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Proposal for an NCATE Transformational Initiative
A RESEARCH ON PRACTICE MODEL FOR IMPROVING
UNDERGRADUATE TEACHER EDUCATION.
College of Education, East Carolina University
Statement of Purpose
The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Transformation Initiative (TI) provides member institutions with anaccreditation pathway that focuses on significant contributions to the field of education. NCATE believes that the field of education is in need of an expanded research base to document and substantiate promising and effective practices and innovations. Many of NCATE’s member institutions focuson improving the overall quality of education by preparing more effective future educators, enhancing the effectiveness of current educators, conducting practice-based research, and providing services in real-world schools. All of these endeavors have the potential to inform the field at large through a rigorous process of research and development. Thus, NCATE’s Transformation Initiative seeks accreditation proposals that document promising practices, innovations and interventions directed at transforming educator preparation for greater effectiveness. The following outlines the proposed TI Project of the College of Education at East Carolina University.
The East Carolina University (ECU) was founded as East Carolina Teachers College in 1907. In 2003, the School of Education became the College of Education(COE). The University and the region it serves see the COE as the preparer of teachers and administrators for eastern North Carolina. The pride that ECU teacher education graduates take into the field is evident in many ways:they willingly mentor candidates in early field experiences and internship, they attend annual professional development that keeps them abreast of program changes, and they provide candid feedback about candidate preparedness. The community of stakeholders in eastern North Carolina - candidates, faculty, public school partners, and business and community leaders want and need more effective novice teachers who can have a positive impact on PK-12 students as soon as they enter the classroom.
The ECU TI Proposal considers the institution’s historical role in eastern North Carolina and its key role in developing a better economic future for the regionthrough practice-based initiatives transform key elements of teacher preparation yield positive impacts on the PK-12 schools in which our graduates work. During the past several years, the COE has embarked upon several initiatives that now form the foundation of this TI proposal. In 2006, the ECU and the COE began strategic investments in safe-guarding the institution’s teacher performance data and laid the groundwork for the development of an integrated assessment system. In 2009, the ECU COE received a USDOE Teacher Quality Partnership Grant (TQP) to reform teacher education in several key areas, including curriculum reform and clinical partnerships. In 2010, the COE joined the national Teacher Performance Assessment Consortium (TPAC) and began piloting and field testing the ed-Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) in several teacher education program areas. The present TI Proposal unites these efforts with a seriesof additional individual initiatives in our K-8 teacher preparation programs that previously operated as individual, separate activities within specific teacher education programs. In a sustained, integrated effort to strengthen teacher candidate development throughout our programs, the College of Education (COE) has developed the present the ECU TI Proposal: A Research on Practice Model for Improving Undergraduate Teacher Education.
I. Significance of the Proposed TI Project
The proposed ECU TI Proposal is both multi-faceted and coordinated. The project is multi-faceted in that the overall initiative consists of a series of components within the undergraduate teaching programs in Elementary Education and in Middle Grades Education. The Elementary Education and Middle Grades Education department prepares 50% of the COE candidates seeking an initial teaching license. While other areas of teacher education couldimplement the components with adaptations, they are not included in the ECU TI Proposal presented here. The idea that the components are coordinated is based on two complementary perspectives. The first is that the components themselves are explicit enhancements to the overall teacher education programs in the Elementary Education and Middle Grades Education areas. The second is that each of the components addresses systemic aspects of teacher education that enhance program quality and have been identified as issues in the field. Considered as a set of complementary components, the proposed ECU TI Proposal reflects a college-wide “Research on Practice” model through which the COE supports research and development (R&D) on systemic issues in teacher preparation.
Although teacher education is an active area of educational research, the involvement of Colleges of Education whose primary mission is undergraduate teacher education has been an underutilized resource in such research. This is despite the fact that such Colleges of Education and their faculty whose focus is on preparing undergraduate teachers operate in a research-rich environment that naturally encompass all of the systemic dynamics in the process of teacher education. The proposed ECU TI Proposal demonstrates how development of the support capacity within a College of Education can provide the means to engage undergraduate teacher education faculty in the forms of research and development that address systemic elements of the teacher education process.
The significance of the Research on Practice Model for Improving Undergraduate Teacher Education is threefold. First, the model coordinates the implementation and research design for innovative initiatives across the teacher education curriculum by linking them vertically to study and assess their individual outcomes and overall integrated value to the programs. Second, the model leverages previous and current resource investments in curriculum development, instructional innovation, and systematic, integrated data collection to scaffold and sustain faculty research on practice. Lastly, the model engages teacher education faculty in practice-based research withan overall focus of preparing effective novice teachers (improving teacher candidate readiness to teach) who are able to have a positive impact on PK-12 student achievement.
Literature Review
The Research on Practice Model has roots in the research literature as a response to the current national focus on the need for increased accountability in teacher education and as overall conceptual framework to link the multifaceted components of the project. First, the project will be framed in the national context, and then the research literature for preparing effective novice teachers will be presented.
National Context for the TI Proposal
Accountability in schools of education has been influenced by the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). The NCLB required that all teachers teaching in core academic subjects be “highly qualified.” However, the parameters of highly qualified were to be determined by each state, resulting in multiple definitions of the term. Therefore, a highly qualified teacher in one state may not be considered highly qualified in another. In 2004, the State Higher Education Executive Offices (SHEEO) established the National Commission on Accountability in Higher Education and charged it to address the issue of accountability in higher education. In the overview of its background and purpose of the commission, Executive Director, Paul Lingenfelter identified the impact of NCLB as one of the “prominent features on the landscape.” Lingenfelter asserted that “the urgent national interest in improving educational attainment naturally leads to the suggestion that ‘reform’ in higher education along the lines experienced for K-12 is appropriate and inevitable” (2004, p. 2).
The current demand for accountability in post-secondary education can arguably be traced back to the 2006 report issued by the Commission on the Future of Higher Education. A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U. S. Higher Education (also known as the Spellings Report) addressed concerns about the deterioration of the American higher education system. The report addressed four primary areas of concern: access, affordability, quality, and accountability. The commission called for the development of a large, public database of information about colleges and universities including data about the learning outcomes of students. (p. 22). According to the commission, public access to this information would compel institutions of higher education to have a more vested interest in the success of their students.
The implementation of Race to the Top (RttT) has spurred a shift from requiring teachers to be “highly qualified” to assuring teachers are “highly effective.” One of the goals of the program is to hold teacher preparation programs accountable for preparing their graduates to positively impact student achievement in the PK-12 classroom. Each participating state is expected to publicly report data on the effectiveness of graduates from each state preparation program. In order to receive RttT funds, states must be willing to tie teacher evaluations to student performance.
Calls for accountability have also been addressed at the state level. In 1998, California enacted a law requiring all teacher candidates to successfully complete a state-approved performance assessment in order to be eligible for licensure. Until recently Connecticut required beginning teachers to pass a performance assessment in their second or third year of teaching in order to be eligible for a professional license. (The requirement was suspended in 2008 due to funding issues.) Both assessments have been validated to be predictors of student achievement (Pecheone & Chung, 2006; Wilson, Hallam, Pecheone, & Moss, 2007). Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Tennessee, and Washington are on accelerated timelines to adopt a valid and reliable teacher performance assessment as mandated by state law (CCSSO, 2011).
In 2010, the NCATE Blue Ribbon Plan on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Student Learning released its report which included “10 Design Principles for Clinically Based Preparation.” This document was a call to action for teacher education programs nationwide. Elements of the ten design principles may be in place in certain programs, but it is the coordinated and integrated effect of all principles that is thought to bring about the change needed in teacher preparation. The shift proposed would require “structural, financial, programmatic, and policy changes for all partners (p.12).” National models for changing clinically based programs, financing the innovations, and assessing the impact of teacher preparation were highlighted. Of these promising programs, four are included in this TI proposal for a Research on Practice Model.
Elements in the Preparation of Effective Novice Teachers. Effective teaching is something people believe they are able to recognize when they see it. Having been students themselves, the public has experienced the benefits of effective teachers and shared horror stories of ineffective teachers. Despite this vast experience, much disagreement exists over how to define an effective teacher, much less how to prepare effective teachers. The issues are vast and include defining effective teaching, practicing effective teaching, assessing effective teaching, supporting effective teaching, and learning how to reflect effectively on teaching. A brief review of the literature in these areas follows.
Defining Effective Teaching.Effective teaching does not happen by chance. Researchers, educators, politicians, and the public have all tried to answer the question, “What essential qualities make an effective teacher?” Recently, various frameworks have emerged that provide research-based, comprehensive approaches to describing and identifying effective teaching.
In 2007, Charlotte Danielson released her Framework for Teaching. This research-based framework included 4 major domains: planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction, and professional responsibilities (Danielson, 2011). The domains were then broken into 22 components that are defined even further. Presently, the domains and categories align closely with the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standards for new teachers. These INTASC standards are the national professional teaching standards for new teachers. Danielson’s framework has been widely accepted and incorporated into other projects including a collaborative partnership with Educational Testing Service (ETS) that resulted in the development of the Teachscape observation instrument for teachers (Teachscape, 2011).
The Danielson Framework was incorporated into another project through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of their Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project. This project has been designed to find the best way to give teachers the information and support needed to be effective in the classroom. Emphasis is placed on how to measure effective teaching and teachers. Researchers in the study are collecting multiple points of data ranging from student feedback to videotaped classroom lessons. The intent is that the results will inform how to identify effective teaching and support teachers in reaching those levels (Danielson’s Framework for Teaching for Classroom Observations, 2010).
In addition to Danielson's work in defining effective teaching, Doug Lemov (2010) discovered in a five year project of recording the best teachers he could find across the country, according to test scores, that what looked like “natural-born genius was often deliberate technique in disguise.” Lemov’s book, Teach Like a Champion: The 49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College, describes step by step techniques for effective teachers.
Lemov’s effective teaching techniques are minute decisions the teacher makes throughout the school day like “Stand still when you’re giving directions” and “call on students regardless of whether they have raised their hands.” By observing hundreds of classrooms where outstanding teachers had transformed at risk students into high achievers, Lemov found that there are techniques every teacher can learn and employ to become effective.
Linda Darling-Hammond defines effective teachers as those who engage students in active learning, create intellectually ambitious tasks, use a variety of teaching strategies, assess student learning continuously and adapt teaching to student needs, create effective scaffolds and supports, provide clear standards, constant feedback, and opportunities for revising work, and develop and effectively manage a collaborative classroom in which all students have membership (Darling-Hammond, 2012).
Building on the past work of Lemov, Danielson, and others, University of Michigan's Deborah Loewenberg Ball led the development of the Teaching Works framework. This initiative was designed to disseminate a core set of skills for beginning teachers while serving as a clearinghouse of information and research about high-quality teacher education. These high-leverage practices total 19 and include, but are not limited to, making content explicit through modeling, setting up group work, setting long- and short-term learning goals for students, designing a sequence of lessons toward a specific learning goal, identifying and implementing an instructional response to common patterns of student thinking, eliciting and interpreting individual students' thinking, selecting particular methods to check understanding and monitor student learning, providing feedback, and communicating with other professionals (Sawchuk, 2011).
The University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning ( found that there are four big teaching practices that have the most effect on teaching and learning. This comprehensive framework of excellence is titled “The Big Four” and includes these four areas: (1) classroom management, (2) content planning, (3) instruction, and (4) assessment for learning
Role of Clinical Practice in Effective Teacher Preparation.Current trends in the literature suggest that a quality clinical experience is a key essential in preparing teacher candidates. This experience is the teacher candidate’s chance to be in the classroom, experiment with strategies and content from methods courses, and begin making classroom decisions in a long-term teaching environment. Practicum experiences vary widely in different programs. Candidates experience practice in a variety of settings before beginning their internships.
The expansion of practice as extended, multiple, supervised experiences in diverse settings closely conjoined with coursework is emerging as a protocol through which teacher preparation programs can better prepare preservice teachers for success with all students (Beyer, 1991; Bouas & Thompson, 2000; Cooper, Beare, & Thorman, 1990; Ladson-Billings, 1991; Larke, Wiseman, & Bradley, 1990; Sleeter, 2001). Supervision and reflection become crucial in these types of practice as students’ beliefs and attitudes are impacted by the multiple field experiences (Bondy, Schmitz, & Johnson, 1993; Brown, 2004; Johnson, 2002).
Most educators value field experiences as an important part of learning to teach (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Hammerness, Darling-Hammond, & Bransford, 2005). Discussion continues among educators as to what conditions create the most effective learning environment for preservice teachers (Zeichner, 2012). Some educators believe that more time in schools does not necessarily help preservice teachers. The main criticism with field experiences stems from their apparent lack of connectedness to the other components in the teacher preparation programs (Guyton & Byrd, 2000; NCATE, 2001; NCTE, 1996; Fein-Nemser, 2001; Richardson, 1996; Wilson, FlodenFerrini-Mundy, 2001; Ziechner, 1990 as cited in Graham, 2006). The components that seem to be most effective in field experiences include field experiences that are carefully coordinated with coursework and are supervised (Darling-Hammond, Hammerness, Grossman, Rust, and Shulman, 2005; NAE, 2005; Zeichner, 2010). Darling-Hammond (2010) stated that preservice teachers need to learn “to practice in practice, with expert guidance.” It is important the preservice teachers are given the opportunity to teach, receive feedback, reflect on the teaching episode, and then teach again in a cyclical fashionthroughout the semester as well as the teacher education program (Darling-Hammond, 2010).As a result, programs across the nation are reconsidering current practice and program requirements with a focal point of greater integration of coursework and practice, as well as expanded field experience.
Role of Assessing Effective TeachingProficiency.An increasing challenge for faculty within colleges of teacher education is creating effective methods of assessing teacher candidates’ ability to use information they have learned in their university courses as they enter the classroom. While colleges of teacher education have attempted to do this for years, there is increased pressure coming from the public and state legislatures to produce evidence that graduates of programs are effective teachers. This challenge requires updated performance-based assessments that include innovative approaches to the assessment of preservice teachers including but not limited to attempts to evaluate knowledge and skills, preservice teacher learning, student learning, professional dispositions, and reflective practices.