Design, Implementation, and Evaluation
Columbia College Chicago is firmly committed to reflecting the diversity of the nation and the world within its own student and faculty make up, as well as to promote productive interactions among the diversity of its community members. In its mission statement, the College describes itself as “an urban institution whose students reflect the economic, racial, cultural, and educational diversity of contemporary America.” The College goes beyond merely describing its diversity to actively focusing on the importance of diversity in higher education. One example of this commitment is the Diversity Award—an award of $5000 for an academic year, available to both graduate and undergraduate students—which was established to encourage students to focus on the importance of diversity in their studies as part of their preparation for life in a global society. This award comes through the College’s Office of Multicultural Affairs—an office whose existence is another indicator of the importance placed by the College on the recruitment and retention of a diverse student body.
Other examples of the College’s commitment include the Profile Diversity Series, a lecture series put together by the Office of Multicultural Affairs. This series of events aims to both celebrate diversity and discuss its most vital issues. The hope is to engage the College community in a series of difficult conversations in order to help each other appreciate and understand other cultures and their histories.
The diversity of the student organizations on campus is also another indicator of the College’s commitment to nourishing a diverse student body. Examples of these student groups include the African American Cultural Affairs, Latino Cultural Affairs, LGBTQ Office of Culture and Community, and Asian American Cultural Affairs student organizations.
It is within this broader context that the unit’s graduate and undergraduate programs exist.
Commensurate with the College Mission, the graduate programs encourage teacher candidates to gain consciousness of self, be attentive to others, and understand the impact of cultural dimensions. To these ends, the following dispositional outcomes have been identified:
Consciousness of Self
Teacher candidates will become aware of their own beliefs and perspectives. They will understand how these beliefs, experiences, and feelings affect the patterns of their behavior in the classroom, and regularly reexamine their beliefs through diverse lenses.
Attentiveness to Others
Teacher candidates will be attentive to others. They will become skillful at observing, listening to, and encouraging a diverse student population. They will be able to analyze and diagnose situations, environments, and individual learning needs.
Understanding Cultural Dimensions
Teacher candidates will understand the cultural dimensions of people’s lives and their impact on learning. They will be able to serve as cultural and linguistic bridges connecting the worlds of the home and the classroom, facilitating their students’ entry to school by building on what the students have learned in their homes.
At the undergraduate level, proficiencies that include an emphasis on diversity are explicitly stated as part of the major outcomes of the conceptual framework. These outcomes include:
Teaching Skills
Graduates will have a repertoire of effective teaching approaches and methods for promoting children’s learning in different content areas and for enhancing different aspects of children’s development. They will be able to design motivating and challenging learning experiences for children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and for children with differing learning styles and abilities.
Classroom Environment
Graduates will have a variety of strategies and methods for creating and managing a positive classroom environment. They will be able to structure a positive classroom environment in which children from diverse cultural backgrounds and with differing learning abilities and styles feel comfortable, valued, engaged, and challenged, and in which they are given the opportunity to learn from one another and on their own.
To accomplish the unit’s learning outcomes, Illinois Professional Teaching Standard #3: Diversity, and professional dispositions, the unit’s undergraduate and graduate programs all require specific courses that emphasize diversity issues.
At the undergraduate level, the multicultural/anti-bias philosophy has been a hallmark of the program. Implementation of this philosophy has been strengthened by the inclusion of texts and assignments in several courses.
In addition to the course content, the programs also explicitly require that their teacher candidates fulfill their pre-student teaching field experiences in diverse settings.
At the graduate level, teacher candidates are required to complete their 100 hours of pre-student teaching field experiences diversified in the following ways:
· Minimum of two observations in each socioeconomic setting (low, middle, and high SES)
· Minimum of one observation in each ethnic and bilingual/ESL setting with no more than 50% of the total hours in any one ethnic setting (African American majority, European American majority, Asian American majority, Latino majority, Bilingual/ESL)
In addition, the graduate students have the option of participating in a J-term experience in Mexico, which prepares them to make personal connections with the Mexican and Mexican-American students they will most likely have in their future classrooms. By being immersed in, if only for a short time, many aspects of this rich culture, teacher candidates will be able to better appreciate and celebrate the heritage of many of their students.
Participants spend two weeks of intensive Spanish language study in the Kukulcan Language School (www.kukulcan.com.mx) in small classes at their individual levels. A critical component of the program requires that they live with Mexican families where they practice the language and experience day-to-day life. They also attend sessions in history, culture, cooking, Latin dancing and culture on campus.
During their stay, candidates are engaged in a minimum of ten participatory field experience hours in both a private and public school in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Planning and debriefing sessions for these experiences are held with the professor from the Educational Studies Elementary Education Program who is on site.
At the undergraduate level, all placements are made in urban settings, as it is the stated purpose of the program to prepare teachers for urban environments. A focused effort is made to ensure that each student is placed in settings that serve a range of populations within the placement sequence. Attention is paid to race, ethnicity, SES, and ability of populations served in settings when placement decisions are made.
In addition, the global perspective of the undergraduate program is enhanced by a trip taken by the seniors in the program to Reggio Emilia, Italy, to explore that municipality’s unique approach to working with young children. This approach has risen to the challenge of incorporating children from diverse backgrounds into a previously homogeneous environment. Over the last decade Reggio has experienced a much higher than the average influx in Italian cities of immigrants from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and has developed exemplary strategies for providing an excellent education for the children of these families. Program students are able to observe these strategies in action during their tour of the schools.
At the graduate level, candidates are required to plan lessons for all their methods courses. The uniform lesson planning profile requires planning for differentiated instruction, including modifications for non-readers, English language learners, and special needs learners. To prepare them for these assignments, all methods instructors address lesson planning for diverse populations.
In addition to these content-area specific ways for teaching candidates to develop and teach lessons that incorporate diversity, teacher candidates learn specifically how to incorporate modifications and accommodations for a variety of special needs in the Survey of Exceptionalities course. As a part of the course requirements, candidates are also required to observe in a variety of special needs settings.
At the undergraduate level, students are expected to plan lessons for all of their methods courses that reflect the diverse population of the City of Chicago. Strategies for meeting this expectation are embedded in the curriculum of all methods courses beginning with Methods I and The Construction of Ideas in Childhood and continuing through Methods IV.
These lessons are built upon a climate that is made possible through understandings developed throughout the program beginning with the introduction of the Anti-Bias Curriculum in the Introduction to Early Childhood Education and an understanding that teachers must be advocates. The role of teacher as advocate is reinforced by readings from the Children’s Defense Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Voices for Illinois Children.
In the semester before they student teach, teacher candidates learn how to assess their learning and teaching styles. Using Bernice McCarthy’s 4Mat System, they also learn how to plan lessons and units to address a variety of learning styles. (LiveText Visitor Pass #F4711B6F)
During their student teaching internships, candidates are required to use all they have learned in their program to plan and teach lessons that incorporate plans for differentiating instruction for the diverse learners in their classrooms. The Student Teaching Formative Observation Forms have specific items for assessing their ability to plan for and teach diverse learners.
At the undergraduate level, the idea of different teaching and learning styles and how they might be shaped by cultural differences is a central program construct. The ECE program was developed as an arts integrated program that would explore different teaching strategies, including those incorporating the arts, that support the learning experience for individuals from different cultural groups, with different learning approaches, and with exceptionalities. Program faculty model developmentally appropriate variations of strategies that we hope that our students will use with the children in their care. Faculty verbalize their meta-cognitive strategies as they work with students who will later be asked to incorporate the ideas used into their own lesson plans.
Students develop a range of lesson plans across the pre-primary and primary levels over the two year methods sequence. They teach many of these lessons during their two semester-long student teaching experiences. Their teaching is specifically evaluated for understanding of individual and cultural differences and for anti-bias and multicultural curriculum on the Undergraduate Program Clinical Evaluation Form.
Candidates’ dispositions are assessed by several different categories of stakeholders throughout their program of study. At the graduate level, their dispositions are assessed at the point of application to the program, at the point of entry into the program, midway through the program, during student teaching, and at the end of the program. Stakeholders include the candidates themselves, their references, course instructors, student teaching field supervisors, and cooperating teachers. One of the 11 dispositions assessed—attentiveness to others—is used to predict how likely the candidates will value fairness and learning by all students. During student teaching, the field experience supervisors and cooperating teachers determine demonstration of the teacher candidates’ value of fairness and learning by all students with their assessment of two components on the Clinical Evaluation Form.
At the undergraduate level, candidates’ dispositions are formally assessed at a number of points throughout the program of study. These include at application to the professional sequence (candidacy), before entry to the senior year, and at completion of the program. Candidates self-assess, and are assessed by program faculty, field supervisors, and classroom mentors. During the student teaching experiences, candidates are evaluated by the field supervisor using the Undergraduate Clinical Evaluation Form. Three components address the candidates’ value of fairness and learning by all students.
At the graduate level, a mid-point and a final summative evaluation are completed by the college field experience supervisor, the cooperating teacher, and the teacher candidate. Multiple items on the evaluation form are used to assess the candidate’s ability to help all students learn. Tables 4.9 – 4.11 present data from final summative evaluations for candidates from all three programs to demonstrate the candidates’ abilities to help all students learn. Mean scores indicate that the candidates are at or above the proficient or developing levels.
At the undergraduate level, mid-point and summative evaluations are completed by the college field supervisor and the mentoring teacher. Multiple items on the evaluation form are used to assess the candidate’s ability to help all students learn. Table 4.11 presents data from the undergraduate program.
Candidates receive feedback based on assessment data related to the development of their knowledge and skills on an ongoing basis from the point of application to the programs through completion of the program.
At the point of application, the candidates’ transcripts are evaluated for grade point averages and for general education and concentration requirements. Candidates meet individually with a faculty or academic staff member to review their application materials and for individual counseling about any deficiencies identified.
At the course level, students receive feedback on course assignments that assess their knowledge and skills from both faculty and peers in addition to the traditional course grades. Student responses on the College’s Evaluation of Teaching and Learning course evaluation instrument indicate student satisfaction with the feedback received from faculty.
In addition, candidates meet with a faculty advisor on an individual basis each semester to receive advice on course registration. At that time, their academic progress is also reviewed for development of the candidates’ knowledge and skills.
Each semester faculty also provide feedback on graduate candidates’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions, based on student work in their courses. These assessments are kept in the graduate candidates’ academic files and used as a part of determining the need for remediation and in making decisions about admission to student teaching. Likewise, undergraduate faculty provide ongoing feedback on knowledge, skills, and dispositions based on work in courses. This feedback is provided during individual advising sessions. The undergraduate faculty meets weekly and student concerns are a standing topic on the agenda.
Candidates’ dispositions are also assessed at the student teaching placement by both the field experience supervisor and the cooperating teacher.
Other examples of the College’s commitment include the Profile Diversity Series, a lecture series put together by the Office of Multicultural Affairs. This series of events aims to both celebrate diversity and discuss its most vital issues. The hope is to engage the College community in a series of difficult conversations in order to help each other appreciate and understand other cultures and their histories.
The diversity of the student organizations on campus is also another indicator of the College’s commitment to nourishing a diverse student body. Examples of these student groups include the African American Cultural Affairs, Latino Cultural Affairs, LGBTQ Office of Culture and Community, and Asian American Cultural Affairs student organizations.
It is within this broader context that the unit’s graduate and undergraduate programs exist.
Commensurate with the College Mission, the graduate programs encourage teacher candidates to gain consciousness of self, be attentive to others, and understand the impact of cultural dimensions. To these ends, the following dispositional outcomes have been identified:
Consciousness of Self
Teacher candidates will become aware of their own beliefs and perspectives. They will understand how these beliefs, experiences, and feelings affect the patterns of their behavior in the classroom, and regularly reexamine their beliefs through diverse lenses.
Attentiveness to Others
Teacher candidates will be attentive to others. They will become skillful at observing, listening to, and encouraging a diverse student population. They will be able to analyze and diagnose situations, environments, and individual learning needs.
Understanding Cultural Dimensions
Teacher candidates will understand the cultural dimensions of people’s lives and their impact on learning. They will be able to serve as cultural and linguistic bridges connecting the worlds of the home and the classroom, facilitating their students’ entry to school by building on what the students have learned in their homes.
At the undergraduate level, proficiencies that include an emphasis on diversity are explicitly stated as part of the major outcomes of the conceptual framework. These outcomes include:
Teaching Skills
Graduates will have a repertoire of effective teaching approaches and methods for promoting children’s learning in different content areas and for enhancing different aspects of children’s development. They will be able to design motivating and challenging learning experiences for children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and for children with differing learning styles and abilities.
Classroom Environment
Graduates will have a variety of strategies and methods for creating and managing a positive classroom environment. They will be able to structure a positive classroom environment in which children from diverse cultural backgrounds and with differing learning abilities and styles feel comfortable, valued, engaged, and challenged, and in which they are given the opportunity to learn from one another and on their own.
To accomplish the unit’s learning outcomes, Illinois Professional Teaching Standard #3: Diversity, and professional dispositions, the unit’s undergraduate and graduate programs all require specific courses that emphasize diversity issues.
At the undergraduate level, the multicultural/anti-bias philosophy has been a hallmark of the program. Implementation of this philosophy has been strengthened by the inclusion of texts and assignments in several courses.
In addition to the course content, the programs also explicitly require that their teacher candidates fulfill their pre-student teaching field experiences in diverse settings.
At the graduate level, teacher candidates are required to complete their 100 hours of pre-student teaching field experiences diversified in the following ways:
· Minimum of two observations in each socioeconomic setting (low, middle, and high SES)
· Minimum of one observation in each ethnic and bilingual/ESL setting with no more than 50% of the total hours in any one ethnic setting (African American majority, European American majority, Asian American majority, Latino majority, Bilingual/ESL)
In addition, the graduate students have the option of participating in a J-term experience in Mexico, which prepares them to make personal connections with the Mexican and Mexican-American students they will most likely have in their future classrooms. By being immersed in, if only for a short time, many aspects of this rich culture, teacher candidates will be able to better appreciate and celebrate the heritage of many of their students.
Participants spend two weeks of intensive Spanish language study in the Kukulcan Language School (www.kukulcan.com.mx) in small classes at their individual levels. A critical component of the program requires that they live with Mexican families where they practice the language and experience day-to-day life. They also attend sessions in history, culture, cooking, Latin dancing and culture on campus.
During their stay, candidates are engaged in a minimum of ten participatory field experience hours in both a private and public school in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Planning and debriefing sessions for these experiences are held with the professor from the Educational Studies Elementary Education Program who is on site.
At the undergraduate level, all placements are made in urban settings, as it is the stated purpose of the program to prepare teachers for urban environments. A focused effort is made to ensure that each student is placed in settings that serve a range of populations within the placement sequence. Attention is paid to race, ethnicity, SES, and ability of populations served in settings when placement decisions are made.
In addition, the global perspective of the undergraduate program is enhanced by a trip taken by the seniors in the program to Reggio Emilia, Italy, to explore that municipality’s unique approach to working with young children. This approach has risen to the challenge of incorporating children from diverse backgrounds into a previously homogeneous environment. Over the last decade Reggio has experienced a much higher than the average influx in Italian cities of immigrants from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and has developed exemplary strategies for providing an excellent education for the children of these families. Program students are able to observe these strategies in action during their tour of the schools.
At the graduate level, candidates are required to plan lessons for all their methods courses. The uniform lesson planning profile requires planning for differentiated instruction, including modifications for non-readers, English language learners, and special needs learners. To prepare them for these assignments, all methods instructors address lesson planning for diverse populations.
In addition to these content-area specific ways for teaching candidates to develop and teach lessons that incorporate diversity, teacher candidates learn specifically how to incorporate modifications and accommodations for a variety of special needs in the Survey of Exceptionalities course. As a part of the course requirements, candidates are also required to observe in a variety of special needs settings.
At the undergraduate level, students are expected to plan lessons for all of their methods courses that reflect the diverse population of the City of Chicago. Strategies for meeting this expectation are embedded in the curriculum of all methods courses beginning with Methods I and The Construction of Ideas in Childhood and continuing through Methods IV.
These lessons are built upon a climate that is made possible through understandings developed throughout the program beginning with the introduction of the Anti-Bias Curriculum in the Introduction to Early Childhood Education and an understanding that teachers must be advocates. The role of teacher as advocate is reinforced by readings from the Children’s Defense Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Voices for Illinois Children.
In the semester before they student teach, teacher candidates learn how to assess their learning and teaching styles. Using Bernice McCarthy’s 4Mat System, they also learn how to plan lessons and units to address a variety of learning styles. (LiveText Visitor Pass #F4711B6F)
During their student teaching internships, candidates are required to use all they have learned in their program to plan and teach lessons that incorporate plans for differentiating instruction for the diverse learners in their classrooms. The Student Teaching Formative Observation Forms have specific items for assessing their ability to plan for and teach diverse learners.
At the undergraduate level, the idea of different teaching and learning styles and how they might be shaped by cultural differences is a central program construct. The ECE program was developed as an arts integrated program that would explore different teaching strategies, including those incorporating the arts, that support the learning experience for individuals from different cultural groups, with different learning approaches, and with exceptionalities. Program faculty model developmentally appropriate variations of strategies that we hope that our students will use with the children in their care. Faculty verbalize their meta-cognitive strategies as they work with students who will later be asked to incorporate the ideas used into their own lesson plans.
Students develop a range of lesson plans across the pre-primary and primary levels over the two year methods sequence. They teach many of these lessons during their two semester-long student teaching experiences. Their teaching is specifically evaluated for understanding of individual and cultural differences and for anti-bias and multicultural curriculum on the Undergraduate Program Clinical Evaluation Form.
Candidates’ dispositions are assessed by several different categories of stakeholders throughout their program of study. At the graduate level, their dispositions are assessed at the point of application to the program, at the point of entry into the program, midway through the program, during student teaching, and at the end of the program. Stakeholders include the candidates themselves, their references, course instructors, student teaching field supervisors, and cooperating teachers. One of the 11 dispositions assessed—attentiveness to others—is used to predict how likely the candidates will value fairness and learning by all students. During student teaching, the field experience supervisors and cooperating teachers determine demonstration of the teacher candidates’ value of fairness and learning by all students with their assessment of two components on the Clinical Evaluation Form.
At the undergraduate level, candidates’ dispositions are formally assessed at a number of points throughout the program of study. These include at application to the professional sequence (candidacy), before entry to the senior year, and at completion of the program. Candidates self-assess, and are assessed by program faculty, field supervisors, and classroom mentors. During the student teaching experiences, candidates are evaluated by the field supervisor using the Undergraduate Clinical Evaluation Form. Three components address the candidates’ value of fairness and learning by all students.
At the graduate level, a mid-point and a final summative evaluation are completed by the college field experience supervisor, the cooperating teacher, and the teacher candidate. Multiple items on the evaluation form are used to assess the candidate’s ability to help all students learn. Tables 4.9 – 4.11 present data from final summative evaluations for candidates from all three programs to demonstrate the candidates’ abilities to help all students learn. Mean scores indicate that the candidates are at or above the proficient or developing levels.
At the undergraduate level, mid-point and summative evaluations are completed by the college field supervisor and the mentoring teacher. Multiple items on the evaluation form are used to assess the candidate’s ability to help all students learn. Table 4.11 presents data from the undergraduate program.
Candidates receive feedback based on assessment data related to the development of their knowledge and skills on an ongoing basis from the point of application to the programs through completion of the program.
At the point of application, the candidates’ transcripts are evaluated for grade point averages and for general education and concentration requirements. Candidates meet individually with a faculty or academic staff member to review their application materials and for individual counseling about any deficiencies identified.
At the course level, students receive feedback on course assignments that assess their knowledge and skills from both faculty and peers in addition to the traditional course grades. Student responses on the College’s Evaluation of Teaching and Learning course evaluation instrument indicate student satisfaction with the feedback received from faculty.
In addition, candidates meet with a faculty advisor on an individual basis each semester to receive advice on course registration. At that time, their academic progress is also reviewed for development of the candidates’ knowledge and skills.
Each semester faculty also provide feedback on graduate candidates’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions, based on student work in their courses. These assessments are kept in the graduate candidates’ academic files and used as a part of determining the need for remediation and in making decisions about admission to student teaching. Likewise, undergraduate faculty provide ongoing feedback on knowledge, skills, and dispositions based on work in courses. This feedback is provided during individual advising sessions. The undergraduate faculty meets weekly and student concerns are a standing topic on the agenda.
Candidates’ dispositions are also assessed at the student teaching placement by both the field experience supervisor and the cooperating teacher.
