Day: May 9, 2014

NJDOE – Updated NJ Professional Teaching Standards and AchieveNJ Update – May 2014

AchieveNJ200Dr. Martinelli, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs shared two updates from the NJ Department of Education.

Following is an overview of  both communications from the NJDOE.

1. On April 1, 2014, NJ updated the Professional Standards for Teachers to more closely align with the 2011 Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) Model Core Teaching Standards. The overview from NJDOE as well as links to the full crosswalk between the NJ Professional Standards for Teachers and the InTASC standards are located on the Teacher Preparation page within this site.

2.. Peter Shulman, Assistant Commissioner/Chief Talent Officer, Division of Teacher and Leader Effectiveness distributed an update on May 6, 2014.  It is an update on AchieveNJ and focuses on completing the teacher and adminstrator evaluations for the 2013-14 school year and also includes an update of SGO’s 2.0 for next academic year. This letter can be found in its entirety on the Standards & Regulation page within this site.

April 25, 2014 Curriculum Revision Meeting Notes

meeting notesThe following are the meeting notes and comments from the April 25, 2014 Curriculum Revision meeting.

Dean May took the lead on this meeting.  She spent some time reviewing what we have done and discussed over the past year including:

  • Communicating and becoming familiar with the new CAEP standards
  • Identifying and mapping SPA standards, CAEP Standards, the new INTASC standards and the Danielson Framework to each other and cross-referencing them
  • Creating this blog for a single point of communication and resources
  • Gathering and compiling syllabi in one location within the blog for reference and communication
  • Visiting groups and presentations – Technology Advisory Committee and the Genesis and NJEA SGO presentations
  • Continuing work within Pass-Port and the Portals
  • Gathering feedback from students and alumni via focus groups and surveys
  • Evaluating and discussing how the current curriculum might be redesigned and realigned to better meet our students’ needs

Dean May provided several resources to help further the discussion and consider next steps.  One of the excerpts provided was from the Journal of Teacher Education.  The entire article on Core Practices and Pedagogies of Teacher Education: A Call for a Common Language and Collective Activity can be found within the Scholarship and Teaching section of this blog.

The dean noted that we are ending our year of information gathering and reflection. It’s time for programs to meet and establish some short and long term strategic goals for program continuous improvement. The short term goals should focus on essential steps before the start of the fall semester, while the long term goals should have interim steps and deadlines throughout the next academic year.

When programs have established their short and long term goals, we will look for common goals to maximize resource support. Programs do not have to pursue all of the same goals, but where there is a sensed need across the unit, we will work collaboratively.