NCATE Annual Report
Conceptual Framework:
The Teacher Education Council is made up of all coordinators of teacher education programs in the unit, including those outside of the College. They meet on a monthly basis to discuss changes in the state requirements, to review and use data on the professional education system. They have recently reviewed the existing conceptual framework to see if it is current and reflective of the professional education programs. They also evaluated how well it was aligned with the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Profession. The evaluation revealed the need for our conceptual framework to reflect more emphasis on the Ohio Standard #3: “Teachers understand and use varied assessments to inform instruction, evaluate, and ensure student learning” and Ohio Standard #4: “Teachers plan and deliver instruction that advances the learning of each individual student.” The work to revise the conceptual framework continues.
Standard 1:
All of our programs have been reviewed and are nationally recognized except for the program in School Library Media. We have recently shifted this program from the College of Education, Health and Human Services to the School of Library and Information Services where it is more appropriately placed and, therefore, avoids duplicative programs. The School of Library and Information Services has American Library Association accreditation which covers the School Library Media program. The School Psychology program, though listed as expired, was offered an extension so that it could move onto the same review cycle as all of the other programs.
All programs but one have students passing the state licensure exam (Praxis II PLT and Content tests) above 80%, suggesting that our candidates do have a firm grasp of content and pedagogical knowledge. Candidates meet professional, state, and institutional standards.
Candidates demonstrated success in application of their knowledge and skills as seen on the Student Teaching assessment. There are five domains covered: Planning, Establishing the Learning Environment, Teaching, Professionalism, and Technology. Means across the 22 items in these five domains varied from 3.6-3.84 (on a four point scale).
The Teacher Work Sample (TWS) has two sections that address the candidates’ ability to assess student learning and use it to plan instruction. For both sections, candidates either met the acceptable or exceeds level, demonstrating their ability to assess student learning.
Candidates in programs preparing them to serve as other school professionals (school library media specialists, school psychologists, school counselors, speech pathologists and audiologists) demonstrated adequate content and pedagogical knowledge as exemplified on their passing Praxis II scores.
Dispositions assessments continue to be completed at three points during the candidates’ program: in the Education in Society course (one of their first education courses), sometime during their methods classes, and while they are student teaching. Professional Development Plans are completed if there are particular issuesin their programs. Students will not be able to student teach if they do not complete these plans. The advanced programs and programs for other school professionals manage the assessment of dispositions within their admissions procedures and clearance for practicum/internship experiences.
The unit has a number of very active partnerships with surrounding school districts. There is the KEEP Math Academy that is a collaborative venture with the faculty in Arts and Sciences. This partnership brings together math education and math faculty from Kent State with teachers in five partnership schools to explore the new core math standards. The math high school teachers have been offered jobs to teach the basic math courses. Education Works and Northeast Ohio has foundation support to work with five districts to support teachers’ attempts to personalize the learning environment. The Teacher Education Council brings together faculty from all over campus who are involved in teacher education to discuss issues and plan for the changes occurring in teacher education across the state. We are in the process of forming a Center for STEM Outreach which brings together faculty in our college with the faculty in arts and sciences in order to facilitate collaborations with local school districts in support of STEM education. A director for the center is being hired jointly. We are also represented in the community through our work on the Portage County P-16 Partnership Council and through our collaboration with community leaders exploring possible sponsorship of a community charter school, as well as other possible collaborations with school districts in Northeast Ohio.
Service to school communities occurs through our Professional Development and Outreach Office. The coordinator markets certificate programs, workshops, and on-site degree programs to the schools in the area and via on-line course work. The Reading Specialist certificate is being offered in multiple locations on-site. The Evaluation and Measurement program offers on-line cohort programs for teachers who are interested in up-dating their assessment skills.
Student advising is evaluated each year via a survey sent to all undergraduates. 260 students from our college responded noting the following strengths: there is value in undergraduate advising, students use advisors for a range of needs, students recognize the quality of the advising, and they recognize the quality of the advising staff. Areas for improvement listed were: the availability of advisors for appointments and the sense of getting conflicting information.
Standard 2:
The Unit Assessment System remains the same with assessments in place for the initial licensure students that examine progress at entry, admission to advanced study, exit from student teaching, and graduation.
Because of changes at the state level, we have been modifying the system during the last year. The state had previously required Praxis III as the assessment of novice teachers (at the end of their third year) which served as a follow up of our graduates. They no longer require this assessment and have shifted to a Resident Educator model which is fully in place as of July 2011. Consequently, we no longer have data from the field for our graduates. The state is shifting to the Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) which will become our assessment of graduates in the field. We had also modeled our Student Teaching Assessment on the Praxis III. Consequently, we are revising this now to incorporate the Ohio Professional Educator Standards.
Another change at the state level was the end of funding for administering the Teacher Quality Partnership assessment. This was a student satisfaction survey administered at the end of candidates’ programs and for the first three years in the field. We have replaced this state-wide assessment with a student satisfaction survey administered just after graduation. We administered the student satisfaction survey for the first time last May and found that students were satisfied with the preparation they received in their respective programs. We will continue to administer this survey yearly. Programs are developing follow up assessments of graduates specific to their programs. However, various surveys will be part of a new state-wide metrics system.
The Teacher Education Coordinators Council has been evaluating the Dispositions Assessment that is administered three times during the program at each of the transition points. They have been looking at the validity and fairness of the assessment, consulting with legal counsel on issues of ethics and fairness. The revised version will be ready for use this semester.
The Teacher Work Sample (TWS) has been revised to clarify the rubrics and the process by which faculty are mentoring students in the completion of the assessment. The state of Ohio has been piloting the Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) which will be adopted as a statewide assessment by 2013. We anticipate replacing the TWS with the TPA at that time.
Praxis II continues to serve as the means of assessing content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. Scores continue to be above the 80% pass rate.
The alignment of assessments with the conceptual framework will need to be re-visited once the conceptual framework has been revised.
We completed the fourth year of interviews of district principals who employ our graduates. This time we included principals, curriculum specialists, and department heads. Our focus was on the preparation of mathematics, science, and special education teachers. Seventeen school leaders from nine districts (rural, urban, and suburban) who employed 41 of our graduates were interviewed. Preparation in the areas of math, science, and special education was seen as strong, though the respondents saw a need to balance depth with breadth in the preparation of science teachers. Given the broad range of preparation across the many science disciplines in Ohio, this seems to be more of a criticism of the license than the preparation. In all areas, some challenges were noted in the area of teachers using real life problems in their teaching. Overall, the 41 graduates were rated as strong, well-prepared, teachers who demonstrate a high level of professionalism.
At the advanced level, programs continue to engage in the same system of assessing candidates at the transition points: entry into the program, completion of course work, graduation. These assessments are program specific. More work needs to be done to ensure that candidates are being assessed as part of a capstone experience in all programs.
The unit data are maintained in a web-based format, developed in-house, so that we are able to access current, dynamic information about candidates’ qualifications, proficiencies, and competence. Monthly meetings of the Assessment Committee are used to review both the quality of the assessments and the assessment system overall. Data are gathered throughout the academic year and entered onto the web portal. Reports are generated, both aggregated and disaggregated, as needed and reviewed by the Teacher Education Coordinators group and the Assessment Committee as well as the administration.
The third annual Data Dialogue day was held in August of 2010 in order to review both unit and program data and address the unit operations via a series of questions:
1)Are students successful practitioners as evaluated in light of professional standards?
2)Do students feel satisfied with their preparation for the workforce?
3)Does the Unit/College provide resources and experiences to prepare to work in a technological world?
4)Has the Unit provided the environment, experiences, and vision to prepare candidates to work in a diverse, global society?
5)Do candidates have access to support for their educational experience in terms of advising, financial assistance, and a sense of community?
6)Are faculty active members of their professional community?
7)How well do the assessments tell us what we want to know? Were the assessments fair and accurate measures of student performance?
8)How are students viewed by their employers?
Programs have been maintaining their assessment system data on the faculty-staff web portal so that they can manage and review their data as needed. More consistent recording of these program reviews of data needs to be done.
Data are reviewed by the programs, committees, and administration involved in professional education on a regular basis. In particular, we have focused on the need for faculty to enter unit data and program data on a regular basis so that they can be reviewed and used to improve programs. Programs that did enter data in response to the Data Dialogue Day have indicated what changes or improvements have resulted from their reviews of data. Data are shared on an irregular basis with candidates.
Standard 3:
There is a Clinical Experiences Advisory Council made up of faculty, supervisors, and school personnel that meets regularly to plan and revise the clinical experiences for our candidates. Our clinical supervisors must be licensed in the area that they are supervising and have substantial experience in teaching/the field. Most of our supervisors are retired teachers, clinicians, or administrators. They carry a supervision load of between 6-10 candidates. Placements occur in over 80 districts ranging from rural, suburban, and urban. All student teaching placements are a minimum of 12 weeks in length. Our advanced programs have internships or capstone, field-based experiences. The Curriculum and Instruction program has just instituted a field-based capstone experience.
The Student Teaching Assessment has three items that assess our candidates’ ability to use technology in their instruction. Candidates score a mean of 3.7 over these three items (out of a four point scale).
Standard 4:
Our candidates are primarily white (93%) though we have approximately 2.5% identifying as Black, non Hispanic, and 1.37% identifying as Hispanic. We continue to recruit students from under-represented populations via high school visits, graduate fairs, and web-based efforts. We also have a professional advisor who has part of his assignment focused on the recruitment and retention of minority students. We are hoping to expand this focus over the next coupl of years.
In spring 2010, six study groups were formed around topics that have emerged from data related to NCATE and conversations about our long-term goals. Each group has the following charge: Explore the current situation (in the schools and in our programs); explore what the research/theory/practice tells us are potential ways to address the current situation; develop learning outcomes for all candidates and for those candidates who want to focus in this area; make recommendations for learning experiences for all candidates and for those who want to focus in this area, paying particular attention to clinical practice; make recommendations for assessing the learning outcomes; make recommendations for additional resources that are needed to implement the plan.Each study group includes faculty, doctoral students and school faculty/administration. Several of the study groups were created to explore issues of diversity and received university funding to do so: “Teaching and Learning in High Poverty Schools,” “Global Learning,” “Preparing General Education Teachers to Work with Students Who Have Special Needs.”
The Teaching and Learning in High Poverty Schools study group explored the ways that we can prepare our candidates to teaching in high poverty communities and urban districts. The group conducted focus groups with K-12 teachers to determine what pre-service teachers need to know and do to work with these populations. They are developing modules for faculty to use in their respective programs. This, in conjunction with departmental efforts to have a presence in low SES schools, recruit high school students from these areas into teacher education, and offer practicing teachers site-based cohort graduate programs has us on the path to diversifying our student population and community engagement.
Candidates’ ability to discern, respond to, and plan for students from diverse families is assessed during student teaching via the Teacher Work Sample (TWS). Candidates develop a narrative about the contextual factors that influence the students in their classrooms and how these affect their planning and practices. They score at the acceptable or exceeds level in all cases. Candidates have a number of different field experiences with most spending time in districts that are identified as having a large percentage of students on free or reduced lunch. They are placed in urban districts such as Akron, Youngstown, Canton, Warren, and Cleveland.
The unit has as one of its strategic goals to increase our international awareness and presence. One aspect of this is to assess and increase the international content of our curricula. Consequently, as part of a college study group on Global Learningour teacher education programs have explored how they can internationalize their programs through both content and experiences. The Early Childhood program has included content in their program that helps candidates to acquire an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program credential. The Middle Childhood program is also working on this process.
During our last accreditation visit, we received an AFI on 4b: Experiences Working with Diverse Faculty. We had a number of faculty retire during the last two years due to a retirement incentive. Specific efforts have been made to recruit, retain, provide a supportive climate, and offer leadership opportunities to under-represented faculty. The Dean attends the Compact for Faculty Diversity Recruiting Conference and disseminates our job position announcements to minority doctoral students and faculty. The Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education has regularly attended the Holmes Partnership Meeting and has recruited one (and potentially two) Holmes Scholars to the Special Education faculty. We have recruited through targeted publications, through person contacts at conferences, and through direct contacts with candidates. We have made major efforts to recruit diverse faculty during this time through our efforts and all of the faculty searches in 2010 included diverse candidates among the finalists. While the final results were not what we hoped, we did recruit two Asian and one Hispanic faculty members among the 7 tenure-track faculty hired in educator preparation programs. The yield is as follows: we have 7 Black faculty members (2.36%), 3 Hispanic faculty members (1.01%), 6 Asian faculty members (2.02%), and 3 international faculty members who did not fall into these other categories (1.01%). At this point in time, we have a soft hiring freeze in place. However, we have received permission to move forward with interviews of outstanding African-American candidates for two open tenure-track positions.