Dear AAQEP Member:

It was great seeing several dozen of you online earlier this week for a conversation about dealing with the sudden disruptions to your programs. As Mark LaCelle-Peterson noted in his opening remarks, no one signed up for this challenge! I hope you found it reassuring to come together and share ideas with peers for adjusting to support candidates, P-12 partners and students, other stakeholders, and even yourselves. 

In case you weren’t able to join us or just want to review what was shared, here’s a little recap:

Accreditation-Related

Mark opened the forum by briefly addressing some of your concerns about how the current disruptions could affect your AAQEP accreditation efforts. Key points:

  1. Interrupted data – what if some of the evidence you planned to use isn’t available this year? Mark said not to worry, as AAQEP’s expectation of “multiple measures with reasonable continuity” gives you latitude in a situation like this. If you need to use alternative measures this year or have a gap in the data, add a paragraph or two to the self-study (or annual report, if you’re already accredited) indicating the nature of the disruption and explaining what evidence you chose to use instead. 
  2. Interrupted clinical placements – what if your candidates are unable to complete their required assignments? Follow your state’s guidelines for substituting, waiving, or extending key program components and candidate supports. In your Quality Assurance Report, AAQEP will want to know what changes you made and how you determined whether candidates should be recommended for licensure.
  3. Interrupted plans for AAQEP site visits and workshops – what if you need to host or attend one this spring? Like you, we’re working to translate face-to-face interactions into online alternatives, learning and innovating as we go. In March, we completed our first all-virtual site visit as well as our first virtual workshop, and we’ll announce plans soon for more online workshops in May and June. The aim is to be flexible but continue moving forward wherever possible.

Member Resources and Ideas

After the brief introduction, the forum broke into three sections to hold conversations in more reasonable group sizes. Here is some of what was shared:

New Practices, Ideas, and Considerations

  • Replace some early field experiences with tutoring over Zoom (for secondary-level candidates) or creating student packets (elementary). For online work with P-12 students, it’s helpful to already have student privacy issues ironed out in MOAs with partner districts, as some programs have around collaborating on teacher performance assessments. Supervision requirements for these experiences may depend on whether they count as “service” or “field work” hours.
  • Have student teachers continue working with their cooperating/mentor teachers virtually; if a cooperating teacher doesn’t want to continue, find a new mentor for that candidate. (Some candidates have more experience with online learning than their mentors and are proving very helpful to their cooperating teachers right now.)
  • As an observation alternative, evaluate candidates based on video from earlier work, or (for a small program) have candidates present live lessons via videoconference for faculty feedback.
  • If their culminating requirements can’t be completed this term, offer candidates a grade of “incomplete” to allow them to return next semester at no cost.
  • Be sure to keep good records as evidence of candidates’ preparedness in light of modified state requirements. They can track their clinical hours and record descriptive detail about their work in platforms like Canvas, OtisEd, and Chalk & Wire, or use Google forms, journals, logs, notes from seminar meetings, etc.
  • This situation is shining a spotlight on the strength of clinical partnerships. Some partner schools/districts are very supportive of sustaining the ed-prep mission, helping candidates complete their clinical assignments, and engaging candidates as human resource assets in new models of instruction and planning. Others who see ed prep as less central to their operation have been quick to drop the partnership work, viewing it as a burden that their staff can’t afford to accommodate at present. What impact will this have on future collaboration?
  • Support candidates’ personal well-being by checking in frequently, offering online social hours, sharing stress-management resources, and directing them to virtual counseling being offered by the institution.
  • Rather than canceling year-end ceremonies and other community rituals, devise a plan to take them online (or invent new ones!).

Burning Questions

  • How will license reciprocity agreements be affected by the varying accommodations being put in place in different states?
  • Is it better to “hold back” candidates to have them complete their clinical work next semester or to recommend them for licensure without being fully ready? And how do economic and labor factors influence that decision, such as whether the candidate needs to begin earning a paycheck right away and whether their prospective hiring district can wait an additional semester or year for a teacher of record?
  • If a state moves to have providers give more active induction support next year, what authority would programs have to require completers to continue to engage? Requirements may need to come from the state or districts.

Resources

  • States have begun rolling out their guidance for preparation/licensure waivers and alternatives—for example see this week’s from New York State. (This is taking longer in states like California, where requirements are part of state law rather than under the jurisdiction of the education agency.)
  • See how the University of Kentucky is presenting its approach in this informative web page.
  • Use simulation software like Mursion to work with avatars in scenarios of practice that can’t be replicated well over videoconference (e.g., interaction with parents/families).
  • Purchase accounts for candidates to access ATLAS videos of accomplished teachers in action (from NBPTS).
  • Many publishers/companies (e.g., Pearson) have free videos and other resources geared toward supporting the shift to online learning.
  • See https://autisminternetmodules.org and https://mast.ecu.edu/picker for online modules to assist with the particular challenges of doing SPED teacher prep remotely. Another rich source for learning modules is the IRIS Center at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College.
  • Keep in touch with candidates and colleagues using the channels you have—Canvas, Blackboard, Zoom, Google Meet, etc. Depending on your group’s existing habits, you may also want to connect over email, texting, phone, social media sites, and/or apps like FlipGrid, WhatsApp, Remind 101 (click links for their remote-learning resources). You might also check out the Sift “news therapy” app for tips on presenting information in a healthy way.

We’d hoped to have a recording of the Zoom meeting to share with you, but one of the things we learned in this forum is that the recording follows the individual who’s hosting—which made a mess as we popped in and out of breakout rooms. I apologize that there’s no useful video to share! 

We’ll be continuing this conversation through monthly cohort calls. As you identify or develop new protocols, resources, web pages, etc. please share them with your AAQEP Liaison and we will make sure all of the cohorts have access to them.

Wishing you all good health and an endless supply of patience and ingenuity,

Kristin McCabe
Director of Communications and Marketing
AAQEP — Always improving together