University of Nebraska Kearney

Teacher Education Assessment Report 2005: Methodology

Submitted Fall, 2005

The assessment plan for the Teacher Education Department calls for a combination of direct and indirect measures relating to the renewed teacher education program which is nearing full implementation. The assessment plan initially focused on ten direct measurements which were referred to as "common assessments." This has now been reduced to nine with  the elimination of the “The Politics of Education” assessment which was originally to be a part of the Political Science 110 course. Since not all Teacher Education students were  concurrently enrolling in PSCI 110 and  TE 206, this assessment was dropped.These remaining assessments listed below form the structure for assessment in the Teacher Education program.

Table One
Assessments for the Teacher Education Renewed Program 

These direct measurements of assessments utilize a point-scale approach based on a series of rubrics which ensured consistency as instructors either graded or  evaluated student work. Only four of the common assessments listed above will be used in this report.  These have been chosen because (1) they have been consistently utilized without significant changes to their rubrics and (2) they have been implemented for at least four full semesters for the TE 204 course, five in the case of the two TE 100 common assessments, and two in the case of the TE 312 course. The Teaching Dispositions assessment has been somewhat problematic due to the need to alter the rubrics and the assigned point values used to measure the three key areas of collaboration, responsibility, and reflection. Because the Teaching Dispositions rubric changed in 2004, previous data had to be discarded.. The Teaching Dispositions assessment, however,  will be included in the Fall, 2006 report. The four  assessments for purposes of this report are as follows:   the Morally Responsible Teacher; the Five Looks Case Study of Schools; the Individual Case Study, and the Lesson Plan Case Study.. 

The remaining  common assessments  listed above are still evolving in form and are not yet slated to be a part of the annual assessment report until at least two full semesters of data have been collected. The list of target dates for implementation of the remaining assessments appears in Table Six.  They have either been undergoing significant changes in the rubrics or have simply not yet been implemented enough to provide any meaningful data.  It is anticipated that these common assessments will yield viable data by the end of the 2005-2006 academic year.

Indirect measurements have been addressed through survey work and focus group research with TE 100 students; however, this data is still being compiled and will be available for the fall, 2006 report.. Surveys of partner school participants are being planned for the future.

Please note that rubrics for the assessments disclosed in this report can be found in Appendix A.  More detailed statistical breakdowns of these assessments by subcategories can be found in Appendix B.