Elementary Teacher Education Senate
3:30-5:00 Thursday, September 4, 2014
319 Curris Business Building
Minutes
I. Welcome back, take roll and introductions
Present: J.D. Cryer (Coordinator, Elementary Teacher Education), Tony
Gabriele (Professional Sequence), Deockki Hong (Physical Education and Health
Education), Linda Fitzgerald (Early Childhood Education), Merrilee Betts
(Teacher Practitioner), Michelle Swanson (Music Education), Denise Tallakson
(Elementary Education), Chad Christopher (Coordinator, Secondary Teacher
Education) Chris Schulte (Art Education), Lynn Ensworth (Middle Level
Education), Sohyun Meacham (Literacy Education), Matt Webb (Assistant
Professor, Mathematics), Katheryn East (Chair, Teacher Education Faculty)
Absent: Kim Miller (Special Education), Ellen Neuhaus (Liberal Arts Core), Amy
Lockhart (Clinical Experiences)
Guests: Rob Boody (Director of Assessment)
II. Approval of minutes for May 2, 2014
Matt moved to approve minutes and Denise accepted. Minutes approved.
III. Update on matters arising at the State
a. Chapter 79 Rewrite
The Rewrite Team met this summer and completed its draft version for the
State Board. This draft will be presented to the State Board of Education
on September 18th as a public notice of intent to amend. Following this,
comments can be made until November 4, 2014. Katheryn East is
collecting comments from UNI faculty and will send in by November 4.
b. Praxis Core scores and data update
In May a meeting took place with the other Regent’s Teacher Education
Programs in Iowa City. At this meeting UNI representatives presented our
cut scores for the new Praxis Core test: Reading=138, Writing=142,
Math=115, and Composite=448. Both Iowa State and U of Iowa have
decided to keep the cut scores recommended by the state: Reading=156,
Writing=162, Math=150. Our senates voted to calculate the new Praxis cut
scores in accordance with the previous Praxis I scores and our overall
program philosophy and beliefs.
c. Year Long Student Teaching Pilot
In order to make our placements in the Waterloo schools, we sent out a
“Personality/Professional” style survey in July. The next day we
discovered that six teachers in Waterloo had taken positions within the
new TLC grant. In addition, the principal at Lincoln Elementary had taken
a new job in the Central Administration Office. Over the course of the next
weeks we collaborated with Waterloo administrators and obtained a new
group of cooperating teachers.
On August 8th and 11th a Co-Teaching Workshop was held for all those
involved in the pilot.
The beginning of the year has been strong. Students were present at all
district, school, and grade-level PLC meetings, helped set up classrooms,
and collaborated with their cooperating teacher in planning for the start of
the school year. Our students were then in their classrooms for the entire
opening week of the P-12 school year.
On August 23, UNI started and our students returned back to classes to
start their semester, but still continue to work in their field experience
placement for at least 10 hours per week.
Someone asked if the student is in the same school and class for the full
16 weeks of student teaching? Chad said yes.
IV. Update on Teacher Education Executive Council
a. Accreditation Report—Approval visit and subcommittee work
Our next Accreditation Site Visit will be during the spring of 2017.
Our final written report will be due the fall of 2016.
Melissa Heston and Rob Boody explained the writing of the last report
b. Establishing of a PLC for use of the tools and resources of the PD360 was
mentioned.
c. Michael Licari has decided to stay on to lead the Ex. Council.
d. Informational Items
a. New aspects of the Teacher Education website were presented.
Panapto videos were created on how to view the UNITED and Notification
of Concern systems.
There is still confusion for when faculty need to fill out an NOC. This is
what spurred the creation of the video. It was recommended to first have a
conversation with the student to address any concerns with dispositions.
Next, if the problem continues, sit down with the student and complete an
NOC with the Action Plan. From this, the student’s advisor, department
head, and Coordinators of the Teacher Education program will receive a
notice. This will then help a team of people to support the student.
However, the student needs to know that the faculty member is serious by
filing a NOC.
Someone questioned whether professors across campus should be filing
a NOC if they have a TE student in their class.
One member said they teach a large LAC course and wonder if a student
in his class is making poor professional decisions if he should notify the
TE area. Is the NOC for TE Faculty only?
Another member feels that every program may want to do this and then
we will have to train the faculty. Maybe within the dept. there should be
one contact person that fills out a NOC on behalf of the instructor.
b. New Teacher Orientation materials
According to the recommendations from the last state visitation, new
faculty reported a lack of orientation and lack of training in UNITED.
JD and Chad are having meetings with new Teacher Education faculty in
order to orient them to the program, train them on the use of the UNITED
system, and answer any questions they have.
c. Team Teaching hours
Currently, the requirement from the state is that all faculty members who
teach methods courses or supervise field experiences must complete 60
hours of Team Teaching. J.D. will be communicating with each Dean,
Dept. Head, and individual faculty member to establish how many hours
they have documented at this time. By August 31, 2016 everyone needs
to have meet this requirement. All team teaching forms can be found at
the Teacher Education website.
A statement was made that there needs to be clarification regarding
content vs. method. Who should be getting the team teaching
requirement filled and who shouldn't?
d. The dates of the next Teacher Education Faculty meetings were given:
Oct. 6 th and Oct. 20th
e. Praxis II data
Rob has sent data to department heads.
e. Old Business
a. Embedded Signature Assignment (ESA) Update
In the spring of 2013 we voted to accept the edTPA as the performance
assessment tool for our Teacher Education Program. Over the course of
the next year, faculty piloted the development, implementation, and
assessment of different ESAs into TE assessment system. In the spring of
2014 Jody Stone gave a report to the elementary senate about her
experience using the ESA in her classroom. In addition, Rob Boody held
multiple meetings to inform the faculty about the use of ESAs in our
program. Senators are now in the position to vote. We need all senators
to talk with their department members and constituents about establishing
the concept of using ESAs into our UNI Teacher Education Program and
vote next month. Per Rob, “The vote is not on any specific ESA but rather
the concept of doing them. Clear alignment of ESAs for what students do
in the edTPA is the goal. It is the same thing as we did with TWS.”
b.
EdTPA update
II.
Per Rob with regards to edTPA scores we have not come up with an
arrangement yet for the rubric. When we did TWS there was a total rubric
of 1, 2 or 3. Someone posed the question as to what we need to do with
students that get a one rating this semester on the edTPA. Do they need
to re-do? Where is the cutoff point for passing? For remediation? For
failure? Is getting a one rating the same as it was in TWS, etc.?
The national average is 2.8. If a student gets below 2.8 do they have the
option to re-do? Yes, they can re-do. How intense does the re-do have to
be?
TWS is gone as of this semester and every student is doing edTPA at
student teaching level.
a. New InTASC Standards
In December of 2013 we voted that we will adopt the new InTASC
Standards into our Teacher Education Program. Starting the fall of 2014
all syllabi should reflect the 2011 InTASC standards. We need to make
sure class objectives are connecting to the standards. The thought
process is that these are my class objectives and they are aligned to the
InTASC standards, and these assignments demonstrate how my students
successfully met the objectives.
There needs to be a consensus on what is meant by alignment.
b. Professional Disposition for Candidates
Our current assessment system is weak in dispositions. The only real
assessment of disposition is the NOC. If students don’t have an NOC the
assumption is that students are good. This is based on literature and UNI's
conceptual framework. However, our current NOC is an assessment that
only looks at a negative consequence. Should we also have positive
indicators for professional disposition?
Univ. of Buffalo has a published instrument. Could this be used as one of
our tools?
f. New Business
a. Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework establishes the shared vision for the unit and
provides the foundation for coherence between curriculum and instruction.
What is our vision? Per Rob more updated research connected to our
conceptual framework is needed. Currently, there are references to Price
Laboratory School and other items that have changed since our last
accreditation visit. Is our theme still “Educating for Effective Practice” or is
it “Educating for Effective and Reflective Practice”? We need to read and
think about this and have an extended discussion later. To help we can
use the TE identity survey that was given last spring.
b. Review Governance section of report
Ch. 79:10 (1)
The state’s recommendation from our last accreditation visit showed a
concern that the” unit” of our Teacher Education Program is not
consistently defined nor operationalized, given that this is a universitywide program.
In order to help clarify this concept of “Unit” the following definition was
presented:
Definition of Unit – The “unit” can be defined as all those involved in the
instruction of teaching methods, the professional sequence, and/or
supervision of field experience.
Ch. 79: 10 (2)
The professional education unit has primary responsibility for all programs
offered by the institution for the initial and continuing preparation of
teachers, administrators and other professional school personnel.
Concern from the state:
College leaders reported that the ownership for the TEP is no greater in
the COE than in the other colleges. This view has implications for primary
responsibility.
The council believes it has a responsibility for oversight of the unit. Yet,
members admit they have no or very limited authority. The leadership of
the COE indicates the council has the power to generate curriculum.
Council believes it is more reactive than proactive with regards to TEP
oversight. Who has the oversight authority to TE programs? There is not
a well-articulated vision of governance for a university-wide TEP.
To improve in this area, our entire Governance Structure was changed to
our current model with two senates that report to the Executive Council.
This council is made up of the Deans of each college and the Associate
Provost for Academic Affairs. This council then reports to the Provost, who
is the final decision maker for the UNI Teacher Education Program.
Meeting adjourned at 5:05.
g. Upcoming dates (subject to change)
Elementary Senate
October 2
November 6
December 4
January 15
February 5
March 5
April 2
May 7
Secondary Senate
September 18
October 16
November 20
December 18
January 22
February 19
March 26
April 16
May 7