Deans for Impact (DFI)

As the 2024-25 school year begins, our Executive Director Valerie Sakimura previews how we’ll partner with educator-preparation programs, leaders, policymakers, and mission-aligned organizations to ensure all students access well-prepared teachers. https://lnkd.in/dG2Xwt9W

Please join us in welcoming the newest member of our Board of Directors, Alma Rodriguez, Dean of the College of Education and P-16 Integration at the The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. ?? ?? In addition to leading at UT-RGV, Rodriguez was president of the Texas Association of Teacher Educators (TxATE) and served on the board of the CONSORTIUM OF STATE ORGANIZATIONS FOR TEXAS TEACHER EDUCATION (CSOTTE). She is currently a member dean of the Texas Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (TACTE), serves on the State Board of Educator Certification (SBEC) in Texas, and is also on the Board of Directors of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED). We look forward to the incredible value and wisdom she will provide to our organization! Get to know her here: https://lnkd.in/dkc6S2_q

We are so pleased to have featured the work of Virginia State University College of Education to establish a residency program called the Hybrid Education Residency Opportunity (H.E.R.O.) Program in our latest #EPPCollaborative learning session with National Center for Grow Your Own. Our discussion featured Willis Walter, PhD, Dean at VSU’s COE and former DFI Impact Academy fellow, and Kendrick Mason-Wiggins, an outstanding future teacher in the HERO program. HERO graduates receive either a Bachelors or Masters of Education in Elementary or Special Education, a full license, and a salary during their training and service in schools. Mason-Wiggins shared how he saw the residency program provide an opportunity to merge theory and practice:“Writing lesson plans for students you don’t know is boring. I don’t know how to differentiate for students who don’t exist in real life. Getting to have that classroom experience gives me something concrete to connect to in my planning now.” Walter also shared how the program already has a reputation for building strong relationships with Petersburg City Public Schools. “These students are committing to staying with Petersburg during their clinical and internship experiences, and the school district in turn is promising them a full time position upon graduation and are working to give these students a year of service credit within the district.” The HERO Program has an extra semester of practice time as part of the design, which Walter says is critical for additional information gathering on a candidate’s teaching practice, which in turn leads to more opportunities for feedback. However, a challenge to scaling this program is that the cost of compensating mentor teachers falls to the educator-preparation program and the school district. Walter advocated for state funding to support mentor teacher stipends, and investing in the future of the teacher workforce. Learn more about the VSU HERO program: https://lnkd.in/dg5fyVxE Interested in building or sustaining a Registered Apprenticeship program? Join our EPP Collaborative: https://lnkd.in/dT6yRvJU

We’ve officially kicked off our Learning by Scientific Design (LbSD) Network partnership with Salisbury University and Worcester County Public Schools in Maryland! At the launch session, participants built shared a vision for their instructional collaboration, examined the learning-science informed practices of drawing attention to meaning, prompting effortful thinking, and using examples and non-examples and began to envision what our three year learning journey will look like. (Learn more about these teacher actions: https://lnkd.in/eaP5-7kM) Salisbury University professors and supervisors and Showell Elementary School mentor teachers and school leaders found meaningful alignment on their hopes and dreams for children and the skills that novice teachers bring to the classroom – reinforcing the important role EPP-district partnerships can play in strengthening student outcomes. Read more about this work via Daily State News/BaytoBayNews.com's article profiling the partnership. https://lnkd.in/dRE6Rtze

Last week we were proud to join our colleagues in Tennessee and North Carolina at their American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) state affiliate conferences. In Tennessee, our Vice President of Program Amber Willis, PhD emceed a panel where education preparation leaders from Freed-Hardeman University and Carson-Newman University shared their experiences integrating DFI-created tools and resources into their courses, bringing the science of learning into teaching with an equity-centered focus on early literacy, mathematics, and the use of high-quality instructional materials. Our Vice President of External Affairs Patrick Steck was later featured on a panel discussion highlighting the importance of collective impact in advocacy, moderated by James McIntyre, Dean and Assistant Provost at Belmont University, with fellow panelists JC Bowman (Professional Educators of Tennessee), Terrance Gibson (Tennessee Education Association), Cameron Armstrong Conn (Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Assocation), Aleah Guthrie (Tennessee SCORE), and Diarese George, Ed.D (Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance). Patrick recognized our TN Ed Prep Impact Coalition, a group of #edprep leaders who together prepare more than 50% of Tennessee’s new teachers and are advocating for important changes in policy to bolster educator preparation. Patrick and Geoffrey Carlisle, our Policy & Communications Manager, were later able to meet with members of the TN Ed Prep Impact Coalition for dinner, where they discussed opportunities for their shared vision and priorities for educator preparation?in TN can lead to substantive shifts in policy. Thank you to Sharen Cypress, Kim Hawkins, Ellen McIntyre, Matt Cheek, Leslie Cowell, and Lisa Zagumny, PhD for joining us! Patrick later visited North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where Dean Paula Groves Price is working intentionally and creatively to recruit and prepare the next generation of teachers in North Carolina. During the visit, she hosted a group of high school students from Chicago at the College of Education, emphasizing the importance of encouraging Black men to become educators. We were also proud to see Ann Bullock, Dean at Elon University Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education, where she raised important policy recommendations to improve enrollment in educator-preparation programs while serving on a panel alongside candidates for state superintendent.

“...the Frederick County plan is tackling learning as a whole — across subjects and grades — to systematically alter the paradigm of how teaching and learning happens throughout its schools.” We’re grateful to support incredible leaders, teachers, and staff at Frederick County Public Schools and Hood College – alongside many other #K12 and #EPP partners – to translate research on how the mind works to teaching practice. This effort not only supports teachers to make more equitable, evidence-based instructional decisions that meaningfully engage all students, but also, as The 74 Media contributor Holly Korbey writes, has positive implications for the teaching of specific content areas like math and reading. Our work with FCPS and Hood builds on nearly a decade of supporting teacher-preparation programs and school districts to implement the science of learning in teaching practice. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/gBBFgBER https://lnkd.in/dniM9X-G

“How about a story? Spin us a yarn.” In Walk Two Moons (my forever favorite YA novel), these words from protagonist Salamanca Tree Hiddle’s grandfather inadvertently unlock a masterpiece of a story-within-a-story as they embark on a trip across the country in pursuit of truth, exploration, and human connection. Last week at our Deans for Impact (DFI) External Affairs team retreat in Denver, we quite literally spun yarn on a wall as we dreamt up all the ways stories connect us, both as human beings and as colleagues brought together by a shared vision for all students to access well-prepared teachers. I relish our remote work, and that makes me appreciate even more the few and precious opportunities we get to spend time in person. There’s nothing quite like the energy of sitting in small meeting rooms surrounded by every color of post-it notes, markers, Jolly Ranchers, notebooks, and eight flavors of Kettle Head Popcorn, imagining all the ways we can demystify systems change in teacher preparation through stories of possibility. Grateful to my colleagues Patrick Steck, Geoffrey Carlisle, Valerie Sakimura, and Amy Wooten for this time together to dream big dreams, challenge one another, experiment with wild popcorn combinations, and spin yarn together.

Five years ago this month, teacher educators from six educator-preparation programs gathered in a hotel conference room in Austin, TX and puzzled together over the extent to which a lesson plan about lima beans was grounded in a scientific understanding of how students learn. That session anchored the inaugural convening of DFI’s Learning by Scientific Design Network (LbSD). Over the next five years, we’ve supported 14 #edprep programs across 3 cohorts to comprehensively redesign their programs – from coursework to clinical experiences – to be anchored in principles of learning science. What have teacher educators learned from these efforts to transform teacher preparation? How have they brought in their #K12 partners? What’s next as they work to sustain and scale this work to ensure all aspiring teachers center evidence-based instructional practices in their teaching? Former DFI staff member Sarah McKibben Montana helps us look back at the first two cohorts of LbSD and highlights key lessons and takeaways from participants Louisiana Resource Center for Educators, National Louis University, American University, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and University of Missouri-Saint Louis for this critical networked improvement effort. https://lnkd.in/dUNnX5hc

Last summer, The Pathways Alliance, of which DFI is co-founder, released the National Guidelines for Apprenticeship Standards for K-12 Teacher Apprenticeships - comprehensive guidelines approved by the U.S. Department of Labor for building, launching, and sustaining high-quality educator apprenticeship programs. Today, 41 U.S. states, DC, and Puerto Rico are actively engaging in creating Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programs. Along with the National Center for Grow Your Own, we are leading the National Registered Apprenticeship in Teacher Educator-Preparation Program Collaborative (EPP Collaborative), a community of 75 programs across 32 states (and growing) that brings transparency and shared best practices to #edprep. By providing opportunities for future teachers to earn while they learn through an affordable, high-quality pathway into the teaching profession, Registered Teacher Apprenticeships are one innovative approach to address the need for a more diverse, well-trained teacher workforce. (Pictured: DFI and Pathways Alliance members and partners at the signing of the NGS into approval at U.S. Department of Education in July 2023)

Please join us in welcoming Geoffrey Carlisle to our team as Policy & Communications Manager! Bringing 13+ years of teaching, policy, and research experience, he’ll be contributing to our growing national and state-based efforts to champion policies to attract, prepare and support a diverse educator workforce: https://lnkd.in/d28VknBY Get to know Geoff and our team: https://lnkd.in/dBvMRbXr