Activity

Accomplishments

The College of Education was the winner of the 2004 Best Practice Award in Support of Teacher Education Quality and Accountability from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

The College has been invited to be a member of the Renaissance Group, an invitation only consortium of 39 colleges and universities who are innovators in teacher education. UALR’s College of Education is the only college from our region that has received an invitation from this group.

• The College of Education was 1 of 8 colleges of education in the nation to receive this honor.

• Three representatives from the College will attend the first meeting of this group in mid-October.

Graduates from programs in the College of Education are of high quality.

• For example, graduates’ pass rates for standardized exit exams have been 100%, including  performances on Praxis II, a test of content knowledge, and Praxis III, a performance-based test of pedagogical knowledge in new teachers. UALR’s average (mean) scores on these tests exceeded the state’s mean.

The number of SSCH (student semester credit hours) have moved steadily upward for the past 2 years.  This upward trend should continue, given that the Fall 2004 enrollment is larger than that of Fall 2003.

Faculty conducted ongoing program evaluations, which included feedback from stakeholders.

• Program graduates and their employers completed web-based surveys. The software computed summary statistics of these individuals’ ratings for each program.
• A stakeholders’ meeting was conducted and feedback from stakeholders was distributed to programs for contributions to program improvement.

Program faculty established clear checkpoints/gateways for monitoring candidate progress throughout programs in the College. For NCATE programs, the College adopted and implemented Chalk and Wire’s e-portfolio, a web-based system that showcases student work and aggregates student performance data within and across programs.

• For all programs, the faculty has monitored students’ progress through evaluation of outcomes at key assessment points. Faculty members in NCATE programs have begun piloting Chalk and Wire; and, if other programs choose to do so, the use of this system may be expanded to other programs. See examples on pages 4 and 5 of this report.

Program faculty continued review and revision of NCATE programs for alignment with Specialized Professional Organizations (SPAs).

Interpreter Education programs have revised their course offerings, internship requirements, and  requirements for pursuit of a BA degree.

Programs in the College are nationally recognized by  accrediting bodies and their professional associations.

• Programs are based on best practices and latest professional association standards. This year, the SPAs created new templates for reports, which include a common requirement of 6-8 major assessments for each program. Program faculty are aligning their assessments with these revised requirements.

• Persons seeking a BA in Interpreter Education now must have an AA in this program as a prerequisite to entry into this degree program.

• This year, the online Counseling and Rehabilitation program has received accreditation for the next 8 years from CORE. All teacher preparation and other school personnel programs  received NCATE accreditation through Fall 2009.

Program faculty designed rubrics and exit assessments for monitoring/improvement of candidate performance. For NCATE programs, all rubrics were entered into Chalk and Wire so that data from candidates in the field could be analyzed.

Faculty across NCATE programs collaborated and revised our unit assessment system for initial licensure candidates (ILAB) and for advanced licensure candidates (ALAB), so that performances across all candidates can be compared and analyzed for program improvement purposes. They incorporated these revisions into Chalk and Wire.

• All NCATE programs use Pathwise (a systematic teacher observation system) for monitoring and evaluating candidate performance in field settings.

• Student products/performances that represent key outcomes for the entire NCATE unit will be scored, aggregated, and analyzed by the end of the current semester. Previously, aggregation at the unit level included products such as test scores, grade point average, etc. The use of Chalk and Wire has made it feasible to aggregate data across a variety of performance-based assessments, such as planning instructional units.

The College and its faculty have improved communication about program offerings and requirements.

• All programs have updated brochures. A new recruitment brochure, which showcases all programs in the College and which provides a CD with program details, is now available.

The student portion of the College of Education database is now completed and data transfer/entry has begun.

The faculty database, which will provide demographic information on practitioner, university faculty, and adjuncts, is in development and should be operational by January of 2005.

• The database allows for monitoring candidate data across all programs in the College and provides data regarding demographics of our student population. This database allows for continual monitoring of progress toward diversity standards.

Sample Assessment Data from Chalk and Wire

Results for an Individual Student, Madame X on a Key Assignment, Technique Paper and Tape