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School of Education
Last updated 11/17/1999

In some summaries of assessment activity, goals are referred to by number (e.g., K-2 is knowledge goal 2).

To meet these goals teacher education students engage in a planned sequence of courses and accompanying field experiences in community and school sites. School of Education faculty, clinical professors (who are teachers from local school districts), graduate teaching assistants, graduate supervisors, and field-based school teachers organize and facilitate these experiences.

Through 1993-94, CDE required all applicants to score at or above the 75th percentile on the published national standards for the spelling, language usage, and mathematics section of the nationally standardized California Achievement Test (CAT). Each year, 80-90% of CU-Boulder students exceeded this level on their first attempt at the CAT.

In July 1994, as part of the adoption of new standards for educators, the CDE adopted a new teacher licensure assessment plan called the Program for Licensing Assessments for Colorado Educators (PLACE). All applicants for a Colorado educator license must complete four assessments before their license is issued. One of these, the PLACE Basic Skills Assessment (a three part assessment - reading, mathematics and writing), must be taken by all people seeking admission to a teacher education program. The three parts of the PLACE Basic Skills Assessment must be passed prior to student teaching.

The three other assessments which are required prior to the issuance of a teaching license are the Liberal Arts Assessment, a Teaching Field Content Knowledge Assessment, and a Professional Knowledge Assessment. These latter three assessments can be considered program "exit" assessments since they are typically taken by students near the end of their academic preparation in non-Education departments across campus, and, for the Professional Knowledge Assessments, after completion of the Teacher Education Program. The first administration of the PLACE assessments was in October, 1994 and since that time five assessments have been administered. The table combines data for both years since analyses of results of all five PLACE assessments taken by people reporting UCB as their "home" institution (2,000 cases), indicates that there are no differences between the scores obtained at different times (1994-95 vs 1995-96, or term and time within each year).

Results of PLACE Assessment for UCB
Assessment		N	Mean	%passing*
Basic Skills	Reading	629	283	99.8
	Mathematics	634	273	97.1
	Writing	629	240	96.0
Liberal Arts		643	260	98.3
Professional Knowledge	Elementary	206	258	96.6
	Secondary	212	260	99.1
* CDE defines passing as a score of 200 or above

UCB students took PLACE assessments in 12 different content areas, from English through Social Studies. Scores ranged from a mean of 228 in Spanish (9 students, 55.6% passing) to 256 in Science (38 students, 92.1% passing).

The PLACE Basic Skills, Content Field, and Liberal Arts assessments can be considered a measure of the effectiveness of the general education program at CU-Boulder. Therefore the strong performance of the students is one measure of the success of preparation provided for teacher education students by all campus colleges, schools and departments as a whole. The PLACE Professional Knowledge assessment can be considered a measure of the effectiveness of the "Education" portion of the Teacher Education Program. Therefore the strong performance (97% passing) on these assessments attest to the success of the UCB Teacher Education Program.

In 1989-90 and 1990-91, the school reported the results of CDE's "first and third year study." CDE sent a questionnaire to each first and third year teacher in the state and another to the teacher's supervisor. CU-Boulder graduates were rated close to statewide averages on items such as:

• This first|third year teacher meets district standards for knowledge of subject matter. 92% of CU-Boulder graduates were rated "very successful" or "successful" in 1989-90.
• This first|third year teacher meets district standards for professionalism and management of general responsibilities. 94% of CU-Boulder graduates were rated "very successful" or "successful" in 1989-90.

To be consistent with new CDE standards for the evaluation of teachers the forms were revised in 1994-95. The forms now include only narrative statements, which are much more difficult to analyze. Because of this, and in order to obtain some immediately current information for this report on the performance of student teachers, a 5% random sample of narrative assessments of student teaching performance by cooperating teachers and university supervisors, stratified by level (elementary or secondary) and evaluator (cooperating teacher or university supervisor) was chosen for a "phrase" analysis. For the 1994/95 and 1995/96 academic years the approximately 90 pages of single-spaced text for the 60 narratives yielded 1300 "complete sentence evaluative phrases" such as "[the student teacher] became familiar with each student," which was considered a positive statement, or "[the student teacher's] enthusiasm motivates the students to learn, and feel valued as learners," also considered a positive statement. Nearly all of the 1300 "complete sentence evaluative phrases" were positive, very few were neutral, and none were negative.

In addition, at the end of their teacher licensure program student teachers complete a CU-Boulder survey. They indicate whether or not they intend to seek a teaching position and give a self-assessment of their teaching knowledge and skill. They also rate the quality of their advising, field-experiences (including student-teaching), and the supervision received during these field-experiences, on a 5-point scale of 0 (poor) to 4 (excellent). There are almost no differences to the responses to this end of program survey over the past several years. During the 1995/96 academic year, since the adoption of new standards for Colorado educators, the instrument used for this survey was undergoing revision to reflect these new standards. The average ratings by students of aspects of their experiences in the Teacher Education Program were:

		Avg.
Quality of	advising by faculty	2.4
	advising by staff	2.8
	pre-student-teaching practicum	2.5
	student teaching experience	3.6
Supervision by	cooperating teacher(s) (average of fifteen factors)	3.6
	university supervisor (average of eleven factors)	3.6

In addition to the PLACE assessments, the college will continue using the CDE first and third year teacher study as best it can, the student teacher final evaluations, and the student self-assessments of qualifications for teaching. For the past several years, the college has also conducted analyses of spring term transcripts for, e.g., the academic majors chosen and the numbers of Education and total CU-Boulder hours taken by students in the Teacher Education program. In summary, the 1995-96 CU-Boulder Teacher Education students perform exceedingly well on the state mandated teacher licensure assessments, and are academically very capable (current average UCB grade point average = 3.4). Their performance in student teaching is described positively by their cooperating teachers and university supervisors, and UCB Teacher education students think that their experiences and treatment in the program was good to excellent.

Activity in 1998-99

The UCB School of Education bases much of its outcomes assessment on the Colorado Standards for the Preparation of Educators issued by the state of Colorado through the Colorado Department of Education (CDE). These mandated standards apply to all higher education-based teacher education programs in the State of Colorado, and as a result are one of the bases for requirements for admission to, and completion of the Teacher Education Program at UCB, which is administered through the School of Education.

The UCB Teacher Education Program includes

The goals of the UCB Teacher Education Program focus on the initial preparation of teachers in three overlapping areas:

1. knowledge of subject matter and pedagogy,
2. education of students in a diverse society, and
3. professional obligations and dispositions of teachers in a democracy.

To meet these goals teacher education students engage in a planned sequence of courses and accompanying field experiences in community and school sites. School of Education faculty, clinical professors (who are teachers from local school districts), graduate teaching assistants, graduate supervisors, and field-based school teachers organize and facilitate these experiences.

Assessment of Student Performance - PLACE Assessments:

The CDE has adopted a licensure assessment plan called the Program for Licensing Assessments for Colorado Educators (PLACE). All applicants for a Colorado educator license must complete four assessments before their license is issued. One of these, the PLACE Basic Skills Assessment (a three part assessment - reading, mathematics and writing), must be taken by all persons seeking admission to a teacher education program. The three parts of this PLACE Basic Skills Assessment must be passed prior to student teaching. The three other assessments which are required prior to the issuance of a teaching license are the Liberal Arts Assessment, a Teaching Field Content Knowledge Assessment, and a Professional Knowledge Assessment. These latter three assessments can be considered program "exit" assessments since they are typically taken by students near the end of their academic preparation in non-Education departments across campus, and for the Professional Knowledge Assessments after completion of the Teacher Education Program.

During the 1998/99 academic year the testing company, Nationals Education Systems, reported to us that there were 759 persons who took a PLACE assessment who reported that UCB was their "home" institution. Of these 712 (93.4%) had actually enrolled at UCB. The summary data below includes scores only from those who were UCB students.

Table 1: Results of First Attempt PLACE Assessments taken by UCB students during Academic Year 1998/99

The PLACE Basic Skills, Content Field, and Liberal Arts assessments can be considered measures of the effectiveness of the general education program for teacher education students at UCB. Given that, the strong performance of the students (better than 96% passing rate on the first attempt for each of the Basic Skills, and 98% passing rate on the first attempt for the Liberal Arts) is a measure of the success of general preparation provided for teacher education students by all UCB campus colleges, schools and departments as a whole.

The PLACE Professional Knowledge assessment can be considered a measure of the effectiveness of the "Education" portion of the Teacher Education Program. Therefore the strong performance (a 96% and 99% passing rate on the first attempt for elementary and secondary, respectively) on these assessments attest to the success of the professional education courses within the UCB Teacher Education Program.

Assessment of Student Performance - Academic Performance in UCB Course Work:

An analyses of 1999 spring term UCB transcripts for all Teacher Education students reveals that their average overall UCB GPA is 3.54 after having taken an average of 87 semester hours of course work at UCB. For students in the MA+ teacher education programs the average overall UCB GPA is 3.78 after having taken an average of 62 semester hours of course work at UCB. It is believed that these figures are significantly above comparable figures for UCB students who are not teacher education students.

Assessment of Student Performance - Narrative Statements of Student Teacher Performance:

To summarize the university supervisors and cooperating teachers narrative statements on the final assessments of a student teacher’s performance by the, a 5% random sample from 600 narrative assessments (30 such statements) was selected. The stratification was by level (elementary, middle school, or secondary) and evaluator (cooperating teacher or university supervisor). A "phrase" analysis was completed on the 30 randomly selected narrative assessments. The statements were first scanned into a computer file resulting in 39 pages of text and yielded 983 "complete sentence evaluative phrases" such as "[The student teacher] became familiar with each student." which was considered a positive phrase, or "[the student teacher’s] enthusiasm motivates the students to learn, and feel valued as learners," also considered a positive phrase. All 983 phrases were coded as either positive or negative phrases and then the number of positive and negative phrases were counted. Nearly all of the "complete sentence evaluative phrases" were positive (955 of the 983, or 97.2%), and very few were negative (28 of the 983 or 2.8%). The vast preponderance of positive statements attests to the overall positive performance of UCB student teachers.

Student Teacher Assessment of Supervisors’ Performance:

The UCB School of Education assesses the effectiveness of the performance of persons supervising student teachers.

Student teachers rate the performance of their cooperating teachers (the mentor teachers to whom they are assigned in their school assignment), and the performance of their university supervisor (the person from the university who supervises their school assignment). The cooperating teacher typically is with the student teacher on a continuous and daily basis. The university supervisor visits the student teacher in the school at least five times during the semester, observing them teach and discussing their progress with the student teacher, in addition to conducting a "student teacher seminar" with the several supervisees each is assigned.

The rating items for student teacher ratings of cooperating teachers’ performance as a mentor contains 15 items; there are 11 such items for student teacher rating of university supervisors’ performance. For the 1998/99 academic year 92% of responses on all 15 items rating cooperating teachers’ performance were "strongly agree" or "agree." Ninety-six percent (96%) of responses to all 11 items rating university supervisor’s performance were at or above "strongly agree" or "agree." These results indicate that student teachers have an exceptionally positive opinion of the mentoring and supervision they receive as student teachers.

Student Assessment of the Effectiveness of the UCB Teacher Education Program:

In addition to the above, near the time students complete the Teacher Education Program they also complete a UCB program exit survey. On these surveys students give a self-assessment of their teaching knowledge and skill, and rate the quality of their advising, field-experiences (including student teaching), and the supervision received during field-experiences, on a 5-point scale of 0 (poor) to 4 (excellent).

Summary results of all these assessments for the 1998/99 academic year are in the table below.

From the 1998/99 exit surveys, the average student ratings of aspects of their experiences in the Teacher Education Program were:

Table 2: Rating of the effectiveness of the UCB Teacher Education Program
course work with respect to …

Summary:

In summary, the passing rates of 1998-99 CU-Boulder Teacher Education students is significantly higher than the state average on the state mandated teacher licensure assessments, and they are academically very capable (current average UCB grade point average = 3.4). Their performance in student teaching is described positively by their cooperating teachers and university supervisors, and UCB Teacher education students think that the knowledge gained, experiences, and treatment in the Teacher Education Program were all good to excellent.

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Last revision 07/12/02