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All 16 colleges and universities in the State University of New York (SUNY) that prepare new teachers collaborated with SUNY System Institutional Research to develop, implement, and enhance their campus assessment systems to improve teacher education programs and beginning teacher competency. SUNY prepares about 5,000 new teachers a year in New York, or about 25 percent of the total recommended for certification. The impact of this project on P-12 student learning will continue to be substantial.
The project was guided by an innovative and robust model of program assessment goals that applies to the full range of teacher preparation institutions in SUNY and across the country. The project design provided for collaboration among campuses through professional development symposia each semester that were designed to support campus-level implementation of validated assessment and data management strategies by faculty and administrative assessment leaders.
The measurable project outcomes included: 1) increased quality of teacher education programs and their associated assessment systems; 2) reallocation of institutional resources for program assessment; 3) assessment of important candidate characteristics that are difficult to measure, such as professional dispositions and impact on P-12 learning; 4) teacher certification exam analyses that support content area and pedagogical program improvements; 5) system and campus databases for managing teacher assessment data; 6) sustained collaboration among SUNY teacher education campuses to support assessment; and 7) increased access to New York State Education Department data on teacher graduates for all teacher education institutions in the state.
The project provided funding to each of the 16 SUNY campuses to support specific, campus-level activities that address the overall project goals stated above. In addition, a collaborative symposium was held each semester from Fall 2003 through Fall 2007. The purpose of these continuing symposia was to provide professional development for faculty assessment leaders and administrators to support the adoption of research-based best practice in teacher education assessment. During the project period, half of these symposia were held in conjunction with statewide meetings of teacher educators, thus disseminating project results to faculty at an additional 45 teacher education institutions in the state. These professional development opportunities will continue to occur at the joint semi-annual conferences of the New York Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (http://www.nyacte.org/) and the New York State Association of Teacher Educators (http://www.nys-ate.org/).
Outcomes included a project Web site (http://www.oswego.edu/~educate/fipse/) that promoted dissemination and presentations at statewide meetings of teacher educators. In addition, articles in peer-reviewed publications, which are based on data collected for the final project evaluation study, are underway.
ONLINE REFERENCE:
SUNY Teacher Education Program Assessment (FIPSE TEPA) Project
http://www.oswego.edu/~educate/fipse/
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Suzanne Weber
Project Director
SUNY Oswego
School of Education
356 Wilber Hall
Oswego, NY 13126
Tel: 315-312-2102
Fax: 315-312-5407
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