COE hosting statewide meeting of teacher preparation leaders June 6-7

More than 40 Florida education officials and teacher preparation leaders will converge upon the University of Florida this Thursday and Friday, June 6-7, for the 3rd annual Summer Institute for Higher Education. This year’s theme is “Cultivating Effective Teachers and Effective Leaders.” The College of Education is hosting the event.

Pictured from left, UF Special Ed faculty and CEEDAR Center co-directors Paul Sindelar, Erica McCray and Mary Brownell will participate in the UF-hosted Summer Institute.

Pictured from left, UF Special Ed faculty and CEEDAR Center co-directors Paul Sindelar, Erica McCray and Mary Brownell will participate in the UF-hosted Summer Institute.

The institute, to be held at UF’s Harn Museum of Art, is co-sponsored by the state Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services and the Florida Teacher Education Division of the international Council for Exceptional Children. 

 Speakers include FLDOE chiefs Eileen McDaniel (Bureau of Educator Recruitment, Development and Retention) and Monica Verra-Tirado (BEESS); Thursday’s keynote speaker Bonnie Billingsley, professor and chair of higher education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; and UF special education professor Mary Brownell, who will give Friday’s keynote address on designing effective professional learning systems for teachers. UF special education professors Jean Crockett, Paul Sindelar and Erica McCray also will participate.

Newberry Elementary School principal Lacy Redd, who has three education degrees from UF and is now pursuing her doctorate at the College of Education, will speak on developing professional learning supports.

The new, federally-funded CEEDAR Center (Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform—based at UF’s College of Education and co-directed by Brownell, Sindelar and McCray—will be featured in some of the presentations and panel discussions.

For more information, contact Alice Kaye Emery at aemery@coe.ufl.edu.