Forty faculty and staff from across the teacher preparation programs met in the North Star Ballroom on the St. Paul Campus to discuss the curriculum and performance assessments of teacher education. This was the 5th annual teacher education summit in the College of Education and Human Development. These cross program/cross department and college workdays provide an important opportunity for the academic community to review what we’ve accomplished and further infuse practice and theory in the candidates’ coursework.
Participants reviewed experiences with new performance assessments that were embedded across the coursework taken by all teacher candidates. These assessments include the Teacher Identity Self Study (TISS), Professional Rotations, and Case Studies of Learners. Instructors for the common teacher education courses in the redesign presented their assessments and discussed how they added value to our professional understanding of teaching and teacher development.
One key task for 2013-14 is to further align the “grading” of the performance assessments with our candidate progress review system. The summit started with concept development work on components of candidate progress that can be assessed that build toward core practices of teaching. Participants examined examples of student work for evidence of one or more core practice. Data gathered from these work groups will inform the development of reliable and valid performance measures.
CEHD faculty review performance assessments and student responses as part of the ongoing curriculum revision process of the redesign initiative.