EDUCATION DEPARTMENT AND ASSESSMENT

By Dr. Leslie Wessman and members of the Education Department

Spring 2000

Student learning and assessment, as well as curriculum coherence and development, are at the core of our discipline. The current faculty in the Education Department have been in substantive conversation about our uses of assessment since the summer of 1994. With the help of a faculty summer grant, four of us attended workshops at Alverno College focusing on outcomes and assessment. We returned to campus to work together for two weeks clarifying our departmental purpose for using assessment. As a result of that summer grant project, six department Professional Abilities were articulated: Effective Communicator, Professional Collaborator, Curriculum Developer, Problem Solver, Decision Maker and Scholarly Educator. We were using a variety of instructional assessment practices in our individual classes and the Abilities provided us with a framework to provide on-going experiences which help students self-assess and self-adjust their knowledge and skills. Students report that this framework offered more coherence across courses. In addition, we were able to begin relating our program assessments-surveys, student teaching evaluations, certification tests, and employment date-to the Professional Abilities. Much has been accomplished over the past six years through intra-departmental collaboration. However, we recognize that this attention to departmental assessment practices is a work in progress-we will never be done.

What Drives Our Commitment to Assessment?

We are reminded weekly of the demands from the K-12 field. Our students are in field placements from the very first course. We are keenly aware of how important it is for us as teaching faculty to model multiple approaches to assessment, thereby encouraging these future teachers to use assessment as an integral part of their own teaching.

The state and national accreditation processes are requiring us to move toward multiple performance assessments for all of our teacher candidates throughout their education program. These would include, but not be limited to, standardized tests, videotaped performances, use of technology, professional exit interviews, portfolio development, traditional and group exams, group presentations, concept maps, and student teaching.

How Are Students Made Aware of On-Going Assessment?

In addition to the six Professional Abilities, our department faculty identified three developmental levels of knowledge and skill learning around which our required course work is sequenced. Level One-Ed Psych, Exceptional Child, and introductory Special Education courses-are focused on "Choosing Teaching." Students explore what it means to teach and determine if education will be an appropriate choice of profession. Level Two courses focus on "Learning How to Teach" where instructors and students focus on the integration of theory, research and practice models for teaching. The final Level Three is the student teaching semester where teacher candidates are expected to apply their learning to an actual teaching semester. Here they are expected to synthesize, demonstrate, and apply the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes gained through their liberal arts college preparation and the teacher education program.

We have developed behavioral criteria for each of the three levels so that students are able to assess their efforts as communicators, problem solvers, collaborators, etc., as well as receive feedback from their instructors. In addition, we are committed to a developmental approach to the field placements concurrent with each major education course in levels One and Two. We believe prospective teachers need a wide range of experiences in the classroom, and the opportunity to reflect on those experiences, in order to develop into effective educators. They receive specific criteria-driven feedback from their mentor teachers in the field. These evaluations are considered when students are being accepted into the teacher education program, and approved for student teaching. Last year we aligned the student teaching assessment forms with the Level Three criteria. This is the first year that all coordinators and supervising teachers have utilized the format, thereby providing our students with a congruent framework over the three levels.

How Is Assessment Used with Instruction?

Traditional exams continue to be utilized in courses to test the integration of new declarative and procedural knowledge. Students in Ed Psych take a computer-assisted exam as a mid-term content check. In Exceptional Child students use digital photos and instructional software in a take-home exam which is based on an on-campus visit with students from the Ottawa Area Center. As a final exam in elementary and secondary literacy courses students are expected to create a visual synthesis of the course content in the form of concept maps, communicating concisely both the depth and breadth of their learning over the semester, as well as applications for promoting literacy development. From the first course students are videotaped making presentations as well as solving problems in a group exam where the effectiveness of their collaborative efforts are made visible. They are invited to begin the process of self-assessments in both videotaped and in-class activities. In later courses the expectations for teaching presentations-both in class and in the field-become more rigorous. Professional interviews utilizing HASP retired professionals are videotaped and feedback is given by both the interviewers and instructors. Students then must complete a self-assessment. Instructors in courses leading to the student teaching semester conduct exit interviews to determine if students are prepared to be in substantive conversation about the professional knowledge they have acquired.

Process folios have been used in early courses, introducing students to the final professional portfolio they will submit during the hiring process after graduation. They learn to use technology in multiple ways to enhance the effectiveness of presenting themselves to a professional audience. Group teaching presentations require students to use technology to enhance their presentations and to engage their learners; they receive specific feedback on the success of their efforts.

There are multiple dimensions of assessment which we model. We continue to learn and refine our practices as we integrate assessment into the process of instruction in all of our courses.

How Do We Assess Programmatic Needs?

All students who wish to enter the teacher education program must pass the Michigan Basic Skills test. To supplement the writing portion of this state-mandated test, we created and implemented a writing assessment utilizing a dictation component as well as a writing prompt. Our purpose in this assessment was to give students at the beginning of our program extensive and specific feedback on their written communication. We do have a qualitative sense of positive changes in student writing across the program. We are currently in the process of determining a more concrete process for tracking student writing improvements.

Students who have exhibited problematic behaviors in their commitment to professionalism are candidates for our Student Concerns Committee process. This involves the student meeting responsibilities in both Hope College courses and in the field, class attendance and participation, and the quality and timeliness of meeting course requirements. One of the major concerns across the country in teacher education is how to identify early in a preparation program professional demeanor, attitudes, and social skills which become problematic in the school setting. We have tried to create a process which gives faculty support to those students who wish to create a plan to improve identified weaknesses.

At Level Three all teacher candidates who are ready to be certified must pass the state-mandated content area tests in their major and minor fields of study in order to be certified in Michigan. In addition, all student teaching experiences provide formal opportunities to examine how each of our students integrate and implement what they have learned in Level One and Two courses. The continuous, on-going assessment and evaluation of student teacher performances by supervising teachers and college coordinators provide us with important data for the examination of our program outcomes.

We survey student teachers, supervising teachers, program graduates, and principals of schools where our graduates are employed. We are currently working on this survey assessment process to identify how we might more intentionally gather information about our Professional Abilities criteria. We want to ensure that our students meet state and national performance standards. This data will provide us with concrete feedback on our program performance.

What Does The Future Hold?

Our next state/national accreditation visit will be in 2003. The call to teacher education programs is to move toward on-going performance assessments throughout the sequence of a program. We are ahead of that expectation so we will not be in a reactive mode in responding to the 2003 accreditation process. We are continuing to use the ISTE (International Society for Technology Education) Foundation Standards to guide the infusion of technology into the instructional process of all education courses. It is our commitment to ensure that all graduates have the knowledge and skills to utilize technology appropriately in their own K-12 instructional practices.

We will continue to look for ways to use our writing assessment data as a measure of students' literacy progress over the courses of their time in the program. We will continue to align our student teaching and graduate surveys with the Professional Abilities in order to generate practical information for adjusting our program outcomes. We will be more intentional about communication with our colleagues in other departments as state and national standards evolve and as the results come in from the state certification tests in major and minor content areas.

Probably the most problematic program assessment that looms before us is the one that grows out of gaps in student behaviors and attitudes which are the focus of our Student Concerns Committee. As we mentioned earlier, across the nation teacher educators are concerned about ensuring that teacher candidates have the disposition, values and skills to work with diverse learners, parents, and colleagues. In public education there are legal expectations for the quality of instruction delivered to diverse learners (racial, economic, exceptionalities) and the mastery of content knowledge and skills. We must consider practical and supportive assessments which will provide critical feedback early in our program to students displaying problematic behaviors. Nationwide there is much concern about the legal ramifications which result from denying admission to a teacher education program or a recommendation for certification resulting from assessments perceived as subjective and/or informal. We expect our graduates to be successful and satisfied in their career as K-12 teachers. We believe that the liberal arts preparation our students receive at Hope College provides a strong foundation for professional success as K-12 educators.