NASDTEC Podcasts

National Board Certification has long been an important part of the conversation about accomplished teaching, educator quality, and the professionalization of teaching. But as the education landscape continues to evolve, so too must the systems that support teachers in pursuing and demonstrating accomplished practice. In this episode, we take a closer look at the state of the National Board movement in 2026, from candidate experiences and assessment integrity to partnerships, evolving standards, and the policies shaping opportunities for educators. We also look ahead to what the next five years could hold for National Board Certification and what state leaders, districts, and educator preparation programs should be watching. To help us explore these issues, I’m joined by two leaders who bring complementary perspectives to the conversation: Peggy Brookins, President and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and Wyatt Gordon, Senior Vice President and Head of Evaluation Systems at Pearson.

This episode explores how educators can use AI tools to develop lessons that are grounded in research and evidence-based instructional practices rather than convenience or whatever an AI system happens to generate. Carlton Glassford, author of "Suck Less in the Classroom Tomorrow" helps us look at how a simple lesson outline can become a more thoughtful, differentiated instructional plan, with tools such as Eddie AI helping educators identify research-based strategies and provide citations that make the reasoning behind instructional decisions more transparent.

As we work to define what novice educators need to know and be able to do from the very beginning of their careers, one question stands at the center of the conversation: What does the science of learning and development tell us about how teachers should be prepared to understand and support their students? In this episode of What’s Going On, Mary-Dean Barringer, Project Manager for the NEEC project, joins Dr. Maria Hyler, Director of the EdPrepLab, an initiative of the Learning Policy Institute and Bank Street College of Education, and Dr. Diana Lys, Assistant Dean of Educator Preparation and Accreditation at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill School of Education, to explore that question. They look at what the science tells us about how students learn and develop, how that knowledge can shape teacher preparation programs, and which competencies are essential for helping novice teachers become adaptive, reflective, and effective professionals.

In this episode, we explore a new resource designed to help educators navigate the ethical questions that arise in an increasingly complex professional landscape. The Ethical Decision-Making Support for Educators (EDMSE) is an AI-powered tool developed by the NASDTEC, and sponsored by the National Council for the Advancement of Educator Ethics (NCAEE). The tool can be found at EducatorEthics.org or directly at chat.EducatorEthics.org. Dr. Troy Hutchings, NASDTEC's Senior Policy Advisor joins Victor Nguyen, developer of the EDMSE chatbot, to talk about the tool, how it came about, what guardrails are in place, and how educators from the bus driver to the superintendent can use it.

In this episode, Krista Ried, the NASDTEC Vice President and chair of the Annual Conference Planning Committee joins Susan Pinson, the NASTDEC Professional Learning Coordinator, and Aimee Green-Webb, the Development Coordinator for NASDTEC, to give an overview of what we can expect at NASDTEC’s 97th Annual Conference coming this June in Indianapolis, IN. 

In this, the 3rd part of a three part series on teacher hiring, Dan Goldhaber, the Director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data and Education Research (CALDER), which is joint project with the American Institutes for Research (AIR), discusses his research with the Spokane school district concerning vetting of teacher candidates. A summary of this research can be found at https://caldercenter.org/sites/default/files/2025-05/CALDER-Brief-38-0525_0.pdf. 

In this 2nd part of a three episode series, Dr. Paul Bruno, Assistant Professor of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, discusses his research concerning teacher hiring and how school districts can hire teachers more effectively, including for specific types of positions and with different student populations.

This episode of What's Going On...is the first episode of a three part series. Danielle Pickens, CEO of the Urban Schools Human Capital Academy (USHCA), discusses how local education agency leaders can identify were workforce systems are breaking down and what can be done to fix them.

In this episode, Maryam Rod Szabo, an Administrative Consultant in the Iowa Office of Educator Quality, discusses their work developing a comprehensive mathematics workbook designed for educator preparation programs. This tool supports curriculum revision and self-assessment efforts to ensure that educator preparation aligns with the instructional needs of Iowa’s K–12 mathematics system following the state's update of its mathematics academic standards in 2024.

In this episode, Mary-Dean Barringer and Rebecca Pitkin discuss the work of the Novice Educator Essential Competencies (NEEC) Steering Committee. The NASDTEC Executive Board commissioned an Ad hoc committee to review the InTASC standards. Those standards are owned by CCSSO. In June of 2025, the Ad hoc committee reported  their review and recommended NASDTEC provide and additional resource listing essential competencies for novice teachers to compliment InTASC, allowing states, should they wish, to align their initial licensure and program approval to these competencies. To that end, In October 2025, NASDTEC launched the Novice Educator Essential Competencies Initiative. This episode reviews the work of the committee to date and future steps.