College of Education

Eastern Michigan University

Issue No: 641

February 27, 2006

We impact the way America learns.

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Previous issues of Monday Report are at http://www.emich.edu/coe/monday. Send items and comments to vpolite@emich.edu.

 

FROM THE DESK OF THE DEAN

 

Colleagues:

            I struggle to avoid long and superfluous emails, but I believe it is absolutely essential to ensure that all persons on campus who share in some aspects of preparing professional educators are fully aware of the challenges we presently face.  Please read to the end with a special focus on the Assessment System Pilot.

I write this letter to you as the Dean of the College of Education, Eastern Michigan University, with a strong sense of urgency.  NCATE defines the Education Unit (sometimes referred as the Professional Education Unit) as all programs offered for initial and continuing preparation of teachers and other school personnel regardless of where these programs are administratively housed on the campus.  The head of the Education Unit, according to NCATE, is responsible for managing and coordinating all programs offered.  This responsibility also includes the collection, aggregation, and utilization of data generated from our candidates and graduates for continuous program improvement.  Presently, educational programs are housed in the College of Education, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Health and Human Services, and the College of Technology.  Conservatively speaking, as many as one third of the EMU enrollees are considered for NCATE (National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education) purposes, a part of the Professional Education Unit at EMU.    

Eastern Michigan University, where our focus is largely instructional effectiveness, is a charter member of NCATE with continuous membership for more than 52 years.  Many institutions, primarily Research I institutions and those institutions that aspire to achieve Research I status, have taken a serious look at the importance of maintaining national accreditation from an agency largely focused on teacher preparation.  Some Research I institutions have even withdrawn from the national accreditation process.   Given the surplus teacher production in the State of Michigan, it appears to be sound reasoning that we would ensure that our graduates are competitive in the marketplace by holding a degree from a nationally accredited program.  As our Provost, Dr. Donald Loppnow indicated on January 20, 2006, EMU will remain committed to NCATE through the 2009-2010 academic year.

It is important to note that NCATE officially revamped its accreditation standards in 2000 with a heavy focus on performance-based assessment, aggregated quantitative and qualitative data collected over an extended period of time, and documented evidence that the Professional Education Unit has a governance structure that allows for the appropriate utilization of the data collected for continuous program improvement.  

The 2003-2004 academic year was the last site visit for Continuous Accreditation from NCATE on the campus of EMU.   NCATE distinguishes between Assessment Planning Activities and a functioning Assessment System.   The Assessment System is a comprehensive and integrated set of evaluation measures that provides information for use in monitoring candidate performance and managing and improving unit operations and programs.

The expectation is that each NCATE approved institution scheduled for review in 2009-2010 will have an established, functioning Assessment System with three years of aggregated data as evidence to support the System.  In addition to the three years of aggregated data, the most important criteria is the ability to document that the data was consistently used for program improvement. This is the critical decision-making year (2006) around all aspects of NCATE planning.

On January 20, 2006, Professional Unit hosted an unprecedented Winter Conference where 160 faculty from around the campus, largely the College of Education and the College of Arts and Sciences, engaged in a serious conversation about the work that must occur in an effort to demonstrate continuous improvement and meet our NCATE expectations. 

Conceptual Framework

            One of the areas that requires some possible rethinking is the Conceptual Framework (CF).  We presently have two CFs, one for initial programs and one for advanced (both are available for review on the College of Education’s NCATE web page) [http://www.emich.edu/coe/ncate/2003/Docs/part1/concept.html]. The Conceptual Framework, according to NCATE expectations, is a clearly articulated rationale for the Unit’s operation, and provides direction for programs, courses, teaching, candidate performance, faculty scholarship and service, and Unit accountability.  In short, the CF should convey the main vision that we as a Unit embrace and value.

 I have asked Dr. Don Bennion to form an ad hoc group of critical thinkers and writers to take a close look at the two conceptual frameworks to determine whether they, in their current forms, convey the main ideas that we value as a Unit.  We will not rewrite the conceptual frameworks, but our goal is to ensure that central themes are clearly articulated and widely understood across campus.

NCATE Standards

            It is important to note that the new NCATE Standards focus largely on outcomes—proving the candidates at both the initial and advanced levels demonstrate knowledge and skills in measurable and meaningful ways.  There are six standards which are divided into two categories:

For a detailed description of the NCATE Standards see: http://www.ncate.org/public/standards.asp

Data Management

            I have asked Dr. Michael Bretting to begin negotiations with LiveText.  Given the size and scale of the EMU Professional Unit and the requirement that we demonstrate both a comprehensive and integrated set of evaluation measures under the new NCATE standards, non-electronic methods of data collection and aggregation no longer appear to be feasible.  The increasing demands placed on institutions from a wide variety of accreditation agencies have predictably generated a proliferation of various commercial systems. To their credit, LiveText is the established leader in serving large institutions for NCATE and other purposes.  It is important to note that most NCATE institutions have well-established electronic systems and EMU is still in the decision-making mode.  Included among large educational units presently using LiveText for NCATE accreditation data management are:

Brigham Young University (2 Year Member)

Central Washington University (4 Year Member)

Arkansas State (4 Year Member)

Illinois State University (3 Year Member)

Indiana State University (3 Year Member)

Metro State College (4 Year Member)

National Louis University (4 Year Member)

Oklahoma State University (1 Year Member)

Ohio University (6 Month Member)

Northern Illinois University (18 Month Member)

The University of Georgia (2 Year Member)

University of Central Florida (3 Year Member)

(plus another 358 colleges and universities)

The Professional Unit will be using LiveText to support the Assessment System.  This decision was made after 18 months of discussion and deliberation and formal input by faculty, staff, and administrators.

Early in 2004 it was determined that Banner was not able to collect the data necessary for an assessment system and that ICT did not have the resources to develop software.  Software from SCT was reviewed during the summer of 2004.  The software was designed to have students’ exhibit assessment in portfolio format only.  Portfolio assessment was not the model the faculty selected and, in any case, would not be sufficient to aggregate the data NCATE requests that should help us meaningfully assess our own effectiveness.

The next alternative was to review web-based systems. TaskStream and LiveText are standards-centered, web-based development tools that allow users to create and share documents, portfolios, and a variety of assessments.  Both systems were reviewed by the ad hoc assessment committee at the beginning of the fall semester 2004.  LiveText had the most flexibility with regard to the type of assessments that could be assessed on the system and were invited to campus.  LiveText was evaluated by faculty from COE and the secondary and K-12 education programs in the other colleges during presentations.  The COE Council authorized Virginia Harder to present a proposal to university’s ERP Tactical Committee to use LiveText as the assessment tool.  The Tactical Committee approved LiveText in December 2004.

During 2005 LiveText was further reviewed by faculty, staff and administrators.  In addition, a new software package and TaskStream were reviewed.  Although TaskStream provides equivalent services to students and faculty, LiveText was selected for the following reasons:

The immediate need of the Unit is to implement an assessment system and the technology to support the system by fall 2006.  The decision to use LiveText to support the assessment system has been made with this timeline in mind.  However, the Assessment Committee and the Unit’s Governance Structure will continue to discuss other alternatives including hiring IT staff in COE and personnel alignment to develop and support a customized system after the 2010 site visit.   

Assessment System Pilot

Based on the feedback from the breakout groups at the NCATE workshop on January 20th, it is clear that EMU already has important assessments in place to meet NCATE standards. In order to begin to move forward as a Unit in developing a shared computer-based assessment system, it is important for faculty to see these familiar assessments within the computer system, so that they can better envision how the computer system will work. To reach this goal, we would like to collect sample assessments from all 49 NCATE accredited programs at EMU. Once these assessments have been gathered together, LiveText has agreed to put these assessments on their system so that we can begin to “play around” with the assessment system and gain a clearer understanding of what it entails.

Each program coordinator or those persons with oversight responsibility for programs are asked to assist by providing the following information with help from your program faculty (if necessary), we would like you to gather the following information together by March 15:

It is imperative that you deliver as much of the information described above as possible by March 15 to Dr. David Anderson (david.anderson@emich.edu). Please do NOT wait past the March 15 deadline to deliver information. We will make do (as best we can) with partial information. Please schedule meetings with appropriate program faculty (if necessary) to meet this deadline. NOTE: this assessment does NOT have to be a shared assessment (across the program or Unit) at this point. We are only looking an initial sample (even if only one faculty member currently uses it) that can act as a starting point for the development process. Also, we do NOT require any actual data at this point – just the assessment activity, standards, and grading procedures.

By April 15, LiveText will have entered these assessments into a comprehensive assessment system. Each EMU program will be able to review these assessments and get a sense of the data collection issues required to implement these assessments this year BEFORE faculty leave for their spring/summer break.

Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns. Members of the assessment committee are willing to meet with individuals or programs to clarify any details, or help with the development process.

Leadership

            Stability of leadership within the Unit is another essential issue that must be addressed.  Dr. Alane Starko has graciously agreed to serve as the Interim Associate Dean for Academic Accountability.  I have asked Dr. Michael Bretting to chair a national search for a permanent Associate Dean for Academic Accountability beginning immediately.  The new Associate Dean’s duties will include the following:

1. Coordinator - NCATE

2. Liaison with all the Colleges involved with the Professional Education Unit

3. Coordinate SA Reports

4. Coordinate annual reporting

      i. NCATE

      ii. AACTE

      iii. Title II

      iv. Other required State Reporting    

5. Coordinate NCATE Gateways

6. Coordinate all NCATE Ad Hoc Committees

     i. Conceptual Framework

     ii. Standards 1-6

7. Oversee Data Management System

8. Serve as the Chief Certification Officer for the College of Education

            The faculty of the Department of Teacher Education took an advisory vote to recommend changing Dr. Don Bennion’s status from interim to permanent.  The outcome of the voting was overwhelming support for appointing Dr. Bennion as the permanent Department Head.  I have taken that vote under advisement and will move forward to change his status effective immediately.

The faculty serving on the ad hoc Assessment System Committee under the strong leadership of Dr. David Anderson and various faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences are presently assessing the comments generated from the workshop on January 20 to propose a governance structure to support the Assessment System.

Again, I apologize for the length of this letter.  

Sincerely,

 

Vernon C. Polite, Dean

College of Education

Cc:       President Fallon

            Provost Council

            College of Arts & Science

           

 

THEME STATEMENTS

Caring professional educators for a diverse and democratic society. (CPED2S) (Initial program)

Inquiry, advocacy, and leadership in education for diverse and democratic society. (Advanced programs)

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