NCATE Assessment Plan for the School of Education

University of Missouri—Kansas City

School of Education

Assessment Plan

A Framework for Reflective Practice

Updated:

Spring 2011

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Preparing Reflective Practitioners for Tomorrow’s Urban Communities

Table of Contents

Assessment Philosophy...... 1

Mission Statements...... 2

University of Missouri-Kansas City...... 2

School of Education Mission Statement and Conceptual Framework...... 2

Structure of the Unit Assessment System...... 3

Candidate Progress...... 4

A Framework for Reflective Practice (figure)...... 5

Program Validity...... 6

Faculty Performance...... 7

Unit Operations...... 7

Validity, Reliability and Inspection for Bias...... 8-9

References...... A-1

Timeline of Assessment Activities...... A-2

Annual Program Assessment Report Template...... A-4

Annual Assessment Committee Report Template...... A-11

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Preparing Reflective Practitioners for Tomorrow’s Urban Communities

Assessment Philosophy

The School of Education’s assessment framework has been designed to promote continuous program improvement. As “reflective practitioners,” the faculty, staff, and students of the School of Education recognize that program improvement can come in many forms, but that without taking time to examine and critically reflect on programmatic and internal operations there will be little chance of making meaningful or significant changes. While national and professional standards guide the overall assessment system in the School of Education, our system has been designed with the9 Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning (Astin et al, 1997)in mind. These principles are summarized below:

1. The assessment of student learning begins with educational values. Assessment is not an end in itself but a vehicle for educational improvement. Its effective practice, then, begins with and enacts a vision of the kinds of learning we most value for students and strive to help them achieve. Educational values should drive not only what we choose to assess but also how we do so. Where questions about educational mission and values are skipped over, assessment threatens to be an exercise in measuring what's easy, rather than a process of improving what we really care about.
2. Assessment is most effective when it reflects an understanding of learning as multidimensional, integrated, and revealed in performance over time. Learning is a complex process. It entails not only what students know but what they can do with what they know; it involves not only knowledge and abilities but values, attitudes, and habits of mind that affect both academic success and performance beyond the classroom. Assessment should reflect these understandings by employing a diverse array of methods, including those that call for actual performance, using them over time so as to reveal change, growth, and increasing degrees of integration. Such an approach aims for a more complete and accurate picture of learning, and therefore firmer bases for improving our students' educational experience.
3. Assessment works best when the programs it seeks to improve have clear, explicitly stated purposes. Assessment is a goal-oriented process. It entails comparing educational performance with educational purposes and expectations -- those derived from the institution's mission, from faculty intentions in program and course design, and from knowledge of students' own goals. Where program purposes lack specificity or agreement, assessment as a process pushes a campus toward clarity about where to aim and what standards to apply; assessment also prompts attention to where and how program goals will be taught and learned. Clear, shared, implementable goals are the cornerstone for assessment that is focused and useful.
4. Assessment requires attention to outcomes but also and equally to the experiences that lead to those outcomes. Information about outcomes is of high importance; where students "end up" matters greatly. But to improve outcomes, we need to know about student experience along the way -- about the curricula, teaching, and kind of student effort that lead to particular outcomes. Assessment can help us understand which students learn best under what conditions; with such knowledge comes the capacity to improve the whole of their learning.
5. Assessment works best when it is ongoing not episodic. Assessment is a process whose power is cumulative. Though isolated, "one-shot" assessment can be better than none, improvement is best fostered when assessment entails a linked series of activities undertaken over time. This may mean tracking the process of individual students, or of cohorts of students; it may mean collecting the same examples of student performance or using the same instrument semester after semester. The point is to monitor progress toward intended goals in a spirit of continuous improvement. Along the way, the assessment process itself should be evaluated and refined in light of emerging insights.
6. Assessment fosters wider improvement when representatives from across the educational community are involved. Student learning is a campus-wide responsibility, and assessment is a way of enacting that responsibility. Thus, while assessment efforts may start small, the aim over time is to involve people from across the educational community. Faculty play an especially important role, but assessment's questions can't be fully addressed without participation by student-affairs educators, librarians, administrators, and students. Assessment may also involve individuals from beyond the campus (alumni/ae, trustees, employers) whose experience can enrich the sense of appropriate aims and standards for learning. Thus understood, assessment is not a task for small groups of experts but a collaborative activity; its aim is wider, better-informed attention to student learning by all parties with a stake in its improvement.
7. Assessment makes a difference when it begins with issues of use and illuminates questions that people really care about. Assessment recognizes the value of information in the process of improvement. But to be useful, information must be connected to issues or questions that people really care about. This implies assessment approaches that produce evidence that relevant parties will find credible, suggestive, and applicable to decisions that need to be made. It means thinking in advance about how the information will be used, and by whom. The point of assessment is not to gather data and return "results"; it is a process that starts with the questions of decision-makers, that involves them in the gathering and interpreting of data, and that informs and helps guide continuous improvement.
8. Assessment is most likely to lead to improvement when it is part of a larger set of conditions that promote change. Assessment alone changes little. Its greatest contribution comes on campuses where the quality of teaching and learning is visibly valued and worked at. On such campuses, the push to improve educational performance is a visible and primary goal of leadership; improving the quality of undergraduate education is central to the institution's planning, budgeting, and personnel decisions. On such campuses, information about learning outcomes is seen as an integral part of decision making, and avidly sought.
9. Through assessment, educators meet responsibilities to students and to the public. There is a compelling public stake in education. As educators, we have a responsibility to the publics that support or depend on us to provide information about the ways in which our students meet goals and expectations. But that responsibility goes beyond the reporting of such information; our deeper obligation -- to ourselves, our students, and society -- is to improve. Those to whom educators are accountable have a corresponding obligation to support such attempts at improvement.

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Preparing Reflective Practitioners for Tomorrow’s Urban Communities

Mission and Vision Statements

University of Missouri-Kansas City

Vision

UMKC will become a model urban research university characterized by signature graduate and professional programs, a dynamic undergraduate population, a highly diverse faculty, staff and student body, and active engagement with its city and region.

Mission

• Lead in the Life and Health Sciences
• Deepen and Expand Strength in the Visual and Performing Arts
• Develop a Professional Workforce; Collaborate in Urban Issues and Education
• Create a Vibrant Learning and Campus Life Experience

Goal 1. Place student success at the center

To provide the optimal learning environment for all students: outstanding academic programs and experiences, seamless student support and a vibrant campus community.

Goal 2. Lead in life and health sciences

To attain national recognition for excellence in research, expand opportunities for clinical practitioner training and provide outstanding health care delivery.

Goal 3. Advance urban engagement

To become a model urban university by fully engaging with the Kansas City community to enhance education, public health, the arts and economic development.

Goal 4. Excel in the visual and performing arts

To create excellent programs in visual and performing arts that are central to campus life and support Kansas City’s initiatives in entrepreneurship, urban education and innovation.

Goal 5. Embrace diversity

To celebrate diversity in all aspects of university life, creating inclusive environments, culturally competent citizens, and globally-oriented curricula and programs.

Goal 6. Promote research and economic development

To produce world-class scholarship and creative activity, encourage entrepreneurship, foster innovation, increase technology transfer, and build relationships that create economic and workforce development.

School of Education

Vision

Be a leading urban-serving school of education in the nation.

Mission

To recruit, prepare, and support outstanding teachers, mental health professionals, and administrators who will create lifelong opportunities through education for America’s diverse urban communities.

Core Values and Competencies

1. Academic Excellence

1. Candidates master subject-specific materials related to their discipline as measured by performance on major course assignments, core professional standardized tests, and overall academic performance (K).

1. Believing that everyone has the potential for learning, candidates demonstrate the ability to master best practices, employ appropriate methods and strategies, and excel in their professional settings (D,S).

1. Candidates demonstrate strong oral and written communication skills (S).

1. Inquiry leading to reflective decision-making and problem solving:

1. Candidates use critical thinking to reflect on their practice and effectively apply moral and ethical principles to their decision-making (D, S).

1. Candidates are emotionally mature and able to engage in reflective decision-making and problem-solving with regard to their practice and address real world challenges through their practice (K, S).

1. Decisions and practices are informed by theory and research (S,K).

1. Skilled and knowledgeable professionals working collaboratively:

1. Candidates highly value collaboration and are able to effectively collaborate with others (students/clients, families, communities, professionals) in their fields (D, S).

1. Candidates are able to perform the technological functions necessary for their fields (K,S).

1. Democracy, diversity, and social justice:

a.Candidates recognize and respect the diversity of students/clients, and other professionals with whom they work and treat all people with fairness and equity (D).

b.Candidates demonstrate awareness and knowledge of the influence of their own and others’ cultural identity on development, values, and worldviews (D,K).

c.Candidates demonstrate commitment to social justice through advocacy (S).

1. Caring and safe environments

a.Candidates form caring and respectful relationships with their students/clients (D).

b.Candidates demonstrate a commitment to their students’/clients’ social, intellectual, and emotional development (S).

c.Candidates demonstrate concern for their students’ / clients’ safety, heath, and well-being (D,S).

The School of Education values embody the knowledge, skills and dispositions expected of our candidates across the School of Education. The goals defined by individual programs are more specific subsets of these broader goals. Program assessments, which are based on program goals, also provide a way for us to determine the extent to which our Conceptual Framework is actualized.

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Preparing Reflective Practitioners for Tomorrow’s Urban Communities

Structure of the Unit Assessment System

UMKC’s School of Education Assessment Plan seeks to insure that we admit and prepare individuals who become education professionals possessing the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed to positively affect the lives of children and youth. Our assessment plan includes systems for the assessment of candidates’ progress, of programs, of faculty performance, and of unit operations overall. The Conceptual Framework drives the assessment system. The Conceptual Framework (most recently updated in 2010) was developed with a view toward the overall goals of the School of Education and of the goals of each certification program. In both initial and advanced programs, program goals are correlated to the conceptual framework, as well as to national standards.

The Assessment System

The Assessment Committee is responsible for the ongoing development, implementation and oversight of unit-wide assessment activities. Faculty membership on this committee is comprised of two (2) faculty members from each of the three divisions of the School elected to two-year terms by the members of their respective divisions. Approximately half of the membership shall be elected in any given year. The committee also includes ad-hoc members such as regular and non-regular faculty, the Data Manager, assistant and associate deans, a representative from Student Services, and a representative from the Technology Learning Lab.

At the candidate and program levels, the program coordinator is responsible for presenting an assessment data summary to program faculty and program advisory committees (professional community) regularly. The Assessment Committee provides oversight to this process and also reviews and summarizes the annual assessment reports prepared by each program. A suggested timeline for program assessment activities is attached. The format of the annual assessment report is designed to meet NCATE, DESE, and UMKC requirements for tracking, analyzing, and using student and program data for program improvement. Both unit- and program- key assessment data is included in the report. Also reported are the findings of this data and an action plan based on the results (i.e., findings) of the assessment data, to include the process used to share the results with others, and how the data has been used to make adjustments to the program, and to the assessment system.

In addition to academic program data, the assessment committee also collects feedback from other entities in the School, such as Student Services, Continuing Education, and the Technology Learning Laboratory. The Assessment Committee reviews each program’s submission and then delivers findings to the faculty and the dean regarding overall unit assessment activities and unit operations overall. The Assessment Committee, working in conjunction with program coordinators, is also responsible for assuring the reliability and validity of assessment data, as well as reviewing and updating the Assessment Plan as needed. The Assessment Plan is the framework around which the School of Education’s on-going system for data collection, analysis and program and unit improvement is guided.

Assessment of Candidate Progress

Decisions about candidate performance are based on multiple measures administered at various points in the program. Specific assessment measures and approach are at the discretion of a program’s faculty. But at a minimum, each School of Education program assesses student progress at four to five key times in accordance with the assessment plan: 1) prior to admission, 2) prior to entering the culminating experience (e.g., pre-professional field component), 3) exit from the culminating experience, 4) at graduation (program exit), and 5) one to three years post-completion (follow up) (see Unit and Program Measures).

The first three assessment points represent decision points or “gates” to the next stage of the program. Assessment criteria in each program were designed to insure that students demonstrate proficiency in each program goal. To this end, goals were developed by each program faculty to reflect the School of Education’s conceptual framework, the standards of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the national professional societies of the respective disciplines. Program goals represent the knowledge, skills and dispositions expected of candidates in each program. Curriculum within each program has been designed to align with these goals, and facilitate candidate growth toward the achievement of the goals. In addition, we seek to assure program quality by: 1) systematically monitoring and reviewing student feedback; 2) using collected data to continually refine each program; and 3) updating our program goals and curriculum in response to changes in state and professional standards.

Assessment of Program Validity

At the conclusion of each academic year, the coordinator for each program will review the prior year’s assessment data, along with student feedback, and prepare a written report to the faculty summarizing these data and highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the program. This report will be reviewed by the program faculty during the fall semester of the subsequent academic year. Faculty will then be responsible for modifying the pertinent curriculum in order to facilitate improved student performance in those areas, and potentially making adjustments to the program’s assessment plan. In general, modifications will be in place no later than fall of the following academic year.

Professional Practices of Unit Faculty:

Faculty responsibilities include teaching, scholarship, and service. Final evaluation of faculty is based by weighting their assessed scores in each area by the amount of time they are assigned to each area. The standard time allocation is 45% teaching, 45% scholarship, and 10% service, and assumes a 9 credit per semester teaching load, although this may vary based on individual faculty negotiations with their division chairs and the Dean. Assessment in each area is based upon a faculty developed five-point scale. The faculty member and the faculty member’s chair independently determine a rating and then meet to discuss those ratings. Each is expected to document the rationale for their ratings. At that time, the chair and faculty member set goals for the following year.