A Proposal for an Evaluation of the
International Teacher Education Program (ITEP)
By
Dr. Nick Eastmond
Visiting Scholar, CITO
Brigham Young University – Hawaii
22 November 2005
A Proposal for an Evaluation of the International Teacher Education Program
(ITEP)
Introduction
The International Teacher Education Program (ITEP) began in the early 1990’s,
largely through the efforts of Jack Johnson, an administrator at Brigham Young
University – Hawaii (BYUH) and Dan Anderson, a Church Education System (CES)
consultant to the Pacific. By 1994, the beginnings of a teacher education program for the
Pacific Islands, under the direction of the School of Education at BYUH had been
established.
The concept of ITEP is quite simple. There is a recognized need for better
training for the teachers in the LDS Church Education System (CES) schools in four
island groups: Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa and Tonga. Currently, roughly 50% of the teachers
teaching in the schools have received formal training in teacher education. ITEP is a way
of providing that training. Missionary couples, where one or both of whom have worked
in professional careers in education, are assigned to work in specific islands for the
entirety of their mission, either 18 months or 2 years. During that time, they teach
inservice teacher education classes as adjunct faculty from BYUH, observe teaching
practices, and generally act in the role of mentor to the teachers in their assigned area.
Due to the high cost of inter-island travel, there is currently very little mobility of these
trainers from one island to another. The entire operation is administered by a missionary
couple based in Hawaii.
Over the years the ITEP program has grown to include four levels currently:
1.
Couple missionaries provide classes for CES teachers, who receive
achievement awards and subsequent salary increases for their efforts.
2.
Each year one student couple from each of the island groups, with the
husband drawn from the ranks of CES teachers, comes to BYUH under
a program of funding for educational leaders, taking classes needed to
complete a bachelors degree in education, generally completing in one
year.
3.
Some students in the early stages of their university work come to
BYUH under a three year program, with the final year spent back on
their home island doing an internship, again leading to a BYUH
bachelors degree.
4.
An independent study bachelors degree, recently approved, to allow
completion of the coursework and practical experience for a teaching
degree on their home island, obtaining 60 credits of work from BYU
(Provo) and BYUH independent study and then supplemented with the
courses from the ITEP missionary couple.
The entire ITEP program is developing, and problems are resolved over time. For
example, some of the obvious difficulties of maintaining continuity in the assignment of
missionary couples have been remedied in recent months by closer coordination with the
Missionary Department in Salt Lake City. The ITEP program has a full orientation
program with materials and briefings, but the main preparation for these missionary
couples to deal with teacher education issues comes from the years of experience in a
career spent as a professional educator, generally on the Mainland (i.e. Continental USA).
This proposal calls for conducting an evaluation of ITEP that is both
comprehensive and systematic, guided by the following evaluation questions:
Evaluation questions (overall):
1. What exactly does ITEP do? What are key components of the
2. What elements are working well and what elements are not?
3. Are there other dimensions for expansion or improvement that should be
considered?
4. What ways should ITEP develop in the future, given a long-range perspective?
In addition to the main questions, some sub-questions should also be explored: (1) Some
teachers currently do not take ITEP classes. What changes in the program, either in
incentives or requirements, might help involve them? (2) How rigorous are the classes, in
terms of being demanding of student effort? (3) What are the long-term effects on CES
teacher attitudes and behaviors? (3) Are the credits provided by ITEP teachers equivalent
to what they would have encountered if they were enrolled on the BYUH campus? (4)
What factors in ITEP or in the situation in New Zealand might make ITEP attractive to
the educators working there?
The general framework proposed for conducting the evaluation comes from Dr.
Elliot Eisner’s approach of Educational Connoisseurship and Criticism, as described most
recently in his book The Enlightened Eye (Macmillan, 1991). In this framework, Eisner
suggests that programs be examined in terms of five dimensions of schooling:
1. Intentional, the goals or aims of the system: What are the differences between
the intended and actual results of the program? How valuable, and how
achievable are the results?
2. Structural, considering how learning is organized. How is time divided up?
Is there graded progress? How well does it work?
3. Curricular, considering subject matter taught: What is the content taught in
the program? What alternatives should be considered? Is it up to date? What
activities engage students? What is graded and what is not? How much work
is individual and how much is group-centered? What is the “boundary
strength” of subjects taught?
4. Pedagogical, considering how the teaching is done: What are the values
conveyed through the teacher? What are the demands of these particular
students, and how do teachers cope with them? How is diversity, rather than
standardized uniformity, promoted?
5. Evaluative: How is learning assessed? How does the program’s measurement
operationalize school values? What are the consequences of testing?
The main evaluation questions will be the central focus of the study, but the other ones
listed above, including those for the five dimensions supplied by Eisner, will be included.
Activities
The activities involved in this evaluation will necessarily be broken into two components,
due to the logistics involved in travel to the four island groups.
From Hawaii: A review of the reports and documents available related to ITEP
will be examined. Interviews will be conducted with the ITEP Coordinators (Jay and
Jane Monson), as well as current students brought to Hawaii under both the leadership
program and the full 3-year program. A limited number of visits on campus to classes
involving these students will be undertaken. As persons connected with ITEP pass
through the Hawaiian office, as happened recently with Glenna and Richard Boyce, an
effort will be made to conduct interviews and glean insights from these people.
From the Islands: An extensive trip to all four of the island groups served by
ITEP will occur before June 2005, with stays of roughly 5-7 days in each place. During
these visits, ethnographic interviews will be conducted with the ITEP missionary couples,
called Teacher Development Coordinators (TDC’s), as well as with CES teachers, both
those that are involved with ITEP and those that are not. Classroom observations, to
include both ITEP classes and the classes taught by ITEP participants (and if possible,
non participants), will be conducted. An effort will be made to examine how the ITEP
program fits within the local culture of the 4 island groups.
Reporting
The reporting on the project will occur in 3 separate ways: (1) an oral
presentation, illustrated with slides, to be given to the ITEP Coordinators, School of
Education Director, and faculty and administration at BYUH, and other places as invited;
(2) a full written report, with executive summary and compilations of findings from each
of the island groups; and (3) a video evaluation report, preferably not more than 12
minutes long, summarizing major findings and illustrated with images taken from the
field.
Budget
Just as ITEP keeps its costs low by using donated labor, the personnel costs
involved in this evaluation will be provided by volunteer labor from Dr. Nick Eastmond
(in fact, the level of volunteerism is different from that of the missionary couples,
because the Eastmonds are receiving an apartment and a vehicle provided by BYUH as
part of the sabbatical arrangement). In addition, Mrs. Irene Eastmond will accompany
her husband on the field visits and will assist in the observations and photographing of
events. Currently, the couple is living at BYU Hawaii for an 8-month stay as part of a
sabbatical leave from Utah State University.
Main costs to the conduct the evaluation will be travel and per diem during the
time of the field work. Given the current prices of air transportation between islands, the
following costs are anticipated:
Air transportation to the four island groups: $2400 Round trip Airfare, including
2 interisland hops ($50 each) X 2 people = $4800. Per diem expenses at $50 per day X
28 days = $1400. (Note: this expense on-island may be funded by a different CES
budget). Other costs (computer, report preparation, video editing) will be covered by
existing people and equipment. Total cost: $6,200.
Vita:
Available on request.