October 5, 2015
College of Education Faculty share Research at National CAEP Convention
GREENVILLE, N.C. (9/29/15) — The success of ECU’s recent Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) accreditation visit led to four COE faculty being invited to share their research at the Fall 2015 CAEP Convention in Washington, D.C. Two presentations highlighted the on-going efforts from ECU’s Pirate CODE (Continuum of Developing Expertise), its Transformation Initiative for CAEP accreditation, and on-going collaboration with CAEP to disseminate research conducted in relation to accreditation.
Dr. Christina Tschida and Dr. Elizabeth Fogarty led an invited presentation, “Co-Teaching: Conceptualizing a New Model for Today’s Teacher Education Programs.” The session presented a conceptual framework for ECU’s 2:1 co-teaching model which pairs two teacher candidates with one cooperating teacher. This model is of great interest to CAEP and other teacher preparation programs as a way to build stronger collaboration skills among teacher candidates and engage high quality clinical placements.
When Dr. Jennifer Carinci, Director of Research, Innovation, and Data Strategy at CAEP, extended the invitation to Drs. Tschida and Fogarty she wrote, “CAEP would like to promote examples of research conducted in relation to using accreditation data and evidence related to our standards beyond accountability purposes for continuous improvement of providers and to inform the field.”
In another session, Dr. Diana Lys and Dr. Kristen Cuthrell led CAEP Convention participants in an interactive presentation, “Engaging Faculty in Data Rich Program Improvement: Strategies Tested in a Transformation Initiative (TI).” The session presented four strategies used in the Pirate CODE work and explored ways other program may adopt or modify them for their individual contexts.
The research emerging from ECU’s Transformation Initiative continues to be of great interest to CAEP. Dr. Carinci noted, “(T)he engagement of educator preparation providers in research on what works, what doesn’t work, why, and under what conditions, such as the work undertaken by East Carolina University as part of their Transformation Initiative, is crucial to advancing the field.”