Assessment
Assessment Planning for Teacher Education
The assessment of teacher education programs goes beyond the assessment of other programs in that the process of understanding and using assessment is a key outcome for all students in the program. “The core purpose of teacher assessment and evaluation should be to strengthen the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and classroom practices of professional educators. This goal serves to promote student growth and learning while also inspiring great teachers to remain in the classroom.” [1]
Preparation of professional school personnel is a fluid and complex enterprise, and one that requires teacher preparation departments to plan and evaluate on a continuing basis. Program review and improvement are needed to ensure quality. Needed change can be in the form of subtle refinements or major revisions that result from curriculum change, legal mandates, or impacts of technology and other environmental impacts on the learning process. Candidate assessments and program evaluations must be purposeful, evolving from the department’s mission and specific program goals. Assessment must be comprehensive, including quality measures that can actually inform important aspects of faculty, curriculum, instruction, and candidate performance.
In other words, assessment must provide the opportunity for teacher education candidates to master content, develop a wide variety of teaching strategies and skills, and foster the professional and ethical standards that demonstrate commitment to their students, to the profession, and to the school community. Teachers must be prepared to enter a career that depends on effective assessment to improve teaching and learning in the communities in which they teach as shown in the following diagram[2].
[1] National Education Association. (2010). Teacher Evaluation and Assessment. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/TeachrAssmntWhtPaperTransform10_2.pdf
[2] Ibid.
The Assessment Plan for programs in Teacher Education programs is complex in that program effectiveness is student performance occurs both in the classroom and the field and must include data from the time a student enters a program until his/her role as a professional educator following graduation. The plan should be divided into those stages at which such assessment occurs.
Department Assessment Planning
Admission to the University. Students often enter the university to become teachers without understanding the expectations of what is required by both the university and the state in which they are to be certified. Under-qualified students not only create issues in student progression of the program but may also face ultimate disappointment in career choice. Students may enter programs as traditional undergraduate students, transfer students, adult undergraduate students and graduate students.
The Admissions Office reviews applications of all traditional undergraduate students. Admission data may include GPA, SAT, ACT and grades in fundamental content areas in high school (math, English, Science, Social Studies courses such as American or World History). Graduate programs review undergraduate transcripts to ensure that students meet both university and state requirements. Graduate applications are usually also reviewed by the faculty of the department in which the graduate program is housed.
Traditional Undergraduate Advising and the Eight Semester Plan. First year undergraduate students who enter with education as their intended major should be met with a qualified advisor – preferably in the education program. Students who are preparing to be secondary education teachers should also meet with a content area supervisor in their major. Students should receive an Eight-Semester Plan designed to inform them of all requirements for the program – states required content, GPA requirements, and any progression testing that will be required. The intent is to inform students so that they can adequately prepare and progress through their program.
The advisor in the education department should monitor progression through admission to the program and graduation. Each advisor maintains a master list of his/her advisees and advises students each semester to schedule appropriate classes. In addition, faculty maintain office hours to meet with students to assess progress and deal with issues.
Transfer Students:
Once the university receives all official transcripts, they are usually sent to the Office of the Registrar for evaluation. If the courses taken at any previous schools are not already in the university’s transfer policy, the course descriptions are sought and sent to the appropriate program director and chair to review and approve for course placement. The Office of the Registrar creates a curriculum sheet with all accepted courses marked with “T” grade and notes the number of credits allowed. Occasionally the department asks for syllabi. Courses that a student may be currently taking should be marked “in progress” until the official transcript is received with those courses graded.
Once the student confirms his/her intent to enroll with the Admissions Office, the transfer credits are entered onto the student’s record in the school’s student management system. Too often students think that as long as they have a certain number of requirements – all requirements count toward their teacher certification. This is not the case. Certification programs look for specific outcomes and courses. Some are state requirements; others are required of the specific program.
For this reason, educational programs should develop assessment plans to demonstrate when, where and how outcomes are met.
Program Assessment Planning
Curriculum Map. Each program designs a curriculum map that identifies a key assessment for every required course. The curriculum map is organized as follows. It is essential that all requirements are identified with the course(s) not only in which they are taught, but also in which student outcomes are assessed.
| (SLOs) | Courses and Experiences | |||||||
| Course #1 | Course #2 | Course #3 | Course #4 | Course #5 | Elective Course #1 | Course #6 | Required Activity | |
| SLO #1 | I | R | R | R | A | A | A (M) | |
| SLO #2 | I | R | R | A | I | R | ||
| SLO #3 | I | R | R | A | A (M) | |||
| SLO #4 | I | R | R | A | R | |||
| SLO #5 | I | R | R | R | ||||
| SLO #6 | I | R | R | R | A | A | ||
| SLO #7 | I | R | R | R | A | A | ||
| SLO #8 | I | R | R | A | ||||
Steps In Creating A Curriculum Map
- Develop the set of student learning outcomes to be achieved. These include required external state or professional requirements as well as mission, institutional (general education) or faculty developed outcomes.
- Develop the set of required courses and possible elective courses that include student learning outcomes.
- Develop any required or optional internships, research activities, service, community-based or campus-based activities.
- Prepare a table in the form similar to one shown above.
- Enter the student learning outcomes into the chart on one axis and the course names on the other.
- Optional: For each learning outcome indicate the course in which it is introduced with an “I”; in which it is reinforced with an “R”; in which it is assessed with an “A”. If competency based, indicate an “M” in which it must be mastered.
- In the curriculum map, identify the key assessments[3] in the courses in which these assignments exist. Key assessments are often determined at the beginning of a program to determine the potential for student success, the midpoint to identify any problems moving forward, and at the end of a program to determine student success in meeting program outcomes. End-of-program assessments are usually capstone projects.
Assessment planning has a two-step process. First of all, there is the department plan. The department plan reviews those processes and support systems that impact the entire department. Each program writes an assessment plan. The goals of the plan stem from the needs of the students and their performance on key assessments as well as the annual data from the annual program review.
Faculty. Faculty qualifications are an essential part of the success of students. Faculty must model best professional practices in scholarship, service, and teaching, knowing that the assessment of their own effectiveness is key to candidate performance. They must collaborate with colleagues in the disciplines of their own university as well as the schools in which students receive placements. The department systematically evaluates both full and part-time faculty performance, but as a department ensure data is collected to meet the following PDE requirements:
- efforts to recruit, hire and retain a diverse faculty.
- total number of hours devoted to faculty professional development and professional development was mandatory or voluntary.
- educational technology in which the program expects faculty to be proficient.
- how the program ensures the faculty are proficient in educational technologies.
- evidence that the program faculty integrate technology into their curriculum, planning and teaching.
- standards and procedures to confirm the faculty are qualified for their teaching assignments.
- how the program supports and provides professional education to faculty.
- process used to evaluate program faculty.
- improvements to the program’s design that are a direct result of faculty collaboration.
Field and Student Teaching Experience
Field Experience Surveys
Students
Cooperating Teachers
Training provided by the program for cooperating teachers
Shared evaluation of a lesson
Orientation/meeting for cooperating teachers
Impact of student teachers on achievement in their classrooms
Supervising Teachers
Shared evaluation of a lesson
Principals
Professional Community
- Qualifications of faculty and supervisors –Collect all resumes of full and part time faculty
- Two Year Follow-up surveys to be completed
- Principals – who employ graduates
- Graduates
- Collaboration activities between the placement sites and program with regard to the student teaching experience
- Diversity information of site
- List of the activities in which the faculty engage as part of professional education community.
- Collaboration activities that occur between the Education faculty and the Arts and Sciences faculty.
[3] Key Assessment – Common assignments for which major/program faculty use the same rubrics (directions for grading) and weighting across all class sections of a course, regardless of when the assignment is taught or who is the instructor.