identity’

By Matthew Wales

Now through May 30, AACTE is accepting session proposals for the 70th Annual Meeting, to be held in Baltimore, Maryland, March 1-3, 2018. We also invite applications by May 16 for AACTE member faculty to review proposals.

The conference theme is “Celebrating Our Professional Identity: Shared Knowledge and Advocacy,” conceptualized as follows in the call for proposals:

Explore Strategic Deployment of Teacher Leaders at Quality Support Workshop

By Kristin McCabe

How can you unleash the power of teacher leaders to connect preservice and in-service educators … to enhance clinical partnerships between educator preparation providers and PK-12 schools … and to inform the quality of programs and practice across the continuum of teacher development? Join with peers from your region at an AACTE Quality Support Workshop to construct solutions collaboratively to these and other compelling issues around performance assessment, quality assurance, and continuous improvement.

These workshops will be offered in three regions this year: Fort Worth, Texas (April 24-26); Minneapolis, Minnesota (August 10-12), and Seattle, Washington (November 9-11). At each event, over two half days and one full day, participants will engage in interactive plenary sessions, select from a variety of topics available in break-out blocks, have dedicated time to work in teams and consult with facilitators, and enjoy networking receptions to wrap up each day. See the chart below for an overview of the draft program for the Fort Worth workshop (and visit our website for specific dates and times).

Call for Proposals: JUSTEC 2017

By Kristin McCabe

The 29th annual conference of the Japan-U.S. Teacher Education Consortium (JUSTEC) will be held September 14-17 at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Although registration is not yet open, the submission site is ready for your paper and poster presentation proposals, due by April 5.

JUSTEC organizers seek presentations related to educator preparation in either country – or, better yet, related to collaborative research or exchange between the two. In particular, this year’s conference has three invited areas of interest:

Ohio Teacher Educators, PK-12 Partners Collaborate at Teach to Lead Equity Summit

By Tony Meale

The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.

Last month, faculty from Ohio University’s Patton College of Education joined with teachers from a partner school to participate in an equity-focused leadership summit in Chicago. Two Federal Hocking (OH) Middle School teachers – Robin Hawk, an eighth-grade social studies teacher who led the team, and Tessa Molina, a seventh-grade math teacher – took part in the Inclusion, Equity, and Opportunity Teacher Leadership Summit December 2-4, along with Patton College faculty Bill Elasky, instructor of teacher education and a board of education member at Federal Hocking Local Schools; Mathew Felton, assistant professor of teacher education; and Lisa Harrison, associate professor of teacher education.

Get Support for Assessment, Accreditation, More Through AACTE Courses, Events

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.

Schedule Announced for Texas Quality Support Workshop

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.

A Sunny Start to 2017 at NASDTEC Symposium

By Mark LaCelle-Peterson

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:

5 Reasons to Attend an AACTE Quality Support Workshop

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.

Resources for End-of-Semester Planning – Principal Prep and More

By Angela Maynard Sewall

As the fall academic semester ends and we turn to planning and early implementation for the next term, now is a prime time to assess what our programs have accomplished and the scope of work that lies ahead. One way to “self-check” is to consider peers’ approaches as well as expert advice to help inform our work – and a convenient opportunity to do so is presented in the archived webinars in the AACTE Resource Library.

New standards are emerging, states are reassessing their foci and processes in light of the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act, major transitions are pending in the Department of Education and elsewhere, and the call for evaluation of outcomes rather than inputs only increases. These topics and others are among the lessons of recent AACTE webinars.