Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Skills for Teacher Candidates
Candidates in the graduate programs demonstrate their pedagogical content knowledge and skills through scores on ETS Pathwise Summative Assessment, C1 (Making learning goals clear to students) and C2 (Making content comprehensible) and through teacher portfolio assessments where all of the Illinois Professional Teaching Standards are addressed, but emphasis for the content knowledge section appears in Section 1. The teacher portfolios are scored by knowledgeable external readers who are practitioners themselves, some of whom have also earned National Board certification. The tables below indicate the graduate candidates’ mean scores on the two pedagogical content knowledge and skills indicators.
Scores on the Teacher Portfolio provide evidence that both elementary and art teacher candidates demonstrate pedagogical content knowledge and skills in their culminating project, as judged by external practitioners. All total mean scores and sub scores show candidates consistently perform above the acceptable level for demonstrating these knowledge and skills.
The undergraduate program candidates demonstrate their pedagogical content knowledge and skills through lesson planning and performance during the candidates’ internship. Candidates plan lessons across their field experiences and across the disciplines. Key in this process are the lessons that they develop as part of Methods II with PrePrimary Student Teaching and Methods IV with Student Teaching, as these plans are written and taught under the guidance of their Methods Seminar instructor, faculty supervisor, and supervising teacher. These lesson plans become part of the Teaching Portfolio. The lesson plans that candidates implement on the days that supervisors visit are evaluated using a rubric that allows for narrative feedback and is later converted to numeric form. This rubric was piloted in Methods IV during Spring 07 and will be used in Methods II and IV beginning Spring 08. The aggregated results for the primary level student teachers’ (Methods IV) final observation follow.
Of the selected pedagogical content knowledge items, it was noted that undergraduate teacher candidates were particularly weak in application of state standards, assessment, and ability to articulate changes needed. The small number of students (8) leaves the program unable to make any sort of statistical finding. The small number is further complicated by the uneven performance within the cohort, which was made up of members who were very strong and others who were relatively weak. While showing some distinct strengths and weaknesses, the data demonstrate candidates to be performing at an overall mean score which places their performance almost exactly in the middle of the developing range. The developing range is the Early Childhood Education goal, as we see mastering teaching as a career-long goal.
Scores on the Teacher Portfolio provide evidence that both elementary and art teacher candidates demonstrate pedagogical content knowledge and skills in their culminating project, as judged by external practitioners. All total mean scores and sub scores show candidates consistently perform above the acceptable level for demonstrating these knowledge and skills.
The undergraduate program candidates demonstrate their pedagogical content knowledge and skills through lesson planning and performance during the candidates’ internship. Candidates plan lessons across their field experiences and across the disciplines. Key in this process are the lessons that they develop as part of Methods II with PrePrimary Student Teaching and Methods IV with Student Teaching, as these plans are written and taught under the guidance of their Methods Seminar instructor, faculty supervisor, and supervising teacher. These lesson plans become part of the Teaching Portfolio. The lesson plans that candidates implement on the days that supervisors visit are evaluated using a rubric that allows for narrative feedback and is later converted to numeric form. This rubric was piloted in Methods IV during Spring 07 and will be used in Methods II and IV beginning Spring 08. The aggregated results for the primary level student teachers’ (Methods IV) final observation follow.
Of the selected pedagogical content knowledge items, it was noted that undergraduate teacher candidates were particularly weak in application of state standards, assessment, and ability to articulate changes needed. The small number of students (8) leaves the program unable to make any sort of statistical finding. The small number is further complicated by the uneven performance within the cohort, which was made up of members who were very strong and others who were relatively weak. While showing some distinct strengths and weaknesses, the data demonstrate candidates to be performing at an overall mean score which places their performance almost exactly in the middle of the developing range. The developing range is the Early Childhood Education goal, as we see mastering teaching as a career-long goal.
