As we prepare to meet in New Orleans next week NACCTEP is checking in with Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, President and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, AACTE. During this discussion we hear how her first year in the position has advocated for the reinstatement of grant funding for educator preparation, how she has traveled to 32 states to learn more about their policies and regulations as part of her state strategy, and how community colleges and universities are addressing the affordability of entering the teaching profession.

Additionally, Dr. Holcomb-McCoy gives a preview of one of two new initiatives that will be introduced at the 2026 Annual Meeting in New Orleans, a call to action around a new federal policy roadmap. She also talked about how innovation and technology is leading AACTE to create a new professional development platform for both members working in higher education teacher preparation programs, but also for graduates of those programs as they enter the teaching field. These are just some of the ways that she, and AACTE are reclaiming the narrative around the strength of educators and the importance of education.

The NACCTEP Pre-conference will be held on Thursday, February 19, 2026 alongside AACTE's other pre-conferences at the Sheraton New Orleans. The 2026 AACTE Annual Meeting will follow from February 20th - 22nd at the New Orleans Marriott on Canal Street. There is still time to register!

#StrongerTogether

Listen in as assistant professors Theresa Robinson and Melissa Lebowitz from the Community College of Baltimore County share the latest updates on their programs. From receiving a Feds2Eds grant to develop programming for displaced government workers to enter the teaching workforce to the Degrees to Succeed partnerships with nine institutions, CCBC is making great strides throughout educator preparation. They also have mock classrooms being set up on both the Essex and Catonsville campuses with all the latest technology that they expect to be ready for use this spring.

Also discussed is how AI can be responsibly and ethically used in the classroom. This includes incorporating assignments that require the use of AI to create rubrics or to create letters that can be compared to one's own version.

The conversation also turns to how the Baltimore County Public School System has created two programs to introduce middle school/junior high students to community college instructors, administrators, and athletes who look like them in order to show that their futures are wide open.

In this first episode of 2026 NACCTEP chats with Rebecca Saiz - Executive Director of Lone Star College Educator Preparation Program, Dr. Christina Puente - Department Chair, and Dr. JeQuila Broussard - Lead Field Supervisor from Lone Star College about how they've transitioned from a checklist driven evaluation system for teacher candidates to a reflective system. This new method allows the college supervisor to become a coach guiding and encouraging the teacher candidates on their journey to becoming an effective teacher. As part of the transition, a common vocabulary comes into play so that both the supervisors and the teachers can communicate successes, expectations, and room for improvement, or "Glow, Grow, and Go" as they've termed it.

A further discussion of this system will be held at an interactive roundtable during the NACCTEP Pre-Conference in New Orleans on the afternoon of February 19, 2026. For further information on the 2026 NACCTEP Pre-Conference, please visit https://www.nacctep.org/professional-development-events/2026-pre-conference

In this episode we hear from Starr Sackstein of Educators Rising. Ms. Sackstein is a National Board Certified teacher with over 20 years experience in education. In addition to numerous books which you can find in the NACCTEP Book List, Ms. Sackstein also writes a column for the Kappan Magazine called Career Confidential.

Ms. Sackstein shares the extensive ways that Educators Rising introduces potential teachers to the field beginning in middle school and high school and supporting their continued studies in college as well. From curriculum, to micro-credentials, to scholarships and competitions at the state and national levels, Educators Rising helps students explore the teaching field.

mssackstein.com

Kappanonline.org

Kappanonline.org/category/career-confidential/

NACCTEP Book List

Dr. Scott Bailey, Assistant Provost of Education Programs at the American College of Education (ACE) joins us to discuss the partnership between ACE and Rio Salado College, specifically in regards to educator preparation students. Dr. Bailey praises the enthusiasm that Rio Salado has for their partnership and how that is reinforced by the collaborative and seamless nature of what ACE offers students completing Rio Salado's teacher preparation post-bacc programs. Through this partnership, students moving on to ACE for a masters degree in education are able to complete the degree in as little as one year and for well under $10k.

The other benefits of ACE's education programs, both at the masters and doctoral levels, is that they are designed and taught by educators for educators. This allows students to have confidence not only in the applicable nature of what they are learning, but also in knowing that their instructors understand the day-to-day challenges of being a teacher. To learn more about ACE and their many degree offerings, please visit ACE.edu.

In this episode we hear from Dr. Melodie Baker of Impact Stats on how community colleges can use data to adapt and continuously improve educator preparation programs. Of particular interest is the teaching of math. With many candidates unable to pass the math portion of licensing exams, even if they've taken developmental math courses, there is clear evidence that focusing on a co-requisite model is more effective in boosting the math skills of teacher candidates and of all students.

Data can also be used to identify equity gaps in academics as well as funding areas and allowing colleges to address these issues. This is critical at the community college level which can have such a positive impact on diversifying and localizing the teacher workforce. You can learn more about Impact Stats and their work at impactstats.org.

Stacy Wilson and Dr. Alex Arreguin, both of whom are English faculty at Mesa Community College in Arizona, created the Literacy Partners Project out of a sense of curiosity for what their English 101 and 102 students were learning in other courses. Specifically, if their students were able to use the concepts they were teaching to complete coursework in history, science, math, and other courses. As they met with instructors from other disciplines they adapted a concept that Dr. Elizabeth Wardle from Miami University of Ohio had implemented.

By developing a series of writing across disciplines frameworks that included utilizing threshold concepts, knowledge transfer, and decoding the disciplines, they were able to not only develop student success initiatives, but also apply these frameworks to program and college departments. On the faculty development side, they used the decoding the disciplines approach to bring together colleagues from different disciplines and departments to work together to help solve the challenges each faced by offering new perspectives.

We welcome the perspectives of Dezi Lynn, Educator Initiative Manager for the National Indian Education Association - NIEA, Dr. Donna Brown, Vice President of Sponsored Programs for the American Indian Higher Education Consortium - AIHEC, and Dr. Danny Luecke, Secondary Math Education Faculty at Turtle Mountain College, on the nuances of Indigenous Teacher Preparation. Each of our guests share their journeys to becoming teachers and to their current positions.

Listen in as we learn how native cultures and languages are honored in teacher preparation programs. Numerous books and resources are mentioned throughout this episode and can be found on the NACCTEP Book List. Additionally, the NIEA offered a series of webinars over the late spring to early summer of 2025 that can be found on their website at https://www.niea.org/webinars