Posts Tagged ‘teacher quality’

Last Chance to Register for AACTE Webinar: Internationalizing Education in Teacher Preparation

AACTE’s Committee on Global Diversity is proud to host the University of Missouri-St Louis, College of Education, recipient of the 2022 AACTE Best Practice Award in Support of Global & International Perspectives. This award, sponsored by AACTE’s Committee on Global Diversity, recognizes exemplary practice in the intercultural, global, cross-cultural, and international arenas and is presented each year at AACTE’s Annual Meeting. The College of Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis launched a year-long effort to enhance the internationalizing of teacher preparation programs. The main objectives were to initiate a professional learning community centered on globally competent teaching, integrate global perspectives in teacher education programs, create and share globally infused curricula, and strengthen international partnerships. The project was a comprehensive approach targeting faculty, staff, and students. In this webinar, they will share four of the initiatives from their year.=

On Thursday, October 6, join AACTE and the Committee on Global Diversity in welcoming the University of Missouri, St Louis College of Education faculty and staff as they share their experience with AACTE membership. Register today.

U.S. Department of Education Awards Nearly $25 Million to Support Educator Workforce

Department of Education logoThe U.S. Department of Education has announced new awards to help recruit, prepare, develop, and retain a strong, effective and diverse teacher workforce for classrooms across the country through the Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) grant program. This year’s investment includes 22 new five-year grants totaling $24.8 million through its TQP program. The award recipients represent IHEs and national nonprofits, including three HBCUs and one MSI.

App State to Open Lab School at Elkin Elementary

University will be only UNC System institution to operate two lab school programs

Courtesy of Marie Freeman

Appalachian State University is partnering with Elkin City Schools to open the university’s second laboratory school aimed at enhancing student education, improving outcomes and providing high-quality teacher and principal training.

Under the plan — which was developed in collaboration with Elkin City Schools leaders and approved by the Elkin City Schools Board of Education on Dec. 13, 2021 — a lab school will open at Elkin Elementary School in August. The “school-within-a-school” model will serve approximately 100 students in second through fourth grades.

Traditional University Teacher Ed Programs Face Enrollment Declines, Staff Cuts

As higher ed enrollment lags, colleges try to make teacher preparation more enticing, sustainable to ward off local shortages

This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America.

The pandemic has exacerbated a troubling national trend: Fewer potential teachers are entering the profession. 

Nearly every state lost a large proportion of teaching candidates between 2010 and 2018, according to a Center for American Progress report — and the pandemic has further strained traditional colleges and universities programs, many of which face declining enrollment and were forced to recently cut staff.

PVAMU Receives $300K Grant to Increase Educator Diversity in Texas

This article was originally published by Prairie View A&M University.

The teacher population in Texas does not reflect its student population. Beverly Sande, Ph.D., plans to change that statistic with $300,000 in funding from Texas Tech UniversityTexas Education Agency in collaboration with the University-School Partnerships for the Renewal of Educator Preparation (US PREP) National Center. The award will position Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) to lead innovative efforts to increase diversity among the number of teachers.

Internationalizing Education in Teacher Preparation at the University of Missouri – St. Louis

 

The AACTE Committee on Global Diversity is hosting Internationalizing Education in Teacher Preparation, an October 6  webinar featuring the University of Missouri, St Louis College of Education faculty and staff, including Shea Kerkhoff. Below Kerkhoff outlines four initiatives they implemented to integrate a global perspective into its educator preparations programs.

Classrooms in St. Louis, like most of the country, are globally diverse and connected. Realizing the importance of including global perspectives and fostering international connections, the College of Education at the University of Missouri – St. Louis launched a year-long effort to enhance the internationalizing of our teacher preparation programs. The main objectives were to initiate a professional learning community centered on globally competent teaching, integrate global perspectives in our teacher education programs, create and share globally infused curricula, and strengthen international partnerships. The project was a comprehensive approach targeting faculty, staff, and students. Here we will share four of the initiatives from our year.

The Unintended Consequence of Brown v. Board: A ‘Brain Drain’ of Black Educators

In 74 Interview, author Leslie T. Fenwick said the effects were so damaging that ‘the nation’s public schools still have not recovered’

This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America.

American students have attended school for nearly 70 years under the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools. But a new book uncovers a little-known by-product of the case: Educators and policymakers in at least 17 states that operated separate “dual systems” of schools defied the spirit of Brown by closing schools that served Black students and demoting or firing an estimated 100,000 highly credentialed Black principals and teachers.

In Jim Crow’s Pink Slip, scholar Leslie T. Fenwick, tapping seldom-seen transcripts from a series of 1971 U.S. Senate hearings on the topic, writes that the loss of Black educators post-Brown was “the most significant brain drain from the U.S. public education system that the nation has ever seen. It was so pervasive and destabilizing that, even more than half-century later, the nation’s public schools still have not recovered.”

Reflecting on ‘The Growth and Impact of Alternative Certification: Findings from Two Studies’

For 30 years, I have been involved in teaching and teacher education as a graduate student, lecturer, professional development facilitator, teacher, professor, and administrator. Most of that time I was part of the university system. I worked for years at one of the oldest teacher preparation programs in the country (Eastern Michigan University) and now at an institution that offers a non-profit higher education alternative route certification (University of Michigan – Flint, although it is a 30+ credit master’s program). I wondered if my experience prejudiced my view on for-profit alternative route programs (alt. routes). Was my negative visceral reaction to “why can’t getting your teaching certificate be like getting a real estate license?” justified? With enrollment in traditional higher education teacher preparations falling 47% from 2010-2020 and enrollment in for-profit alternative routes up 140%, am I just reacting to the threat?

The webinar presented by AACTE: “The Growth and Impact of Alternative Certification: Findings from Two Studies” confirmed my concerns. Texas, the first state to approve non-higher education alt-routes, prepares more teachers than any other state in the country, and as of 2018-19, had 41 for-profit alt route programs that accounted for 68% of all enrollments in teacher education programs in the state.  As such, Texas was used as the site of a two-components study on for-profit alternative route certification programs.

Aiding Teacher Candidates’ Understanding of Learner Variability

Rachel Besharat Mann will share her experience in translating learning sciences into practice using the Digital Promise Learner Variability Navigator tool during the webinar co-hosted by AACTE, “Learning Sciences Research for the Classroom” on September 26, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Below, Mann offers a preview about her experience using the web app for whole child learning.

You can read all of the teaching books and take all of the courses but being in the classroom is a completely different experience. You are working with individual people with varied backgrounds and needs and their behaviors; strengths, and needs can change based on a variety of factors outside of a teacher’s control. There is no roadmap to tell you how students learn differently or even if they are learning at all. This is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way over the years and have vowed to help my higher education students avoid the same pitfalls in K-12 classrooms that I did.

What Kids Need in the Classroom

This article originally appeared on MSU Denver RED.

With the psychological and economic pressures of Covid-19, increased gun violence, systemic racism, political polarization and, most recently, the financial stresses of inflation, many adults are struggling with their mental and emotional health. It’s no wonder that children, too, are experiencing more trauma than ever.

Last fall, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association jointly declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health due to “soaring rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, loneliness and suicidality” caused by Covid-19 and other factors. Trauma such as physical abuse, bullying and witnessing violence will often contribute to higher anxiety and negatively impact attention, memory, cognition, problem solving, reading ability and academic performance, according to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

Local Public School Ratings Rise, Even as the Teaching Profession Loses

The 54th annual PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools finds record-high ratings for local public schools — but record low support among parents for their children becoming teachers. Only 37% of respondents say they would want a child of theirs to become a public school teacher in their community. This is the lowest level of support the profession has seen since 1969, when support for teaching as a career choice peaked at 75%.

Overall, 54% of adults give an A or B grade to the public schools in their community, the highest percentage in PDK Polls since 1974, up 10 points since the question was last asked in 2019.

Bellarmine will Prepare STEM teachers with $1.45 million NSF Grant

Bellarmine University will recruit and prepare highly qualified science and mathematics teachers for high-need Kentucky middle and high schools with the support of a five-year $1.45 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Robert Noyce program.
 
The grant will support “Noyce Knights Scholars”— students who wish to teach in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) areas of physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics.

AACTE Partners with Digital Promise to Elevate Learner Variability Tools that Support Equitable Teaching

AACTE has teamed up with the leaders of Digital Promise’s Learner Variability Project to address systems-level transformation that directly addresses the challenges students face by using the Learner Variability Navigator (LVN); a free open-source tool to make learning sciences research accessible to educators.  Earlier this year, a representative group of AACTE members were introduced to the project and navigation tools, and using their feedback, AACTE is  pleased to bring you the webinar series that lifts up tools and practices with the Learner Variability Project most relevant to the educator preparation field.

Pathways Alliance Releases a Shared Vision for Diverse, High-Quality Teachers

Teacher residency programs seek to offer an innovative approach to teacher certification, shifting the landscape of education to better recruit and retain high-quality teachers. These residencies can help attract a diverse pool of teachers — aiming to offset the shortage crisis and address the immediate staffing needs — by offering a supportive and affordable path to teaching.