Standard 1

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Element 7: Student Learning for Teacher Candidates.

This element concerns candidates’ abilities to affect their students’ learning. Essentially, can candidates appraise their students academically, make age appropriate needs based instructional decisions, deliver content, and monitor their learning?

Each program area is required to have a minimum of eight assessments in its assessment plan, at least one of which measures candidate effects on student learning. A description of the assessments used by each program is available on the KSDE program reports at http://soe.ku.edu/ncate/program-reports. The most common assessment used is a practice Kansas Performance Assessment (KPA). The assessment is a mastery assessment, meaning that a candidate cannot complete the program without receiving satisfactory ratings on the practice KPA.

Three additional major data sources allow the unit to assert that its initial candidates’ performance has a positive influence on student learning.

The Summative Assessment of candidates, completed during their student teaching and internships.
The evaluation of program completers as determined by employers.
The candidates’ own assessment of their ability to positively affect students’ academic growth (data obtained through the EBI).

Each of these data sets is discussed below.

Summative Assessment. During their fifth year—the “professional” year—candidates complete a student teaching experience in the fall and an internship in the spring. Both university supervisors and clinical supervisors complete exhaustive formative and summative evaluations on the candidates. The assessment instrument (http://soe.ku.edu/ncate/exhibits/summative-assessment/) is keyed to the 13 Kansas State Department of Education professional education standards as found on page 52 of Regulations and Standards for Kansas Educators (http://soe.ku.edu/ncate/exhibits/CertHandbook.doc). Five of these standards relate directly or indirectly to the candidates’ ability to foster student learning. Aggregated data from the 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 semesters are shown in the following table.

As can be seen from the table, candidates, as judged by both their university and clinical supervisors, have mastered the KSDE standards that relate to student learning. Evaluators awarded far more “The preservice teacher meets this standard in an exemplary way (4s)” marks than any other.

Table 1.29: Candidate Summative Assessment Data on Student Learning, KSDE Professional Education Standards
	University Supervisor				Clinical Supervisor
Standard	Fall 2004	Spr 2005	Fall 2005	Spr 2006	Fall 2004	Spr 2005	Fall 2005	Spr 2006
4. The educator understands and uses a variety of appropriate instructional strategies to develop various kinds of students' learning including critical thinking, problem solving, and reading.	3.56	3.58	3.59	3.60	3.58	3.54	3.53	3.57
5. The educator uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.	3.40	3.52	3.48	3.43	3.44	3.39	3.42	3.43

6. The educator uses a variety of effective verbal and non-verbal communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom.	3.58	3.58	3.61	3.54	3.53	3.55	3.53	3.56
8. The educator understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and ensure the continual intellectual, social, and other aspects of personal development of all learners.	3.37	3.32	3.56	3.45	3.39	3.42	3.43	3.42
11. The educator demonstrates the ability to integrate across and within content fields to enrich the curriculum, develop reading and thinking skills, and facilitate all students' abilities to understand relationships between subject areas.	3.61	3.54	3.50	3.57	3.47	3.54	3.44	3.49

Scale: 1=has not demonstrated the competency to 4=has demonstrated competency in exemplary way

The KU Employer Survey. Employers are surveyed to determine whether the teachers they hire meet their expectations. The survey instrument is keyed to the principles of the Educators as Leaders Conceptual Framework. The four sections of the instrument are Research and Best Practice, Content Knowledge, Professionalism, and Dispositions and Values. The large majority of respondents to the instrument are principals. They are asked to respond to the items in regard to the program completers from the unit as a group. The responses represent their collective wisdom regarding over 620 teachers.

At least 6 items of the 24-item KU Employer Survey relate either directly or indirectly to the candidates’ ability to enhance student learning. The survey uses a three-point scale, with three being high. On every question, principals indicated that program completers more than met their expectations in regard to their teacher’s ability to enhance student learning. Table 1.30 provides the data from the principals on their teachers’ ability to enhance student learning.

Table 1.30: Principal Evaluation of Program Completers’ Ability to Enhance Student Learning
Question	No. Principals Responding	Mean	Standard Deviation
2. Has knowledge of assessment practices that are based on standards, instructional goals and instructional adaptations	70	2.41	.551
3. Demonstrates skill in the design and use of coherent evidence-based instruction	71	2.39	.520
4. Demonstrates skill in the use of assessment practices that are based on standards, instructional goals, and instructional adaptations	71	2.32	.580
8. Demonstrates ability to engage students in learning	72	2.46	.580
9. Demonstrates ability to create a classroom environment based on respect and rapport	72	2.56	.579
21. Demonstrates a belief that all students can learn	72	2.57	.552

Scale: 1=Below Expectations; 2=Meets Expectations; 3=Exceeds Expectations

Educational Benchmarking Inventory (EBI). The Assessment of Student Learning is one of 14 factors in the EBI exit assessment. The two key questions asked for this section are-

Q38. Degree that Education coursework enhanced your ability to formally assess student learning. Q39. Degree that Education coursework enhanced your ability to informally assess student learning.

The means of this factor over the past five administrations of the EBI are as follows.

Table 1.31: EBI Self-Report of Education Course Impact on Assessment of Student Learning

Year	Mean
2002	5.45
2003	5.10
2004	5.45
2006	5.54

Scale: 1=Not at All to 4=Moderately to 7=Extremely

Examples of additional assessments for advanced teacher candidates are listed below.

Gifted and Talented. The program is shaped by standards that were developed originally by the professional associations and adapted for KSDE use. One of the seven standards of the National Association for Gifted Children is that “gifted learners (in the K-12 schools) must be assessed to determine appropriate educational services.” The unit program meets this standard in part through course and practicum work. A course in the individualization of instruction follows a course in assessment. Summer practicum experiences give candidates an opportunity to develop case studies with students for talent development.
English as a Second Language. ESL endorsement candidates at KU best demonstrate their effects on student learning through the culminating assignment in C&T 816: Diagnosis and Remediation in Second Language Education. For this “Four-Skill Area Assessment” assignment, candidates are required to develop an assessment that isolates each of the four language skills areas of listening, speaking, reading, and writing and to demonstrate their ability to: 1) administer the four-skill area tests to English Language Learners, 2) score the tests, 3) perform an item analysis of the objectively scored parts of the tests and a qualitative evaluation of the subjectively scored parts of the test, 4) discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the tests as a result of their analysis, and 5) diagnose student learning with recommendations for remediation. The candidates must meet with their cooperating teachers regularly to plan the tests, review test items, make decisions about administering the tests, discuss the test results, and decide how best to communicate the test results to students and their parents. ESL candidates’ success in meeting the requirements of the Four-Skill Area Assessment assignment is demonstrated through the grade they receive by their course instructor. Data was collected on the grades of 67 candidates between Fall 2002 and Fall 2005. Letter grades were converted to grade points and the average of these candidates’ grades was 3.88 on 4-point scale, or an “A”. As indicated by their grades, candidates have been overwhelmingly successful in demonstrating their ability to evaluate their effects on student learning through the development, administration, and analysis of appropriate assessments. A rubric is provided that indicates the criterion for a grade of A, B, C or D/F. Candidates whose work falls below the C criteria are either advised out of the course or are required to re-do the assignment until they meet the minimum standard.
Special Education. Characteristics of Students with Adaptive and Functional Curricular Needs is a course taken by all candidates seeking the Master's Degree with a major in special education. As part of these endorsement programs' state-approved regimen of assessments, the course requires students to locate and apply technology solutions for academic and/or social/behavioral difficulties exhibited by pupils with whom they are working. Following is an excerpt from one of the fall, 2006 SPED 730 candidates, working with a pupil named Chris. “In exploring the products available to assist students like Chris, I was quite impressed with the number of products available. In researching for this assignment I came across the web site for CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology). This organization develops software that helps expand the opportunities for all students, especially those with disabilities to access curriculum materials in a variety of ways. Although Chris has coped and has been functioning well the technology available to him now will only enhance his ability to reach his full potential. The software program that I found was called Aspire READER…." Chris had been using the program for only a week when this assignment was submitted; there currently are no definitive performance data we can provide at this time to demonstrate significant improvement. By semester's end there will be an appropriate body of performance data to demonstrate clear improvement in Chris's reading as a function of this SPED 730 student's technology solution.

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