Putting the Fun Back Into Accreditation w/ Mark LaCelle-Peterson

Fun and accreditation don’t usually appear in the same sentence together. But they should.

When it’s fun, you know it’s working.

In this episode, Dr. Amy Dykens, CEO of Weave Education, speaks with Mark LaCelle-Peterson, Founding Team Member and President at Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP), about how his programs bring fun back to accreditation — and shape the conversation about pedagogy.

Join us as we discuss:

• Strategies that energize colleges about their successes
• 4 performance standards for professional educators
• Building a community of cohorts around participation
• Re-envisioning accreditation as cyclical learning and improvement
• A philosophy of pedagogy focused on student paths to success

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Marilyn Cochran-Smith and her book Reclaiming Accountability in Teacher Education
• Improvement in Action: Advancing Quality in America’s Schools (Continuous Improvement in Education Series) by Anthony S. Bryk
• AAQEP Standards & Guide
• Ep. 2 w/ Linda Suskie

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Mark LaCelle-Peterson

Mark LaCelle-Peterson is the founding President of the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP), an accreditation agency founded in 2017 to strengthen P-20 education through excellent, innovative preparation of educators.

He has worked in accreditation and educator preparation for three decades, serving on the faculty and in leadership roles for several educator preparation programs in New York State. He served as President of the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) and as Senior VP for Programs at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE).

His has enjoyed teaching courses in assessment literacy, historical, social and cultural foundations of education, research methods, social and emotional learning, humanities, and Anglo Saxon and Old Norse literature (in translation). A native of Minnesota, he holds degrees from the University of Minnesota and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. He lives in Rochester, New York, with his family and their canine companions.

AAQEP promotes and recognizes quality educator preparation that strengthens the system’s ability to serve all students, schools, and communities.