Karen Symms Gallagher: CAEP Chair Shares Insight into Teacher Preparation, Accreditation

At the heart of teacher preparation, changes are taking place—a push for continued high standards and an effort to determine the impact various programs are having on P-12 student learning. Leading the way is the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), which emerged in 2010 from education leaders’ desire for a next generation of accreditation model to improve the preparation of teachers for America’s schools. In this challenging environment, Karen Symms Gallagher, the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the University of Southern California (USC) Rossier School of Education shares her insight as the recently selected chair of the CAEP Board of Directors. Gallagher has been a steady presence in the ever changing world of teacher preparation

Author Chris Crutcher: Speaking Out on Teachers’ Role in Aiding Children of Trauma

Nationally known young adult author Chris Crutcher shares his thoughts on how teachers can help students who are dealing with trauma in their lives

Revealing Our Superpowers: An Autoethnography on Childhood Abuse and How It Shapes Educators

This article uses auto ethnography as research as the author examines her own childhood abuse and how it has shaped her as an educator who has taught at the middle level, high school, and university. Through her experiences, she has determined that teachers\u27 personal stories significantly affect their development as educators. Through their teaching, their own stories--and the trauma and issues they have overcome--become their superpowers in aiding their students\u27 perseverance

STEM Summer Program Impacts Middle Schoolers, Pre-service Teachers

A partnership between a local school district and a university’s education college has created an innovative program that provides learning opportunities at all levels each summer. Entering its eighth year, the program brings together middle school students, pre-service teachers, classroom teachers, and university graduate students and faculty for a month of hands-on learning in a variety of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) activities. The program continues to thrive with approximately 50 pre-service teachers, 325-350 middle schoolers, and 20-30 classroom teachers participating. Through the years, it continues to be an engaging and positive experience for those involved

Dyane Smokorowski: Expanding Teachers’ Professional Learning Networks Means Greater Options for Students

For this issue of Educational Considerations, we examine the theme of What Works in the Classroom. As part of our efforts to address this vital topic, we were fortunate to visit with Dyane Smokorowski, who is a 2019 National Teacher Hall of Fame Inductee, 2013 Kansas Teacher of the Year, and is currently serving as an Innovation and Technology Lead Teacher in the Andover Public Schools. Mrs. Smoke, as she’s known to her students, believes in a project-based, student-centered classroom that helps students build skills in communication, planning, research, and project implementation. Additionally, Dyane thrives on the mission to create active and engaging teacher professional learning opportunities. She wants her students and teachers to develop a love for innovation, communication, and technology, but also to understand how to use that love and passion to advance their own futures, as well as that of the global communit

Kristin Ziemke: Digital Learning Can Turn Students into Agents of Change Around the Globe

This Educational Considerationsissue, with its theme of “Teaching and Learning in a Global Community,” highlights education in an ever increasingly connected world—and how we get our students prepared to not only survive, but thrive in such an expanding environment. As we considered this topic, one of the individuals who came to mind almost instantly was Kristin Ziemke (https://www.kristinziemke.com/)—an educator who has done so much to create bridges in this global community and helped lead us all on our digital journey

Video-based Education Ethnography Project

This article chronicles the development of a video-based ethnography project documenting daily life in a Kansas elementary and a secondary classroom. The project, which took nearly two years of planning, allows a direct link to two classrooms approximately 250 miles away to provide a virtual field experience for undergraduates and a wide array of research possibilities for faculty. Since its first semester in spring 2016, it now enables students to see the daily actions of an elementary teacher and a secondary math teacher in a live classroom setting, and various faculty and graduate student research projects are currently under way

Redesign: A Case Study of Change in a Kansas School District

USD 240 Twin Valley School District, consisting of Bennington Grade School and Bennington Junior High/High School in Bennington and Tescott Grade School and Tescott Junior High/High School, was one of seven districts initially selected in August 2017 as part of the first cohort of Kansas State Department of Education\u27s Kansas Can School Redesign Project. This article shares the journey, told by the superintendent and a researcher, of USD 240 as part of the ongoing program which now involves multiple cohorts of districts developing their own pathways toward improvement

Developing the Next Generation of Distance Supervision

Student teaching has long been an essential component of teacher education programs, and effective supervision is essential for successful internship experiences. Pre-service students’ needs must be weighed against the limitation of time and access for the university supervisor, often a full-time faculty member who has a formidable teaching load and other responsibilities. Additionally, direct, in-person observations can create observer effect, altering the reality of what is actually being observed. This article examines one university’s use of distant supervision utilizing technology to aid in the virtual classroom observations and conferencing to allow an elementary education major to student teach in a rural southwest Kansas school

Improving Reflection during Student Teaching with Technology

​The process of tapping into the power of reflection is a difficult process for many student teachers to accomplish. Multiple factors hinder the process of reflection in novice teachers. Video recorded lessons provide a contextualized focus for reflection on specific pedagogical skills. This study conducted by an undergraduate student during the student internship demonstrates the value of utilized video recorded lesson to assist in the development of one student’s journey toward becoming a reflective practitioner through the use of video recorded teaching episodes