Taking Charge of Our Future: The Time is Now!
At last year’s conference, Superintendent John Kuhn urged us to become more proactive in shaping the future of educator preparation. He said: "If you aren’t at the table, you may be on the menu." At both state and national levels, we have been "today’s special" for over a decade, served on a spicy puree of intense scrutiny with a heaping portion of accountability. Besides the daunting challenge of teaching new strategies requisite to Information Age learners, we are faced with:
In Frisco in October, we will see firsthand teachers and students engaged in "flipped classrooms" that equip learners with research and inquiry strategies that build self-responsibility. We will hear state and national experts and ponder what works and what doesn’t in raising the bar. We will have Round Table discussions that elicit promising strategies, brainstorm a menu of actions to take, and identify arenas we can impact. We will leave with commitments to action in our own contexts. THE TIME IS NOW!
- declining enrollment in our programs and the reality that our production never fills the need;
- a projected tsunami of teacher retirements;
- increasing vacancies for high need jobs;
- a growing school population with more special needs students;
- mounting pressure to increase our admission standards and to recruit heavily from the "best and brightest."
In Frisco in October, we will see firsthand teachers and students engaged in "flipped classrooms" that equip learners with research and inquiry strategies that build self-responsibility. We will hear state and national experts and ponder what works and what doesn’t in raising the bar. We will have Round Table discussions that elicit promising strategies, brainstorm a menu of actions to take, and identify arenas we can impact. We will leave with commitments to action in our own contexts. THE TIME IS NOW!