Joint Teacher Education Senate meeting
May 3, 2012
3:30 Oak Room, Maucker Union
I.
Roll and Introductions
Elementary Senate
Present: *Cherin Lee (Coordinator, Secondary Teacher Education), *Melissa
Heston (Coordinator, Elementary Teacher Education), Linda Fitzgerald (Early
Childhood Education), Rip Marston (Physical Education & Health Education),
Denise Tallakson (Elementary Education), Jean Schneider (Middle Level
Education), Kevin Droe (Music Education-Alt), Susan Brennan (Special
Education), Tony Gabriele (Professional Sequence), Katheryn East
(Professional Sequence-Alt), Amy Lockhart (Clinical Experiences), Sarah
Vander Zanden (Literacy Education-Alt), Wendy Miller (Art Education),
Deirdre Heistad (Liberal Arts Core), *Becky Hawbaker (Chair, Teacher
Education Faculty)
Absent: Deb Tidwell (Literacy Education)
Secondary Senate
Present: *Cherin Lee (Coordinator, Secondary Teacher Education), *Melissa
Heston (Coordinator, Elementary Teacher Education), Ben Forsyth
(Professional Sequence), Larry Escalada (Science Education), Barb Bakker
(Physical Education/Health Education), Kevin Droe (Music Education), Chad
Christopher (Social Sciences), Rick Vanderwall (English Education), Sheila
Benson (English Education-Alt), Karen Sabey (Mathematics Education),Terri
Lasswell (Clinical Experiences), Dianna Briggs (Business Education), Doug
Hotek (Technology Education), Chris Curran (Special Education), Sarah
Semon (Special Education-Alt). *Becky Hawbaker (Teacher Education
Faculty Chair), Wendy Miller (Art Education-Alt), Elizabeth Zwanziger
(Modern Languages-Alt)
Absent: Katherine Lavelle (Speech & Theatre), Tammy Gregersen (Modern
Languages & TESOL)
Guests: Barry Wilson (Dept. Head & Assoc. Professor, Ed. Psych &
Foundations), Joel Haack (Dean, College of Humanities, Arts and Sciences),
Mary Beth Rygh (Office of Student Field Experiences), Brenda Bass
(Associate Dean, College of Social & Behavioral Sciences), Michelle Tichy
(Educational Psychology and Foundations)
* Member of both Senates
II.
Approval of April meeting minutes - both Senates
Tony Gabriele moved to approve April 12, 2012 Elementary Senate minutes,
Amy Lockhart seconded. Minutes were approved.
Rick Vanderwall moved to approve April 19, 2012 Secondary Senate minutes,
Terri Lasswell seconded. Minutes were approved.
III.
Updates
Field Experience transition:
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Field Experience Faculty will be receiving letters of offer tomorrow,
Friday, May 4.
Level I, II and III registration numbers: a) Numbers for Level I
registration are at 243. Normally we would expect 400 for Fall. Summer
registration will add some. b) Level II registration has increased to 170
but there is an oddity in the distribution with more secondary than
elementary students registered. c) Linda Fitzgerald says Early Childhood
Level III numbers are also down, d) transfer enrollments are also running
a bit low and are slightly below the average at this point.
Reasons for lower enrollments: a) due to outstanding financial holds and
advisor holds, which prevents registration b) elementary majors having to
register themselves but thinking they would be registered automatically.
Dean Haack noted there are 8,000 students registered for Fall 2012 and we
would normally expect 10,000 at this point. There are around 600 financial
holds and 600 advisor holds still in place. Students need to be encouraged to
to remedy situations and register.
The following questions were posed “Do we have any knowledge of
enrollment increases at Iowa and Iowa State? Do we have requests for
transcripts in higher numbers here at UNI?”
Teacher Education Listserves:
TEF-ALL is used to send out broad communications to all involved in
Teacher Education. The question was posed about advisors having
information. Students may get information through the new student listserve
and then call their advisors who haven’t received this information. Melissa
and Cherin will explore getting TEF-All on the student list serve.
IV.
Old business - there was no old business.
V.
New business
a. Permission for students to do either the TWS or TPA (i.e. have an option)
during Student Teaching
The Teacher Education Program requires that a “Performance
Assessment” be completed during Student Teaching and at present this is
a Teacher Work Sample (TWS). This spring 5 Student Teaching Centers
did a Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) rather than the TWS.
Dianna Briggs, Director of the Office of Student Field Experiences, is
requesting that we offer Student Teaching centers an option for doing
either a TWS or a TPA. The discussion that followed centered on what
would be gained or lost if we decide to go with a TPA instead of a TWS?
More information and questions ensued and are summarized below.
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The regular TPAs are scored externally by Pearson. An internal rubric
was created for the UNI Pilot to provide information comparable to
our TWS. If we decide to use TPAs, we would be scoring internally;
Pearson would not complete the scoring at this time.
Student Teaching Centers that choose to do TPAs would need to have
the same accountability applied as those currently doing a TWS.
It would be left open ended for Centers to decide between using the
TWS and TPA. Concern was expressed about students being
adequately prepared to do a TPA (Level II and methods courses
currently do some facilitation for doing a TWS).
Should there be a time limit that student teachers have to complete a
performance assessment?
What implications would there be at the state level? The answer is
that a performance assessment is not required at the state level at this
time.
An informal poll by Terri Lasswell showed that 80% of her students
preferred the TPA. In particular, they liked the electronic format but
felt the video portion was a bit difficult. Melissa commented that the
TPA is more time consuming to evaluate.
Would it be possible for Methods III instructors to introduce aspects of
both TWS and TPA? General consensus was that we need to study
both types of performance assessment and that the Assessment
Committee needs to be involved in the decisions regarding TWS and
TPA.
Rick Vanderwall proposed the following motion, second by Becky
Hawbaker.
The UNI TPA Exploratory project will be extended for the next academic
year with up to 100 students. The UNI Teacher Education program will
accept the TPA as an appropriate assessment for student teaching during
that time period.
The motion passed unanimously and with no abstentions.
b. Bylaws
The Council of Teacher Education voted in May 2011 before they
disbanded to accept the draft presented to them at that time. Cherin has
been working on updates to that Bylaw draft. She asked whether we
should wait until September to vote on the updated version or should we
get the updates sent out and then do an electronic vote [in May]. If
discussion is needed, the senators could be provided a draft to view before
it is given to faculty for their votes.
It was agreed that Cherin would send a draft to the Senates for their input,
edit the Bylaws and then send to the Teacher Education Faculty. They
would have 10 days to respond prior to both Senates voting electronically.
c. Transforming UNI teacher education: Processes Discussion
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We need to begin the process of transforming our Teacher Education
program. This is at least a two-year process. Individual programs
(majors) may choose to combine with other types of majors.
Discussion ensued about a process; should this be the Senates by
Committee as a whole? A Town Hall meeting? Or start with general
principles?
It was decided that the Principles could be created through a summer
one-day meeting open to all Teacher Education faculty, with the TE
principles organized and edited by a committee and presented to the
Teacher Ed. Faculty and Senates in the fall. Melissa and Cherin will
organize a July meeting, with Rick Vanderwall’s technology
assistance for distance participation.
When created, the Teacher Program Improvement Advisory Board
should be involved.
Ancillary things to consider:
The next state accreditation visit is in 2016. We don’t want to
have a new TE program just coming out at that time.
There is increasing pressure to work on Premier but nobody has
defined what this means.
Meeting adjourned at 5:15