This roundtable discussion examines a systems-level, grant-funded initiative to address shortages of bilingual and special educators in New York City. Participants will explore strategies including cross-campus partnerships,enrollment incentives, and innovative certificationprograms designed to strengthen and diversify the educator pipeline.
To enable our preservice teachers to experience authentic assessment, we ask them to create, practice, and teach a lesson in real middle and high school classrooms. During this transformative experience, cooperating teachers and their students provide feedback and mentoring that promotes cross-generational learning.
This autoethnographic study explores our work as four elementary teacher educators-supervisors as we navigate constraints and leverage anti-oppressive pedagogies to deepen critical mentorship practices within our university supervisor program.
Through hermeneutic phenomenological analysis of data from creative therapy dog visits, we examined the lived experiences of participating fifth graders and their teacher. The study shows three aspects of these visits: therapeutic, learning through connection, and joy.
Which course tools, design approaches, and instructional activities do students find most effective in online courses? The researchers sought to understand what discussion board designs and community-building strategies foster meaningful peer learning and what instructor approaches students find helpful in navigating AI integration constructively and ethically. Grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model and Community of Inquiry framework, findings will guide evidence-based recommendations for online course design and instructor pedagogy while thoughtfully integrating emerging technologies.
This study explores educators’ meaning-making with Mindful Outdoor Engagements (MOEs) – slow, guided walks through forest spaces. In semi-structured interviews with educators participating in MOEs, participants shared experiencing a deeper connection to nature; using MOEs as a counter to technology saturation; and supporting the development of social-emotional skills and environmental care.
This study examines how infusing disability justice principles into a literacy methods course shaped general education teacher candidates’ perceptions of disability, ableism, identity, and advocacy. Findings suggest that disability justice can prepare general education candidates to view inclusion as a collective responsibility and improve candidates' confidence in working in inclusive classrooms.
Drawing on experience across both P–12 and higher education settings, including training and supervising teacher candidates in school-based placements, the session highlights how strong partnerships between schools and educator preparation programs can enhance outcomes for students and strengthen the special education workforce. Participants will examine classroom-based applications of EBPs and learn how cross-generational collaboration among practicing educators, mentor teachers, and teacher candidates can support inclusive, responsive instruction for diverse learners. The presentation emphasizes professional learning across the educator career continuum—from pre-service preparation through in-service practice—and offers strategies for reimagining educator preparation to meet the needs of today's and tomorrow's classrooms. Attendees will leave with ready-to-implement tools, resources, and supervisory practices that support both student transition outcomes and the development of highly effective special educators.
Teacher candidates often enter the classroom with little preparation about how to collaborate with paraeducators, yet these individuals have important roles in instruction and classroom support. This proposed presentation seeks to evoke dialogue among participants about the challenges, intergenerational issues, and recommended strategies to address this important problem of practice.
This presentation explores Cardinal Classroom, an online synchronous early field experience for pre-service teachers. Participants will learn how enrichment-based virtual instruction supports authentic clinical practice, culturally responsive teaching, reflective learning, and technology integration while fostering elementary student engagement and expanding flexible field experience opportunities within teacher preparation programs.
Restorative and community circles foster cross-generational relationships that strengthen well-being, communication, and problem-solving skills. Research highlights increased student voice, stronger relationships, and enhanced respect, empathy, and accountability among members. Findings reinforce the need to reimagine teacher preparation to emphasize relational, community-building practices that promote belonging and acceptance in today’s classrooms.
Reimagining educator preparation requires expanding beyond instructional competence to include systemic supports for special educator well-being and career sustainability. This presentation explores how humanistic, trauma-informed frameworks and coordinated preparation-to-practice systems can reduce burnout and attrition. Emphasis is placed on embedding resilience, reflective practice, and organizational supports across pre-service preparation, induction, and ongoing professional development.
I focus my presentation briefly on the pedagogical literature surrounding Zines but I center mostly on the process by which I introduce zine-making to my new secondary ELA teachers, highlighting particular tools I use to do so: how-to zine videos from teenagers themselves, pre-writing and visual composing strategies, stepsheets, gallery walks and single-point rubrics. I will also show examples of both the collaborative Zine and the individual Zines new teachers made. Starting out as new teachers with their adolescent students so entrenched in the digital realm, I hoped to get us writing together by emphasizing key structures vital to the composing process, which hands-on zine-making makes evident. Throughout the course, we focus on questions of student voice and its relationship to the visual (Thomsen, 2014) as well as the multimodal and multigeneric (Early, 2022). The zine is one way we think through these questions as the new teachers consider not only what their voice might sound like but what it might look like on the page. The focus on zines, in addition to introducing teachers to a less common classroom genre, allows us to consider the important balance in writing instruction between process and product, including attention to writing as making.
This session aims brings a generational perspective of mathematics learning in the elementary classroom. The goal of the session is to explore and extrapolate how mathematical thinking of an elementary teacher candidate changed after taking a mathematics pedagogy course. The teacher candidate will explain activities they engaged in during the course which expanded their views of what mathematics can be in a classroom and reflect on personal narratives about their changing ideas comparing how math is and can be taught. The session will share ideas for re-humanizing mathematics as a subject within the elementary classroom.
Effective emergency preparedness for children with autism may require individualization and educator training. This presentation will share outcomes from a professional development on designing and implementing fire and lockdown drill interventions and their social validity. Practical implications for improving training, implementation and preparedness in special education environments will be presented.
This interactive session guides educators through a practical, step-by-step process for developing a meaningful and manageable assessment plan. Designed especially for new assessment coordinators and program leaders, the session focuses on moving from fragmented data collection to a coherent system that informs decision-making.
This paper presents findings from a mixed-methods research project to learn more about how pre-service teachers in a PWI make meaning of barriers and opportunities experienced within their teacher education. Utilizing critical whiteness theory, we seek to understand how participants articulate their social identities as they narrate navigating those experiences.
AI is a presence in life today. The use of AI in schools is both a blessing and a curse. Our presentation will present the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of AI in the classroom and how we are preparing Candidates to use the positive aspects, mitigate the negative aspects and to be reflective users of AI to ensure that students are not being harmed by the use of AI.
This project is a collaboration with the 9/11 Museum and Memorial, Bronx Community College/CUNY, and 4 secondary social studies teachers (NYC public schools) who will attend professional development sessions. They will analyze and implement resources from the Library of Congress Sept. 11 Digital Archive: http://911digitalarchive.org and the 9/11 Museum & Memorial.
This roundtable discussion showcases a mentoring program whereby alumni from a graduate program in early childhood special education are brought back to the university to serve as mentors to teacher candidates who are completing their graduate training and beginning their first year of teaching.
How can reluctance be a model for problem solving? This presentation will explore the Reluctant to Lead (RtL) model as a frame for problem solving in a university education. The first-year experience of a reluctant department chair will create the backdrop to explore the usefulness of this model.
This session will share how an undergraduate teacher candidate designed a task to examine elementary students’ mathematical thinking. The teacher candidate will explain the process of engaging in this high leverage teaching practice, from formulating questions and encouraging multimodal engagement, to listening to student responses and interpreting the student thinking.
At this roundtable, findings will be shared from a research literature review on the strategic shift from traditional, text-centric instruction to a multimedia-rich learning environment. By leveraging diverse media formats, educators can optimize cognitive processing, reduce learning barriers, and foster deeper student engagement. This approach is grounded in the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, specifically utilizing Multiple Means of Engagement to meet the diverse needs of modern learners. As classrooms become more diverse, educators need to meet the needs of all learners through multiple instructional practices.
Student voice and student engagement in special education classrooms are often limited. In many classrooms, teachers remain at the center of instruction by providing directions, while students primarily serve as receivers of information. This study examined the impact of professional learning on student voice and engagement in a 12:1:1 high school special education setting. Four teachers participated in a pre-assessment survey about student voice in the classroom and indicated their interest in receiving training. Three modes of presentation were offered: visual aids, video modeling, and professional development. Teachers selected different modes for training: one selected video modeling, one selected visual supports, and two selected professional development. Pre-assessment data were collected through teacher observations using the Danielson rubric, and post-assessment data were collected after the intervention. Teachers who selected modeling and professional development improved their instructional practices and student engagement ratings by two points, while the teacher who selected visual aids improved by one point. Overall, the results suggest that student engagement improved following the intervention. Limitations of the study include the small sample size and the relationship between the evaluator and the teachers.
Facilitators of the round table will share techniques and tools to foster community and student engagement in online spaces, encourage participants to share their experiences, and create a space for conversations about the complexities of artificial intelligence in teacher preparation.
This qualitative case study explores preservice social studies teachers’ engagement in an instructional intervention designed to foster critical evaluation of AI-generated lesson materials. Findings indicate that participants valued AI for efficiency and ease of use but preferred human-generated materials due to concerns about academic rigor, personalization, and pedagogical effectiveness.
Associate Professor, Educational Psychology, Queens College, CUNY
Alpana Bhattacharya is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology in the Secondary Education and Youth Services department at Queens College and the Ph.D. Program in Educational Psychology at the Graduate Center, the City University of New York. Her research interests include lit... Read More →
The Center for Online Teaching and Learning (COTL) at Bank Street Graduate School of Education embodies Bank Street’s progressive philosophy, which supports innovative teaching and learning online. The presenters will highlight and offer how professional development is evolving as a collaborative endeavor among colleagues.
Director of Online Learning, Bank Street Graduate School of Education
Laura Zadoff, Ed.M., is Director of Online Learning at Bank Street Graduate School of Education where she supports faculty in teaching with technology and is engaged in the development of new online programs. Prior experiences include teacher coach at Wide World, Harvard Graduate... Read More →
This session examines Interactive Notebooks (INBs) as a multimodal, personalized learning tool that blends course content with student-generated sketches and reflections. INBs promote engagement, organization, and retention while modeling scaffolded, active learning for preservice teachers (PSTs). Participants will explore classroom examples and strategies for integrating paper and digital formats across disciplines.
Preparing early career teachers to implement evidence-based practices with rigor and fidelity can seem overwhelming. We will share a structured nine-step, data-based decision-making model that prepares teachers to implement, monitor and evaluate the impact of their interventions using single-case designs. We will highlight the feasibility and social validity of this work and how “practice” can inform “research”.
I am the coordinator of the Exceptional Education Early Childhood (B-2) Students with Disabilities Program. This graduate program prepares pre-service and in-service teachers to work with young children with disabilities. My research interests center around autism spectrum disorder... Read More →
The Touro GSE Office of Clinical Practice began a comprehensive review of data collected from school leaders, cooperating teachers, clinical supervisors, and teacher candidates. The findings sparked a reimagined clinical practice based on a performance-based model emphasizing the ability to teach, respond to diverse student needs, and positively impact learning outcomes.
Teachers’ roles are continuously evolving, reflecting shifts in educational paradigms and societal expectations. While teachers remain central to student learning outcomes and curriculum delivery, they increasingly face challenges, such as teacher burnout. Could artificial intelligence (AI) alleviate teacher burnout? The presentation will discuss research that investigated the possibilities of innovative and inclusive education by exploring how free AI tools can support special education teachers. Findings will offer valuable insights into effective instructional strategies using emerging technologies, helping to inform teacher training and professional development initiatives.
How can a rural educator preparation program sustain reciprocal K-12 partnerships when mentor teacher shortages make traditional student teaching placements in local school districts scarce? This roundtable presents one college's response: a course-embedded clinical model organized around preparation, site visits, and guided reflections. Grounded in reciprocity and third space theory, the model creates repeated, intentional points of contact among candidates, faculty, teachers, and principals, even (or despite) when full student teaching placements are unavailable locally. Emerging findings suggest this flexible approach sustains relationships, supports rural schools facing staffing constraints, and functions as an early workforce-development strategy. Attendees will leave with a practical model adaptable to placement-limited contexts and will be invited to share their own partnership strategies from rural and other settings.
