Tift College of Education Assessment

Assessment

Candidate assessment, rooted in the purposes and goals of the Professional Education Unit, is based on the three organizing principles of the Conceptual Framework:

To Know the foundations of the education profession, content bases for curricula, and characteristics of diverse learners;
To Do the work of a professional educator in planning and implementing well-integrated curricula using developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive instructional strategies, materials, and technology; and
To Be a reflective, collaborative, and responsive decision-maker, facilitator, and role model within the classroom, school, community, and global environment.

The processes of understanding, practicing, and reflecting, as well as the characteristics of engagement, diversity, and collaboration, serve to organize the portfolio used in assessment of candidates. The assessment rubrics for the portfolio include To Know, To Do, and To Be elements for each outcome/standard. All other assessment instruments (both the instruments used in previous years and the recently revised versions) are correlated to these principles, processes, and characteristics, as well. See Conceptual Framework and Key Assessment Alignment.

Because excellence in preparation of teachers and educational leaders is the College’s overall goal, assessment of students in initial and advanced programs is crucial to the success of the College. Thus, a detailed progressive process of assessment is required. The candidate assessment process is comprehensive and follows a student from the point of pre-admission through the first year following program completion. Assessment data is gathered at multiple transition points: full admission, program progression, pre-culminating experience, program completion, certification recommendation, post-program completion (graduate follow-up). Table 5 presents an overview of this process.

Tift College has adopted LiveText as a candidate assessment management tool (see also LiveText support materials on the College website). It was implemented in all programs during the Fall 2005 semester. (See LiveText Overview Chart and Transforming Practitioner Framework and LiveText Assessment Chart .) Electronic portfolios are a requirement in all programs; candidates use customized portfolio templates that address the common outcomes of the Transforming Practitioner or the Transformational Leader, as well as the Georgia Professional Standards Commission’s program-specific standards. Each program has identified required artifacts (including a common Analysis of Student Learning assignment), which are assessed at the course level; candidates include these artifacts and required reflections on how the artifacts demonstrate their ability to meet the designated outcomes/ standards, including how the artifact contributed to their development as Transforming Practitioners. The unit also uses LiveText to manage the Dispositions assessment process: each student is assessed on the eight professional dispositions in each class and in each field experience. In addition to the dispositions assessment, all students in field experiences submit their journal reflections in LiveText and all complete a Demographic Data Report, which provides documentation on the required diversity of field placements. Candidates in Practicum and Student Teaching or Internship receive the summative evaluation of their performance through LiveText . The rubric that guides the formative and summative evaluations in these field experiences is aligned with the conceptual framework , INTASC, and the Georgia Framework for Teaching . Candidates in the final clinical field experience are also assessed by their cooperating teacher on their content knowledge with a LiveText instrument aligned with program-specific content standards. Data from this assessment are combined with the scores on the state content knowledge tests and the GPA from a standards-driven transcript analysis to enrich our data on candidates’ subject matter knowledge. In addition to the candidate assessments in LiveText, the LiveText forms function is used to create and distribute various surveys to program completers, to graduates, to employers, and to cooperating teachers.

Our Student Information System (SIS) is the primary tool for collecting, monitoring, and aggregating quantitative data on candidates, such as entry and exit GPA and test scores. Prior to the implementation of the new GACE assessments, a separate database managed candidates’ Praxis II subscores; with the data on GACE scores now provided by the state, a similar database on GACE performances will be easier to maintain.

Table 5: Overview of Candidate Assessments

Stage	Program Level	Evidence	Location
Full Admission	Initial	CGPA SAT/ACT Praxis I/GACE I FYS/ENG Math	SIS SIS SIS SIS SIS
	Advanced	CGPA MAT/GRE T-4 certificate	College transcript SIS PSC database
	Advanced (Ed Leadership)	CGPA MAT/GRE Recommendation from school district T-4 certificate 3 years teaching experience Instructional technology competency	College transcript SIS Student file PSC database Student file PSC database
Program Progression	Initial	CGPA GPA in Education courses GPA in Major # of C’s Pre-requisite courses Fieldwork I Fieldwork II Demographic Data Forms Dispositions Assessments Portfolio artifacts	SIS SIS SIS SIS SIS LiveText; SIS LiveText; SIS LiveText LiveText LiveText
	Advanced	CGPA # of C’s Dispositions Assessments Portfolio artifacts	SIS SIS LiveText LiveText
Pre-Culminating Experience	Initial	CGPA GPA in Education courses GPA in Major Practicum journals Practicum observations Practicum summative evaluation Demographics Data Form Analysis of Student Learning Content Knowledge Assessment (Classroom Teacher) Dispositions Assessments Portfolio artifacts	SIS SIS SIS LiveText Student file, FE Office LiveText LiveText LiveText LiveText LiveText LiveText
	Advanced	GPA Pre-requisite courses Dispositions assessments Portfolio artifacts	SIS SIS LiveText LiveText
Program Completion	Initial	GPA ST/Int journals ST/Int observations ST/Int summative evaluations Demographics Data Form Analysis of Student Learning Content Knowledge Assessment (Classroom Teacher) Degree Audit Portfolio Dispositions assessments Candidate exit survey	SIS LiveText Student file, FE Office LiveText LiveText LiveText LiveText SIS LiveText LiveText LiveText
	Advanced	Research Project (M.Ed. in ECE, MGE, SEC; Ed.S.) Clinical Practicum (Reading) Internship (Ed Leadership) Dispositions assessment Portfolio Exit GPA Candidate exit survey	SIS; LiveText SIS; LiveText SIS; LiveText LiveText LiveText SIS LiveText
Certification Recommendation	Initial	Praxis II/GACE II scores (including subscores)	SIS and test score database
	Advanced (Reading and Ed Leadership)	Praxis II/GACE II scores (including subscores)	SIS and test score database
Post-Program Completion*	Initial	Follow-up surveys Focus groups	LiveText SCOPE minutes
	Advanced	Follow-up surveys Focus groups	LiveText SCOPE minutes

*We consider the follow-up on program completers to be assessment of our programs, rather than of our candidates; however, if the state succeeds in implementing a new assessment of first-year teachers (based on the Georgia Framework for Teaching) and the PSC and Georgia Department of Education can coordinate their efforts to provide teacher preparation institutions with data on program completers after they are teaching, we will be able to do some analysis at the candidate level.

The portfolio and performance assessments in the Practicum and Student Teaching are the most cumulative assessments for the initial certification programs and the rubrics that guide those assessments show most clearly the connections between our conceptual framework and the candidate assessment system. Formative Evaluations (observations) and the Summative Evaluation in the two final clinical experiences are based on the Field Experience Standards of Performance for Initial Certification Candidates. All initial certification portfolios are assessed with the relevant program-specific assessment rubric, all of which include the set of Common Transforming Practitioner Standards. Candidates in Practicum are expected to be at the Developing or Proficient level on the summative evaluation; in Student Teaching, they are expected to be Proficient. Likewise, candidates are expected to be rated at the Proficient level on all sections of their portfolio by the end of their programs. In the field experiences, remediation plans are implemented with students who do not perform satisfactorily before they are allowed to progress further in the program. Students who do not receive satisfactory ratings on any section of their portfolio are expected to revise as necessary prior to a final review. A process to determine inter-rater reliability is in place, A full-scale implementation of that process occurred in Spring, 07. If significant variations emerge, we work with assessors to achieve clearer consensus on the ratings. In all cases, candidate performance is rated by multiple assessors.

This evolving candidate assessment process is only a part of the overall Tift College of Education assessment system, which includes assessments of programs and curriculum, faculty, resources, partnerships, and all unit operations, but it is at the heart of Mercer’s continuing pursuit of its goal of preparing professional educators who will transform the lives of their students. (See Assessments and Data Sources for Monitoring Unit Operations.)