ATE 2019 Annual Conference

Educators at the Forefront:New Dimensions for Clinical Preparation and Development of Educators
Sheraton Atlanta Hotel, February 16-20, 2019

Education Program Providers (EPPs) must broaden their knowledge base to include the professional community that plays a key role in the initial and continuous education of teachers, principals, and school counselors, and most importantly both school- and university-based teacher educators. All members of this community are teacher educators because they engage in the professional development of teachers and collaborate with teachers for the benefit of the students and families they serve. ATE is a professional enterprise that blends and bridges all entities that touch teacher professional development, spanning the career phases of pre-service, induction, and in-service. Teacher educators include all professionals who engage in fostering a teacher’s development. They bring strong knowledge in their specialty and possess expertise in mentoring and supervision. Unique to a teacher educator’s role is an added layer of complexity associated with boundary-spanning and bridging between the different entities that impact the growth and development of a teacher. Although the teacher educators’ role is clearly defined in the ATE Standards for Teacher Educators, the essential aspects of this important role needs deeper systematic study, connection, and synthesis. A key question posed for this conference is: How do we develop as teacher educators (i.e. inclusive of principals, counselors, and school- and university-based faculty) and equip ourselves with the new skill sets needed to span boundaries associated with school and university contexts so that we can effectively develop and mentor teachers across the career span?

Educators are now at the forefront in addressing the new dimensions associated with clinical aspects of educator preparation and development. The conference theme recognizes that education and teacher education are bombarded with ever-changing local, state, and federal accountability mandates which aim to control, dictate, and prescribe professional roles and responsibilities of educators. Current mandates now focus on the clinical aspects of educator preparation.

ATE is committed to bringing many entities together for the common good of preparing and developing quality educators. ATE strives in this conference to be a visible leader owning a unique identity as encompassing the essential roles of the teacher educator. In this conference teacher educators are encouraged to claim their own identity as practitioner scholars who bridge school-university contexts, connect theory-to-practice, engage participants in reflection and reflectivity on their practices, and advocate for the holistic, caring, and ethical practices in the development of educators.