Securing Faculty Engagement: Opportunities for Learning and Program Development

1. Securing Faculty Engagement: Opportunities for Learning and Program Development Chet Laine, University of Cincinnati

2. introductions • Who is with us today?

3. Goals • Participants will: • Meet with colleagues who are involved in the piloting of the Teacher Performance Assessment • Explore ways that we can engage our colleagues and candidates in the opportunities that the Teacher Performance Assessment provides

4. Questions & Concerns • This session is designed to be interactive. • I will share what I have discovered from others and what I have learned from our three-year pilot experience. • We will stop from time to time to exchange ideas. • Stop me at anytime. • Share what most concerns you at your institution.

5. Our institution • Research-Intensive University • Urban Mission • Tenure-line, field service & adjunct faculty • Licensure Programs: • Early Childhood Education • Middle Childhood Education • Secondary Education • Special Education • Art Education • Music Education

6. top down & bottom up • Work from the top down & the bottom up • Involve key individuals • University administrators • Tenure-line faculty • Adjunct and field service faculty • Cooperating teachers • School administrators

7. Framing • Frame the TPA in terms of inquiry, program improvement & moving practice forward not • In terms of fulfilling a mandate; fulfilling a mandate implies compliance and “getting it done”

8. communication • Initiate frequent and sustained communication • Involve as many colleagues as possible • Is it difficult to engage tenure-line faculty in the work of teacher education? • Don’t leave it up to the university-based supervisors

9. communication • During faculty meetings and retreats, place the TPA within the context of conversations about • Curriculum • Practice • Field placements • Course requirements • Signature assignments, assessments & rubrics • Program structure

10. learning about ourselves • How can you use the TPA to learn about your programs? • Are we willing to critically examine the competence of our candidates? • Are we willing to be transparent, to uncover areas that may need improvement? • How can we use the TPA to help us gather and use evidence of teaching performance? • How can we use the TPA to improve our teacher preparation programs?

11. Culture of Evidence • How can you create a culture of evidence? • Work with the TPA data. • Data may challenge widely held assumptions about what candidates are learning and can apply from their course work and field experiences. • “Here’s my syllabus. Here are my assignments. We prepare them for that!”

12. Data Emersion • Hold Retreats: • Examine pilot data. What do the data reveal? • Look at areas where the candidates struggle (e.g., assessment, academic language) • Examine tasks and rubrics • Hold mock scoring sessions • Examine individual cases of candidates’ work • Examine a broad range, including the exemplary cases • Engage faculty in the analysis and interpretation of data

13. An Investment • We are inventing in an assessment that is of high quality: • A robust, complex, and multifaceted assessment of teaching candidates in action • A reliable & valid assessment • An assessment that measures our teaching candidates’ readiness for teaching • An assessment that promotes evidence-based practice, critical thinking, and reflection • An assessment that reveals our candidates’ impact on student achievement

14. An Investment • The TPA is: • Subject-area specific • Performance-based • Centered on student learning • Highlights pedagogical content knowledge • Focuses on instruction that inspires, engages, and sustains students as learners • Enriches both the student teaching experience and the quality of instruction for preK-12 students

15. Not reinventing the wheel • Help faculty members see that they are not reinventing the wheel • Are you already doing much of what the TPA asks of us and our candidates? • Are your programs using tools such as the teacher work sample or the analysis of student work protocol? • Is systematic reflection embedded in your program? • Do you expect your candidates to tie objectives to assessments, provide a rationale for their lessons, differentiate instruction, analyze student work?

16. Program integrity • Attend to maintaining individual program identity • How do the things that you value in your program align with the TPA? • Be responsive to concerns • Send feedback to Stanford TPAC team

17. Break down silos • Hold broad and collegial conversations across programs. • How can the faculty who teach critical courses support candidates as they apply knowledge and those skills in the TPA? • Technology • Assessment • Foundations of education • Human development • Special education

18. Signature Assessments • Do you have stand alone courses that are marginalized? • Other faculty members may know very little about these courses. • Are there signature assessments that can be developed?

19. candidates who completed the TPA • Have candidates who piloted & submitted TPA portfolios speak to faculty and new candidates • In pilots our candidates systematically collected an extensive array of outcome data • They were positive about the experience and felt that they learned important skills • Some mentioned their enhanced ability to field interview questions

20. Interview questions • “How will you individualize instruction?” • “Can you justify forcing your students to learn?” • “How do you support students who struggle or who are different than you in race, culture, and ability.” • How are your assessments related to your objectives?” • “What have done, not what you will do?

21. Closing thoughts • Creating “Cultures of Evidence” in Teacher Education: Context, Policy and Practice in Three High Data Use Programs. • Cap Peck & Morva McDonald, University of Washington • 2010