Elementary and Secondry Education:
Data Analysis for 18- and 33-Credit Portfolio Checkpoint Summer II 2005
Terri Swim
July, 2005
Letters were sent to 33 candidates who had completed 18 credits and 4 letters to candidates who
had completed 33 credits in the School of Education Master’s Programs in Elementary or
Secondary Education inviting their participation in this checkpoint. Given the recent changes to
our program, we realized that these students had not participated in many, if any, of the new
educational experiences designed to enhance their understanding of our Vision statement:
“to build with graduate students, and their schools and corporations, Scholar-Practitioner
learning communities for engaging in a democratic and diverse society."
However, we created the goals of gathering baseline data on our graduates as well as evaluating
the procedures for identifying and notifying students. Of the 37 candidates sent letters, 4 met
with faculty (one person did not complete any of the assignments as requested and one person
only completed one reflection). As identified during the previous semester, we had a problem
with the data base queries including program graduates. While this may seem like an easy
problem to fix, it turned out to be more cumbersome that expected and resulted in hand-checking
the final query list against graduation records. We are still working to resolve this issue.
As the letter stated, we requested that the candidates reflect on their growth towards the Vision
Statement (e.g, divided into 3 components: growth as a Scholar-Practitioner, engagement as a
learning community, and contributions to a democratic and diverse society) and on their use of
technology as related to the Conceptual Framework (CF).
Vision Statement
Data: Scholar-Practitioner
Candidates often explained their understanding of scholar-practitioner by providing examples of
how they used or are using research as teachers. For example, a candidate commented that she
has developed a “stronger tendency to look deeper into the issues and problems that I face as an
educator. I have a better grasp on where to find help and/or answers to relevant classroomrelated questions and concerns.” A colleague expressed similar feelings when she stated, “I have
been able to locate many articles that further my knowledge in the subject being researched.”
She went on to tell about her action research project where she met weekly with an autistic
student to teach him piano lessons. This project “strengthened my openness to what students
with special needs can do. Since this experience I have furthered my research on the senses of
music and how I can relate to special needs students.”
The last candidate commented on how the program helped with being “persistent in trying to
make myself aware of the many opportunities for the students’ changing needs. In order for me
to do that, I must continue in scholarly review and writing, and reflect appropriately.”
Data: Learning Communities
The Master’s candidates spoke about college-course colleagues and other teachers in their
discussions of learning communities. They believed that completing their degree has helped
them with their interactions in their communities. For example, talking with other teachers has
helped to “broaden my scope of the curriculum.” Another candidate commented that one of the
most valuable aspect of the graduate program for “increasing my teaching effectiveness” has
been talking with other teachers in the classes. “Because we are ‘in the trenches’ with kids
everyday, the learning community has proven to be extremely critical to my growing
professional development.”
Data: Democratic and Diverse Society
Two of the candidates considered how their behavior as teachers should model and maintain
democracy in their classrooms. One discussed how this is easy to do in her social studies course,
but when on to state that content is not enough. “I run my classroom as a democracy itself. I
know every student understands equality (i.e., “that’s not fair!”), but what I want to impart to my
students in all my classes is the notion of equity (everyone has different needs, and everyone has
the same rights [student’s emphasis]). … In addition, my classroom is run as democratically as
possible (it can’t be completely, as I have to remain in charge, for instance) – in terms of
decision-making, rule-making, one-on-one relationship-building, classroom discussions – to
model these ideals.” A colleague concurred when she focused on giving the children choices and
have them involved with creating the rules and procedures for working in their school. One of
her goals for doing this was for “them to have ownership to their decisions and what they want
for their classroom. This type of discipline encourages their class to work as a team and do their
best by encouraging others instead of tearing them down.” Thus, for both students, the notion of
democracy was closely linked to their beliefs about diversity. Learning more about diverse
students was a theme for these three students. One candidate, who is employed in a private,
religious-based program summed up these ideas when she stated, “Understanding and awareness
equate with greater appreciation for the situations and choices of others and a drive for
educational excellence, each of which is necessary for the peaceful, productive, diverse, and
democratic society in which we exist.”
Conclusions: The candidates’ views on the importance of using research to inform their
teaching seemed more advanced than the students interviewed during the Spring semester.
While not much time had elapsed, these students reported having participated in more of the
“new program” requirements, such as the two different types of artifact reflections and the
service learning for diversity. We believe that the increased focus on reflection and use of
research for teacher decision-making is an outgrowth of those experiences. In addition,
professors may be helping the students to make more connections between scholarship and
practice in the individual courses. The vision statement is now required on every graduate
syllabus. Seeing and reading this, at least once a semester, may be having an impact. Consistent
with the students interviewed in the Spring, they continued to lack specific examples of how they
use research in their daily lives as teachers. We may need to consider revising the directions so
that these expectations are clear to the students.
The notion of community of learners appears to be one that students can easily grasp. However,
we would like to continue developing their understanding of “teachers as educational leaders” by
supporting their scholarly inquiry into their work and providing forums for disseminating it.
Doing so would serve to expand this understanding while increasing their visibility within the
greater educational community as scholar-practitioners.
The candidates focused their discussions around specific examples for democracy, and addressed
diversity globally, if at all in their responses. Last semester, we concluded that changes in
assignment directions are warranted to help students be more concrete in their responses. While
last semester, this conclusion was particularly strong for democracy, it appears that it was more
robust for diversity for this group of students. As mentioned earlier, these students had all
completed at least one course reflection which required them to reflect on the six components of
the CF. These experiences may serve to assist them in better articulating their beliefs at the
checkpoints.
Regarding diversity, we knew while doing the program revisions that this was an area in need of
great attention, but these data provide evidence to the depth. Including 30 hours of Service
Learning for Diversity in the revised programs appears to be a very wise decision on our part.
These data should provide a baseline from which to evaluate student performance in the revised
program.
Technology Reflection (using Conceptual Framework)
In general, the two candidates provided very inconsistent evidence of their abilities to connect
their use of technology in the elementary/secondary classroom with the CF. They frequently
only included how their own personal use of technology reflected the six components. Examples
of relevant responses are presented in the following sections.
Democracy and Community
One student commented that she has spent the last couple of summers learning how to compose
music with computers and keyboards. While she has not yet introduced this skill to the children
she would like for them to “… create a CD of their creations and print out their sheet music to
show their parents and grandparents.”
Pedagogy
Using technology in the classroom was demonstrated when the candidate had the children create
a power point presentation of Swiss Heritage festival, where the students get to experience
pioneer life. Digital photographs were downloaded and manipulated and added to text to create
visual accounts of their learning.
Experience
“In order to learn technology and benefit from the source, you need to put it into practice.” One
candidate explained how she used digital photographs of the children playing musical
instruments to create her monthly newsletter. “It has been wonderful to keep parents informed of
events that are up coming and what their children are learning.”
Leadership
“We must personify the image we wish to impart onto our students and stick to it. If I’m
bringing technology into my classroom and discussing how I learned these techniques, then I’m
modeling my philosophy to them.”
Conclusions: Our conclusions about this data are identical to those made about the data
collected during the Spring semester. The revisions made to the Advanced Programs in
Elementary and Secondary Education, during the Program Review process in 2003-2004 should
address the shortcomings of these responses. Introducing the CF and technology log in the first
course, F500 Teaching, Leading, and Learning and checking progress at two checkpoints should
assist students with making better connections between their use of technology and the CF. We
now realize that having the candidates keep a log of their technology use in university courses
demonstrates the skills they are gaining for use in educational settings. However, it appears that
we may need to create another log for recording their actual use of technology with students.
This will afford them a record of their use and reflections on how using technology with the
students helped them to gain a deeper understanding of the CF components.