Assessment System
The development of the unit assessment system for the graduate education programs at Columbia College Chicago began with brainstorming and confirmatory meetings. The first of this series of meetings occurred within the context of a regularly scheduled faculty meeting during the spring of 1997. Full- and part-time faculty members, as well as full-time staff members, considered the central question of the kind of teacher candidate the education unit wanted to recommend for a teaching certificate. Knowledge, skills, and dispositions of the Columbia College Chicago teacher candidate were identified. The Belief Statements and the Mission Statement espoused by the then Educational Studies Department were reviewed and confirmed. A summary of the sequence of events that followed is presented below in chronological order, with the members of the community involved noted in bold.
* Spring 1998: Candidate focus group discussions about the mission and candidates’ perceptions about the degree to which the programs were meeting the stated missions;
* Fall 1998: Faculty discussions about necessary learning outcomes for candidates to meet the then new Illinois Professional Teaching Standards;
* Spring and Summer 1999: Faculty discussion about adopting the Danielson Framework for Teaching and plans made for the generation of performance-based artifacts attesting to teaching competencies.
* Spring 2000: Written statements and a graphic representation of the beliefs, goals, and intended outcomes of the graduate programs were developed. Five focus groups composed of current teacher candidates, alumnae, part-time faculty, field experience supervisors, and advisory board members from the P-12 community were convened to address the following questions:
§ What are some of the primary qualities (characteristics) of our teacher candidates?
§ What do they know and what can they do when they enter our programs?
§ What do they know and what can they do at the end of the programs? (i.e., what value have the programs added?)
§ Describe in a phrase the “Columbia College Chicago Teacher.”
· Fall 2002: Meeting with faculty to specify the course products used as evidence that candidates were meeting the Framework’s stated outcomes.
· Fall 2003 – Summer 2004: Discussions at faculty meetings about the Framework in relation to their teaching and standards from their specific disciplines and design of a comprehensive data collection plan.
· Fall 2004 – Present: Continued refinements made to the Unit Assessment System, based on discussions with graduate and undergraduate faculty. Collection and analysis of test score results, course products, student teaching evaluations, dispositions assessments, and teacher portfolio scores.
The unit therefore has an assessment system that reflects the conceptual frameworks and professional and state standards and is regularly evaluated by its professional community.
The unit’s assessment system includes a total of eight key assessments, which are used to measure the overall quality and integrity of each of the unit’s three initial certification programs. The key assessments are listed below:
#1 Illinois Content Area Tests (ICTS)
a.Candidates must show proof of passing scores on the ICTS in the Application Packet required for admission to student teaching.
b.Illinois Content Area standards are addressed by the ICTS
#2 Content Knowledge Assessments
a.Assessment of undergraduate transcripts for general education requirements
b.Pre- and post content area tests taken within specific courses
#3 Assessment of Pedagogical Knowledge
a.Assessment of lesson plans generated for course assignments, using a unit-wide lesson planning rubric.
b.Assessment of lesson plans submitted with capstone portfolio.
#4 Clinical Practice Assessments
a.Assessment of teaching skills using Pathwise Teacher Performance Assessment.
#5 Candidate Impact on Student Learning
a.Teacher Work Samples from one methods course
b.Teacher Work Samples from student teaching internship
#6 Assessment of Professional Teaching
a.Candidates must show proof of passing scores on the APT before exit from the certification process.
#7 Capstone Portfolio
a.Candidates must earn a minimum of “Acceptable” from an external reader or committee on their portfolio to be eligible for recommendation for their degree.
#8 Dispositions Ratings
a.Self-ratings by teacher candidates
b.External ratings by faculty, field experience supervisors, and cooperating teachers
Data are collected at critical transition points in the program and are used to evaluate candidates and to improve program quality and procedures. Analysis of aggregated data are shared with advisory board members and faculty at meetings for input on changes that might be necessary, given the shapes of the data. Feedback from these constituencies has led to program refinements and improvements, such as plans for assessing content knowledge at more points in the teacher candidates’ programs of study and identifying ways to improve content knowledge in areas that are consistently weak.
Decisions about candidate performance are based on multiple assessments at admission into programs, appropriate transition points, and program completion. The unit has taken effective steps to eliminate bias in assessments and is working to establish the fairness, accuracy, and consistency of its assessment procedures and unit operations.
The unit assessment systems collect data about candidates and about the program at major points in the program (entry, midpoint, certification and exit), and because the programs are small enough to analyze data in a timely fashion, we are able to make additions, corrections and improvements with every entering cohort.
Although the undergraduate program went through a major restructuring in 2003, by 2004, in consultation with the graduate programs, the faculty began planning for a comprehensive assessment system by examining instruments and procedures that were in place with the Erikson Institute, making changes to those instruments and processes that needed improvements in order to have the assessment system flow from the Conceptual Framework and in order to provide more specific data.
* Spring 1998: Candidate focus group discussions about the mission and candidates’ perceptions about the degree to which the programs were meeting the stated missions;
* Fall 1998: Faculty discussions about necessary learning outcomes for candidates to meet the then new Illinois Professional Teaching Standards;
* Spring and Summer 1999: Faculty discussion about adopting the Danielson Framework for Teaching and plans made for the generation of performance-based artifacts attesting to teaching competencies.
* Spring 2000: Written statements and a graphic representation of the beliefs, goals, and intended outcomes of the graduate programs were developed. Five focus groups composed of current teacher candidates, alumnae, part-time faculty, field experience supervisors, and advisory board members from the P-12 community were convened to address the following questions:
§ What are some of the primary qualities (characteristics) of our teacher candidates?
§ What do they know and what can they do when they enter our programs?
§ What do they know and what can they do at the end of the programs? (i.e., what value have the programs added?)
§ Describe in a phrase the “Columbia College Chicago Teacher.”
· Fall 2002: Meeting with faculty to specify the course products used as evidence that candidates were meeting the Framework’s stated outcomes.
· Fall 2003 – Summer 2004: Discussions at faculty meetings about the Framework in relation to their teaching and standards from their specific disciplines and design of a comprehensive data collection plan.
· Fall 2004 – Present: Continued refinements made to the Unit Assessment System, based on discussions with graduate and undergraduate faculty. Collection and analysis of test score results, course products, student teaching evaluations, dispositions assessments, and teacher portfolio scores.
The unit therefore has an assessment system that reflects the conceptual frameworks and professional and state standards and is regularly evaluated by its professional community.
The unit’s assessment system includes a total of eight key assessments, which are used to measure the overall quality and integrity of each of the unit’s three initial certification programs. The key assessments are listed below:
#1 Illinois Content Area Tests (ICTS)
a.Candidates must show proof of passing scores on the ICTS in the Application Packet required for admission to student teaching.
b.Illinois Content Area standards are addressed by the ICTS
#2 Content Knowledge Assessments
a.Assessment of undergraduate transcripts for general education requirements
b.Pre- and post content area tests taken within specific courses
#3 Assessment of Pedagogical Knowledge
a.Assessment of lesson plans generated for course assignments, using a unit-wide lesson planning rubric.
b.Assessment of lesson plans submitted with capstone portfolio.
#4 Clinical Practice Assessments
a.Assessment of teaching skills using Pathwise Teacher Performance Assessment.
#5 Candidate Impact on Student Learning
a.Teacher Work Samples from one methods course
b.Teacher Work Samples from student teaching internship
#6 Assessment of Professional Teaching
a.Candidates must show proof of passing scores on the APT before exit from the certification process.
#7 Capstone Portfolio
a.Candidates must earn a minimum of “Acceptable” from an external reader or committee on their portfolio to be eligible for recommendation for their degree.
#8 Dispositions Ratings
a.Self-ratings by teacher candidates
b.External ratings by faculty, field experience supervisors, and cooperating teachers
Data are collected at critical transition points in the program and are used to evaluate candidates and to improve program quality and procedures. Analysis of aggregated data are shared with advisory board members and faculty at meetings for input on changes that might be necessary, given the shapes of the data. Feedback from these constituencies has led to program refinements and improvements, such as plans for assessing content knowledge at more points in the teacher candidates’ programs of study and identifying ways to improve content knowledge in areas that are consistently weak.
Decisions about candidate performance are based on multiple assessments at admission into programs, appropriate transition points, and program completion. The unit has taken effective steps to eliminate bias in assessments and is working to establish the fairness, accuracy, and consistency of its assessment procedures and unit operations.
The unit assessment systems collect data about candidates and about the program at major points in the program (entry, midpoint, certification and exit), and because the programs are small enough to analyze data in a timely fashion, we are able to make additions, corrections and improvements with every entering cohort.
Although the undergraduate program went through a major restructuring in 2003, by 2004, in consultation with the graduate programs, the faculty began planning for a comprehensive assessment system by examining instruments and procedures that were in place with the Erikson Institute, making changes to those instruments and processes that needed improvements in order to have the assessment system flow from the Conceptual Framework and in order to provide more specific data.
