Tubbs Teaching Connections at UNI explores “The Future of Teaching”

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa - Exploring the future landscape of teaching is the focus of the 2024 Bill and Linda Tubbs Teaching Connections, a professional development day offered by the University of Northern Iowa College of Education. This free event is set for Friday, Dec. 6 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

From innovative approaches to staffing and setting to the impact of technology on teaching, this year's event offers something for practicing administrators and educators as well as faculty preparing these future teachers and pre-service teachers themselves.

Keynote speaker Carole Basile, dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, will address: "The Next Education Workforce: How Team-Based Staffing Models Can Support Equity and Improve Learning Outcomes." Basile's research is centered on redesigning the education workforce and workplace with team-based staffing models to drive more equitable working and learning environments for educators and learners.

"It's a fair question as to whether our current structures are part of the reality of the perceived teacher shortage. Are there different ways to approach our teaching models? And how will technology like AI and the opportunities of online learning impact the teaching landscape? These are among the questions our guests will help us tackle," says Dana Atwood-Blaine, planning committee member and associate professor in the College of Education. "We're especially pleased to have Dean Basile join us, as she's well known for her workforce initiative work at ASU."

Basile will dive deeper into the concept of the "next education workforce" as part of two concurrent tracks on alternative approaches and technology in teaching which follow the keynote. Other topics include online teaching, using AI to improve teaching and learning and alternative frameworks to school structure in Iowa. A full lineup of the topics and presenters can be found at coe.uni.edu/future-teaching.