Status of the Progress of the Transformation Initiative
Progress toward our goal of transforming lives, schools, and communities is managed in view of our
initiative themes:
Theme: Helping candidates come to terms with unintentional barriers and bias. A cross-program
work group is designing a logic model to describe vertically aligned efforts toward assisting our
candidates in developing strong skills in multicultural education and greater commitment to social
justice. This group is identifying assessment points throughout each educator preparation program,
with a series of common readings, assignments, and repeated measures.
Theme: Implementing a reliable and valid Teacher Performance Assessment to improve the
consistency and quality of teacher effectiveness. We are currently in a full pilot of this program,
implementing the Handbooks across all licensure programs.
Theme: Embedding methods courses in schools and better integrating methods courses with field
experiences. Licensure programs have begun to move methods courses into partner schools, using
‘labs’ rather than isolated field experiences. Early childhood education candidates attend their
science methods course in Taft STEM Elementary School, and move from their class to that of K-3
students to engage in the practices they are learning. Similar models are used by the special
education program (Rost and Rothenberg Schools), middle childhood education (Princeton Middle
School), and secondary education (Hughes High School.) Practica for school psychology include
several early childhood centers (Northern Kentucky Head Start, Arlitt Child Development and
Research Center) where the site professionals are integral members of a tiered service delivery team
with school psychology students. Supervision classes are held on site with graduate students, agency
supervisors, and a core faculty member to develop systems, class, and individualized supports. The
contact time is substantial (200 hours, academic year) allowing for graduate students to understand
the mission and ecology of the early childhood agency and the full cycle of the program year. The
graduate students respond to referrals for children’s needs through empirically based tiered supports
and help carry out plans by supporting teachers and parents. Graduate students get to know teachers
and children well and also support the agency in parent and staff developments. Many doctoral
students receive advanced training in these agencies and have carried out research at the agency.
Theme: Adding more and earlier field experiences. Field experiences are more frequent, earlier and
better integrated in the programs designed for semesters. In addition, there is increase rigor in the
requirements for completing these experiences. First year students in communication sciences and
disorders engage in Bearcat Buddies with 3rd-8th grade students in four high poverty schools, providing
mentoring one hour each week with a partner students. A summer program, SPARK Pre-k immersion is
a six-session program designed to allow children who have never before experienced a preschool classroom
setting to do so. UC speech pathology grad students plan and conduct language stimulation and enrichment
activities in the preschool classroom.
Theme: Preparing teachers for city schools. All of our licensure programs require city experiences for
their candidates. This is now a written policy. Art in the marker pairs Cincinnati Public School High School
Students with art education students to design and build community art projects urban core of Cincinnati. Music
education student provide support to music and choir experiences to students in the urban core.
Theme: Implementation of research-based strategies. Instructors are modeling the three phases of
explicit instruction (explicit training and teacher modeling, guided practice, and independent practice)
and including this information in syllabi. Candidates’ work samples must include documentation that
the strategies and interventions are research-based and demonstrated to be successful.
Theme: Academic language development. Across our licensure programs, candidates are engaged in
building units of instruction that give P-12 students opportunities to move from their social languages
into the unique languages required in the academic disciplines. We are just beginning to review the
potential impact an emphasis in this area will have on our programs, particularly for programs for
students who vary in culture, language, ethnicity, and ability.
Theme: Reflection. Through both the TPA and the Collaborative Assessment Logs, candidates examine
how reflection informs what they plan to do in the next teaching episode, unit or lesson. Early
courses have begun to incorporate increased requirements for reflection across all four years of our
undergraduate programs, with increased rigor and documentation in our advanced programs.