Professional News

UK Students, Professor Partner with National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 15, 2015) — Doctoral students in the University of Kentucky College of Education recently partnered with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) to enrich the ATLAS (Accomplished Teaching, Learning and Schools™) resource. More than just a video library, ATLAS cases demonstrate board-certified teachers’ approaches to teaching and make accomplished practice accessible.

The searchable online library of authentic videos shows National Board Certified Teachers at work in their classrooms. ATLAS cases include authentic, in-classroom video and instructional materials together with the teachers’ own written reflection and analysis, from lesson planning and instruction to impact on student learning.

Representatives from NBPTS met with Kathy Swan and doctoral students at UK over the course of three days to tag the cases to the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards. The C3 Framework now sits alongside the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards as a filter for content on the searchable database.

Swan explained, "The backbone of the C3 Framework is an inquiry arc made up of four dimensions, including questioning, knowing, evaluating and communicating in the social studies. While this model of inquiry provides clarity to an often fuzzy practice, the tagging effort allows us to hone in on teachers doing C3 inquiry in the classroom and offer important snapshots of what it looks like when students are developing compelling questions for inquiry or working to take informed action.”

Swan is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the UK College of Education. She is the advisor for the Social Studies Assessment, Curriculum, and Assessment Collaborative (SSACI) at the Chief Council of State School Officers (CCSSO); the project director/lead writer of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards; and is the director of Next Generation Teacher Preparation at the UK College of Education.

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Harder, 859-323-2396, whitney.harder@uky.edu