This summary is divided into two sections: results for general program assessment and results for the Education capstone course (ElEd/SeEd 4901). The capstone is a shared course, wherein elementary education majors and secondary education certification students are mixed together in course groups.

 

I.               General Program Results

 

The goals for Elementary and Secondary Education, as stated in the unit assessment plan, revolve around the ten Standards of Effective Practice set forth by the state of Minnesota. A summary of these goals is as follows: The education programs are designed to help students (future teachers) to

·      acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to being a competent teacher;

·      understand central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of disciplines taught in schools;

·      understand children and adolescents and their individual and group behavior;

·      plan and implement instruction adapted to learners of diverse backgrounds and abilities;

·      communicate effectively;

·      encourage critical thinking and problem solving;

·      use formal and informal methods of assessment;

·      collaborate with parents/guardians, families, school colleagues, and the community in an ethical manner.

 

Results pertaining to the goals listed above were obtained through a variety of assessment data. Whether goals were met was determined through analysis of the following data items: scores on the PRAXIS II exams of content and pedagogy; final evaluation scores on field experiences (each goal is evaluated on this assessment); and course grades. In addition, every year the program surveys its graduates in an effort to determine what types of programmatic changes should be made. Data is not yet available from the latest survey and so will not be discussed in this report.

 

PRAXIS II exams of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge are required by the state and form one data point of external review. Scores for 3 students of 68 were unavailable at the time of this report. All other students have passed all parts of the PRAXIS. In addition, UMM students generally surpass the minimum cutoff scores established by the state (see Table 1). The minimum cutoff scores for the state of Minnesota on PRAXIS I reading, math, and writing sections are 173, 171, and 172, respectively. The average scores of UMM education students are 199.06, 199.94, and 195.16. UMM students also surpassed the minimum cutoff scores for their various content areas by an average of 32 points. In the Pedagogy, Learning and Teaching exam, students surpassed the cutoff by 26.5 points. This set of data revealed to us that UMM teacher candidates do well on state measures and that they are well prepared for this part of the licensure process. However, students of color consistently receive lower scores on the PRAXIS exam than their European American counterparts. This is not surprising to us, as a large body of research has demonstrated that this gap is consistent across test types and age groups. As educators, we are concerned about this and this data will cause us to consider changes to the programs based on further assessment. We will ask: How can we better prepare and support teacher candidates of color? Is there one part of the testing process that proves to be consistently more difficult for candidates of color? How can we be more active in the state governmental process that mandates these tests and lobby for more fair and equitable testing practices?

 

Data from final field experience evaluations reveals that all students met minimum proficiency for licensure. No student received less than an “average” rating on any part of their field experience evaluation from cooperating teachers or university supervisors. We judge this to mean that all students are performing adequately in terms of field experience. One future assessment goal might include analyzing the categories of critique on the final evaluations to determine if there are specific areas that are weaker than others on a consistent basis.

 

Finally, course grades provide valuable data about student learning in courses. Each course is crafted around the ten Standards of Effective Practice and is founded on the idea of mastery learning. This means that students perform tasks to a proficient level and if the student does not successfully master a task, he or she continues to work on this task and repeat an assignment until it is mastered. Therefore, there were no grades of less than B- in courses. All students were given the opportunity to master learning objectives and did so successfully, although at different rates and different levels of proficiency. Some students who struggled self-selected out of the program at various points in the process. Additionally, formal and informal data on course performance did indicate that a few particular students struggled to meet minimum standards of proficiency throughout the program. Therefore, future assessment efforts will explore the following questions: How can we support struggling students’ development? What tools might aid in scaffolding their learning? What avenues are available for helping these students find other professional fields where they might experience more success?

 

II.             Capstone assessment

 

“The Teacher and Professional Development” (ElEd 4901/SeEd 4901) is a course that is collaboratively designed and is taught by all faculty in the Elementary Education and Secondary Education disciplines. The goals of the course are to facilitate professional reflection, to enable students to explore professional issues related to teaching, and to assist students in evaluating the effects of their professional choices and actions on students, parents, other professionals, and the larger learning community.

 

Assessments in this course are designed to assess not only what the student has learned during the course, but also to reflect students’ professional growth since they began the program.

 

The primary assessment of student learning in “The Teacher and Professional Development” is the professional portfolio created by students. Students begin creating this portfolio when they enter the program and continually revise it throughout. The portfolio has ten sections, one section for each of Minnesota’s Standards of Effective Practice—standards in which students must demonstrate competency before being licensed as teachers. For each standard, students write an essay that describes their growth and development in the standard, provides evidence of that growth and sets new goals for deeper understanding. Each faculty member is responsible for evaluating 10-12 professional portfolios. Each year, the faculty engage in a reliability session to ensure fair and reliable grading practices across faculty members. In this session, faculty read and grade sample essays and discuss the reasons for their grades and discuss any discrepancies. The process continues with multiple readings and discussions until the faculty are grading in a manner consistent with one another.

 

Assessments also include a paper on the student’s philosophy of education. This paper then forms the foundation for a senior presentation. The presentation is evaluated on the basis of the student’s professionalism, understanding of various aspects of their content area and of pedagogy, responses to questions, and communication skills. Due to the large number of students (approximately 80 per year), not all faculty attend and evaluate each session. Student attendees also help to informally evaluate the sessions.

 

Table 2 reports and summarizes student scores on individual assignments in the capstone course. The data indicate that the portfolio scores are slightly below other course scores. There are several potential reasons for this: the writing required by the portfolio assignment might not fit with some students’ preferred style or modality of learning; the faculty might grade the portfolio more rigorously than other assignments since it is the linchpin of the course; or, the assignment is more extensive, lasting two weeks in duration and it is difficult for students to maintain the same level of excellence throughout. This minor gap in grading data might provide fodder for reflection as we head into the coming academic year.

 

Table 3 summarizes data pertaining to student portfolio scores. The data show that for many of the ten standards there was little significant change in student performance. Last year we noticed that the scored for Standard 8 on Assessment were much lower than for others of the ten standards. Prompted by this data and the recent emphasis of NCATE on assessment and student learning, we implemented a pilot program during the 2002-2003 academic year. This pilot program focused on enabling our teacher education students to collect assessment data on their own practices and reflect on its implications for their students’ learning. This year’s average score of 2.698 is much higher than last year’s 2.13. While many possibilities exist as to why this is the case, we feel that the experience of collecting data and reflecting on it helped many students to understand assessment more completely and, thus, be able to discuss it more cogently in this section of the portfolio. In addition, the score for Standard 1 on Subject Matter increased from 2.45 to 2.6. This is perhaps due to the use of exemplars as a means to clarify expectations of portfolio performance at the beginning of the course. We also saw significant increases in scores for Standards 9 (Reflection and Professional Development) and 10 (Collaboration and Ethics). This is encouraging, as students often find these topics to be rather sophisticated or have run out of the energy needed to compose effective essays by this point in the course.

 

 

 

TABLE 1

 

2003 ELED & SEED GRAD TEST RESULTS
PRAXIS RESULTS	READ	MATH	WRITE	CONTENT	PLT	pts. Above cont.	pts. Above PLT
Student 1	183	183	179	174	192	34	40
2	181	179	173	172	159	32	6
3	180	178	173	164	173	24	21
4	323	322	323	158	182	18	30
5	184	180	177	178	182	33	29
6	334	333	328	181	186	57	33
7			173		162		10
8	185	178	178	168	192	23	39
9	183	181	176	179	189	24	36
10	173	181	176	168	177	28	25
11	177	170	173	152	169	12	17
12	186	184	181	187	182	47	30
13	182	184	178	188	177	48	25
14	179	181	173	166	172	26	20
15	183	184	181	187	170	47	18
16	327	325	321	164	178	24	25
17	179	176	178	166	183	26	30
18	184	190	183	169	165	45	12
19	181	184	174	174	184	31	31
20	183	190	185	185	183	45	31
21	183	184	176
22	176	182	174	156	156	16	4
23	180	172	176	157	180	9	27
24	186	185	181	161	169	16	16
25	182	177	173	181	175	36	22
26	183	188	178	187		47
27	176	190	178	156	171	16	18
28	179	181	173	158	187	18	35
29	180	185	177	156	166	11	13
30	184	187	185	165	185	22	32
31	184	187	182	189	170	49	18
32	176	190	176	176	177	36	24
33	176	186	175	160	179	20	27
34	181	175	180	171	182	31	30
35	181	184	179	149	185	6	32
36	184	187	181	181	192	57	39
37	183	189	182	169	190	29	37
38	334	331	325	172	174	32	21
39	176	169	174	168	172	28	20
40	185	182	175	181	183	41	31
41	180	173	177	168	193	28	41
42	184	188	187	190	193	50	41
43	185	183	175	188	190	48	38
44	183	186	183	194	177	54	25
45	185	186	181	186	184	38	31