Standard 1: Candidate Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions

Level: Initial and Advanced

Introduction

University of Kansas’ (KU) candidates must, in addition to the unit’s requirements, fulfill Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) requirements to receive recommendation for initial licensure—a “conditional license.” KSDE requires candidates to have bachelor’s degrees, complete an approved program, have cumulative grade point averages of at least a 2.5 on a 4.0 scale, and pass both the appropriate ETS PRAXIS II content test and the pedagogy (PLT) assessments. KSDE approved programs meet general education standards, professional education standards, and specific content program standards.

Three basic models constitute the unit’s initial programs.

• One of these, enrolling 77 percent of the program completers, is an integrated extended five-year program. All candidates preparing to teach unified early childhood, elementary, English, and social studies complete this program. In addition, most mathematics, sciences, and foreign language candidates are part of this program. In this program, students become candidates as they enter their junior years. At the completion of their senior years, these candidates finish the bachelor’s degree and, assuming they are eligible to be admitted to graduate school, enter their professional year. Upon completion, they are eligible to be recommended for licensure and have completed about half of their Masters degree.
• The remaining mathematics, sciences, and foreign language—and some health/physical education, and art—candidates complete a post-baccalaureate “Graduate Licensure Program.” The vast majority of these candidates are career changers and nontraditional-aged students.
• Music and health/physical education candidates enroll in a four-year program, which is principally for traditional-aged populations.

The unit also has a Transition to Teaching Alternative Licensure program funded by the U.S. Department of Education. This program is relatively new and is fully approved by KSDE; however, to this point, only one candidate has completed the work and holds the Kansas conditional license. It was designed to partner with the urban Kansas City, Kansas, schools to provide middle and secondary math and science teachers.

Candidates for licensure at the initial level are recommended by the unit head (the dean of Education) to KSDE. All candidates are enrolled in either the School of Education’s departments of Curriculum and Teaching or Health, Sport, and Exercise Sciences or the School of Fine Arts’ departments of Art or Music and Dance. The School of Education has been accredited by NCATE since 1954. The School of Fine Arts is accredited by both the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) and the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM).

The unit offers advanced programs for licensure, endorsement, or professional development of candidates in seven areas. Other Professional School Personnel programs are offered in Educational Administration at the building and at the district levels, School Psychology, ESL, and Reading Specialist. Advanced programs for teachers are Gifted and Talented, Special Education (adaptive, functional and deaf education), and professional development for teachers at the master’s degree level (in the departments of Curriculum and Teaching, Special Education, and Health, Sport and Exercise Sciences). The Conceptual Framework themes of Research and Best Practice, Content and Pedagogical Knowledge, and Professionalism are reflected in each program.

Admission to an advanced program area has two main requirements. First, candidates have to apply and be accepted into the university’s graduate school. Generally, acceptance requirements include an adequate cumulative grade point average, recommendations, a bachelor’s degree in an appropriate field from an accredited institution, and—in some programs—acceptable scores on standard measures, most commonly the Graduate Record Examination and Miller’s Analogies Test. Admission to graduate school does not mean that a potential candidate is admitted to a degree program in the unit, since degree program admission requirements and processes are above and beyond graduate school admission requirements. Program admission decisions are made by faculty at the academic department level, based on a candidate’s overall academic record, letters of recommendation related to a candidate’s potential for success in the advanced program area, and the candidate’s statement of purpose for graduate study as well as his/her vita.

Both initial and advanced candidates for licensure complete KSDE-approved programs. In the reports that lead to program approval decisions, each program presents an assessment plan that includes at least eight assessments, four of which are required. The assessments must measure candidates’ content knowledge, ability to plan instruction, clinical experience, and effect on student learning. Findings from the assessments and a discussion about how the findings have been used to assist candidates and improve the program are also included in the reports. Program assessments are integrated into the unit assessment plan and supplemented with unit-wide assessments. KSDE program reports, and the decisions that have been made in regard to them, can be found at http://soe.ku.edu/ncate/program-reports.