Keynote Sessions

Opening Session

Friday, February 24, 2023 | 4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Celebrating 75 Years of Transforming Teacher Education

The 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) provides an opportunity to celebrate the 75-year history of AACTE and chart a way forward. Our theme, Innovation through Inspiration: Remembering the Past to Revolutionize the Future, frames our historic convening. Join an exciting Opening Session featuring two giants in the field — nationally renowned scholars Gloria Ladson-Billings and James D. Anderson whose groundbreaking research and extraordinary national leadership over the last 30 years exemplify AACTE’s mission to “revolutionize education for all learners.” In a fireside chat conversation format, Ladson-Billings and Anderson will share their remarkable personal journeys as scholars; discuss their rich and relevant contributions to the research literature; reflect on advances in research, practice, and policy; and offer new insights about our way forward.

This intergenerational conversation and knowledge transfer will include Lin Wu, the 2022 recipient of AACTE’s Outstanding Dissertation Award and be hosted by Leslie T. Fenwick, AACTE Dean in Residence. In honor of the transformative impact of their work and as acknowledgement that their scholarship has contributed mightily to our collective intellectual progress, AACTE re-named its most prominent research awards after Ladson Billings and Anderson — now, the Gloria Ladson-Billings Outstanding Book Award and the James D. Anderson Distinguished Dissertation Award.

Featured Speakers

Saturday Session

Saturday, February 25, 2023 | 3:45 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.

Revolutionizing the Future: Emerging Scholars Consider the Impact of Academic Censorship

Sponsored by the Lumina Foundation   

There is a growing trend by state lawmakers to propose and, in some cases, pass legislation that censors and penalizes K-12 and higher education teachers and faculty members, as well as educational leaders in both sectors. It is vital for the educator preparation community to support intellectual freedom as a core component of a democratic society and oppose the censorship of content and knowledge that would disallow educators to promote empathy and engage students in positive inquiry into social issues. Given AACTE’s unique role in bridging K-12 and higher education, this keynote session invites our future leaders — scholars and practitioners in colleges of education and school districts — to explore, from their perspective and experience, the impact of this burgeoning state and national movement on who they are as educators and what they see as the effect on our profession.

Featured Speakers

Marvin Lynn: Moderator
Dean, College of Education and Human Development, University of Colorado
Denver
AACTE Board of Directors member and Board secretary
View Biography

Closing Session

Sunday, February 26 | 11:15 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Using Classroom Discussion to Democratize Classrooms, Create Inclusive Climates, and Create Learning

Classroom discussion as both a method of teaching and an outcome of teaching has many advocates. It is credited with building more democratic learning environments that are broadly inclusive and enhancing student learning. But researchers quite consistently find that in most classrooms across the educational landscape, there are very few high-quality discussions. What accounts for this contradiction? And what might we do to ensure that students in PK-12 and higher education experience both discussion for learning and learning to discuss? Hess will describe what she and colleagues are learning from The Discussion Project-a professional development program designed to help instructors in secondary school and higher education build the knowledge and skills needed to teach their students how to engage in rich and inclusive discussions.