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Joint Assessment
In Initial programs, joint assessment is a continuous process that involves university faculty, school faculty, and candidate. University coordinators are responsible for actual grading, but evaluation conferences between all participants occur throughout the experience. They help establish rapport, maintain good working relationships, and prevent the compounding of minor difficulties. Informal conferences between candidate and mentor occur on an ongoing basis, with formal conferences scheduled in advance between the three participants. It should be noted too that for Teacher Education secondary candidates and K-12 majors, the content area faculty supervisor also observes and assesses performance during the first field semester. (See Assessment Data-First Field)
During classroom observations and site visits, university supervisors use a standard form to provide a narrative description of what they saw, the content and delivery of the lesson, classroom interactions, strengths, weaknesses, and suggestions for improvement. During the first field experience, school faculty in Initial programs evaluate candidates once at mid-term and once at the end of the experience. During clinical practice, school faculty evaluations occur four times during the experience. Evaluations at each level are aligned with the unit assessment system (Danielson Domains and NBPTS). (For examples of evaluations linked to standards, see Evaluation Forms)
Reflection and Feedback
Both field and clinical experiences allow time for reflection and feedback from peers and clinical faculty. The site conference is the most consistent vehicle for this process across all programs. Site observations provide a natural time for supervisor, candidate and site mentor to reflect on the candidate's progress. Supervisors provide specific feedback, and candidates are encouraged to self-evaluate their performance. Virtually all programs also include a reflective component on the daily activities that comprise clinical practice. Common examples are reflective journals, online journals, small group or online discussions with peers, daily logs, and post-lesson reflections.
Seminars help candidates build connections between theory and practice and allow candidates to debrief experiences or problems with each other and with their supervisors. At the Initial level, two-hour weekly seminars accompany the first field experience, with another two-hour content seminar for secondary and K-12 candidates. Two-hour weekly seminars accompany the clinical semester. Seminar topics may include instructional methods and techniques, management strategies, instructional planning, student motivation, standards and benchmarks, thinking skills, research findings, and current theory. At the Advanced level, seminars typically occur at least three times throughout the semester where candidates and supervisors can discuss concerns and goals, supervisor observations, parental involvement, best practices, program standards, case studies, instructional decisions, and many other items of relevance.
Candidate portfolios in many emphasis areas provide ample opportunity for candidate reflection. Initial portfolios, for example, ask the candidate to look back at activities throughout the program, provide examples of each of the four areas of proficiency, and reflect on progress in attaining that proficiency. Advanced portfolios ask for candidate activities such as reflections, sample student plans, case studies, data analysis, student assessment data, professional development plans, workshop presentations, and many other items relevant to the clinical practicum.
Finally, the scheduling of Professional Development Days has become a central component of some programs. Held in two-day blocks three times during the semester, they are standard features of both field semesters for elementary Teacher Education candidates. Discussion topics during Professional Development Days may include ethics, law, educational trends, innovative student projects, employment concerns and numerous other timely topics. The experience has proved valuable not only for the content it provides but also for the opportunity it gives candidates to step back from the rush of daily activities and reflect together on their development as professional educators.
Student Learning and Diversity
Initial programs illustrate their commitment to helping all students learn by requiring that candidates include accommodation and assessment components in all instructional planning. Accommodations might target physical or academic exceptionality, learning styles, or diverse ethnic and gender groups. During actual instruction, candidates collect pre and post-test data on student learning and analyze the results in order to improve their own performance in the future.
At the Advanced level, assessment data is most often part of the culminating portfolio. Of the twelve programs that have a clinical experience, nine require portfolio documentation of student assessment. Programs for special educators have even more extensive assessment requirements throughout the program; for example, assessment batteries (EDS 636), intervention plans (EDS 638), student progress reports (EDS 640), and individual education programs (EDS 622).
Practicum sites for Advanced candidates reflect the full range of diversity that occurs in the school classrooms where candidates are teaching. Non-school sites, chosen for the program's specific emphasis, reflect the special population for which the candidate is studying. These include at-risk programs for elementary, middle and secondary candidates; migrant programs for ESL candidates; English language limited students for the Reading practicum; and several kinds of diversity for special education programs. These practica include working with rural youth, adjudicated youth, and schools in crisis. Additionally, almost all student populations at these sites have an over-representation of youth from minority and low socio-economic backgrounds.
Unit policy on multicultural placement for Initial programs requires that each candidate have a semester-long supervised placement in a culturally diverse site, defined as having at least a 20% multicultural population. Candidates may have more than one such placement but must have at least one. For the two northern Michigan placement sites that have limited cultural diversity, this definition was expanded to include populations of low socio-economic status. (This policy will be addressed more fully with Standard 4.)
Because of its commitment to provide candidates with the widest possible range of experiences, the unit developed other opportunities for candidates to have diverse experiences. International experiences for Initial candidates include the South Africa program, which offers Teacher Education candidates six weeks of their first field semester in partnership with the University of Stellenbosch near Cape Town. A total of 44 candidates have participated in the South Africa program, with another cohort scheduled for winter semester 2006.
Three years ago, the College joined the Consortium for Overseas Student Teaching (COST), which places candidates in one of 15 countries for clinical practice in kindergarten through secondary settings. To date, 18 candidates have participated, with another 7 candidates scheduled to participate in the coming semester.
The extremely successful, grant-funded Cross-Cultural Student Teaching program places student teachers in Broward County, Florida in schools with a high percentage of students from minority or limited English backgrounds. To date, approximately 35 candidates have participated in the Cross-Cultural Student Teaching experience.
(For details on placement sites named here, see Placement Sites-Diverse Experiences)
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