By Conner Dunleavy

 

The new school year will be here before we know it! Many teachers are already counting down the days until classes begin again and it’s time for teachers to start focusing on the road ahead.

 

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By Conner Dunleavy

 

A recent study by the American Institute for Research found that 82 percent of new teachers who were trained in vigorous, long-term student teaching programs - such as the program by Chicago-based nonprofit Urban Teacher Residency United - were still in the teaching profession after 5 years on the job.

These findings seem to demonstrate the correlation between longer-term mentorships for new teachers and their ability to effectively perform alone in the classroom.

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Today, we are pleased to announce AAE’s National Teacher Scholarship and Classroom Grant award winners for the spring of 2015.  These 15 teachers embody our core values with their dedication to the field and innovative initiatives.  We couldn’t have chosen better!

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March saw the return of South by Southwest (SxSW), the yearly conference that has people from all over the globe travelling to Austin, Texas to listen to the best new music, experience the best new tech, and learn about the trends facing our society.  SxSW has a sub-conference that deals exclusively with the issue of education.  Since SxSW has a reputation for spotting trends before the rest of the country, it’s worth looking at what was discussed at this year’s conference.

 

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There’s a lot of information available to consider with choosing professional development.  While the occasional study will look at teachers’ attitudes towards a particular form of professional development, most research has focused on efficacy and the assumption that administrators will be in the driver’s seat.  Despite this track record, a new study from the Gates Foundation puts teacher opinions front and center.

 

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Today we have a guest blog from Erika Lambert, the COO of RedCritter.  RedCritter has just launched classroom management app, available on all platforms.  AAE members interested in checking out RedCritter can get a special discount.  Look for the discount code in your inbox.

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Ever have one of those days in the classroom where nothing goes right? Starr Sackstein blogged over at Education Week’s Work in Progress Blog about just those types of days.  She says:

 

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As we all know, the Common Core State Standards reflect a major shift in how we ask students to think about and work with numbers. As reported by Education Week, strategies for how we teacher fractions are changing considerably. While students still need to understand that fractions are a part of a whole, the standards call for us to also teach students that fractions have their own distinct place on the number line and have values as numbers.   Continue Reading...

We Are Teachers had a great blog post this week from Love, Teach on the mistakes the author made her first year teaching. If you're entering your first year, we hope you don't make the same ones! In fact, we offer AAE first-year teacher members a guidebook to help them organize their first year teaching. If you're a first-year teacher, you can request your copy by emailing profdev@aaeteachersorg. You can read about Love, Teach's mistakes below:   Continue Reading...

What are your plans this summer? Taking a trip can be an integral part of increasing an educator’s professional capacity. If you have some free time this summer break, consider taking a PD-focused trip!   Continue Reading...

The Association of American Educators is dedicated to helping our members find high-quality professional development.  So, we make high-quality opportunities easy to find on our professional development calendar.  Below, we’ve highlighted some of the best opportunities.  For more opportunities in a wide variety of subjects, check out our professional development calendar.

 

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When thinking about technology and professional development, the mind usually jumps directly to PLNs (Professional Learning Networks) or perhaps to webinars.  Yet if we allow our use of technology and our professional learning to stop there, we will be doing ourselves a great disservice.  Technology has the ability to be a much greater force in our professional learning.

 

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This month features ASCD’s Whole Child Symposium, an online event that discuses what we want for our children and how we can teach them effectively to reach those goals.  In honor of that event, we’ve searched our PD Calendar for the best opportunities dedicated to teaching to the whole child.  For more opportunities in a wide variety of subjects, check out our professional development calendar.

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Ask any teacher, and they’ll tell you that professional development is a waste of time.  Ask an administrator the same question, and after talking for a while on the necessity of good professional development, they’ll grudgingly admit that there’s little actual research showing what does or does not make good PD.  Despite these often negative stereotypes, a new research report published in the Teachers College Record may be the beginning of changing long-held views.  The research report, “A Randomized Controlled Trial of Professional Development for Interdisciplinary Civic Education: Impacts on Humanities Teachers and Their Students,” tested one particular professional development program against a control group of teachers who did not receive that PD. The results were ground breaking.

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Recently, the SAT announced a change that will reverberate through classrooms across the country and in every grade level.  This shift is so fundamental to curriculum that its effect will be felt for years in every single subject area.  What did they change?  Vocabulary.  No longer will the SAT assess vocabulary rooted in literature works of old.  In the future, the SAT will primarily measure what is commonly referred to as “academic” vocabulary.

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Today, we’re hearing from Amy Wilson.  Amy Wilson is the senior manager of education marketing at Common Sense Media. A seasoned organization, Common Sense Media has primarily provided reviews on books, television shows, movies, apps, and other media, in an effort to inform the choices of parents and teachers.  They also provide professional development and curriculum to teachers promoting digital literacy.   Recently, they’ve launched a new certification site, Graphite, which Ms. Wilson shares about below:

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By this point, anyone paying attention to trends in education is familiar with the concept of a flipped classroom.  In this model, the teacher assigns the lectures as "homework” in video form and then works with the students by going through what usually would have been assigned for homework in class.  The model has a lot of advantages.  It allows students to work at their own pace, and for the teacher to give extra help where it’s needed.

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Each month, we select the top picks from our PD Calendar and share them with you.  This month we looked at the top picks for English language arts and social studies. For more opportunities in a wide variety of subjects, check out our professional development calendar.

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Teachers are faced with a plethora of choices for their professional development.  Organizations of all size and type offer opportunities to teachers.  If teachers had an infinite amount of time and money, they’d be able to attend everything, but unfortunately both time and money are limited resources.  So, how should a teacher decide which opportunity they should try?

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Last month, while most of us were knee-deep in Christmas cookies and holiday celebrations, the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY) was thinking about the future of the teaching profession.  Specifically, they teamed up with Pearson to release a report about creating new career pathways for teachers.

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