(Page 1 of 5) - Using an Evidence-Based Assessment System to Demonstrate Candidate Quality in a Preservice Teacher Education Program authored by Weiss, Jan. and Lewis, Jan.

Using an Evidence Based Assessment System to Demonstrate Candidate Quality in a Pre service

Teacher Education Program

Description
Describe the design and implementation of a standards-based assessment system that measures pre-service
candidate quality through documented entries that require description, analysis, and reflection on teaching
practice and student learning.

A. Statement of the Issue

Clearly, the accountability demanded of today’s teacher education programs has heightened the

awareness of the need to develop quality teachers to ensure the successful learning of a wide range of
students. Over the past five years, a unit-wide goal for our School of Education has been to create a
seamless assessment model that encompasses all aspects of a candidates’ career as a high-quality educator,
while simultaneously demonstrating the quality and impact of a traditional teacher education program. This
assessment system and its required processes and products reflects the essential aspects of an effective
teacher education program.

The design of this assessment system has at its core “documented entries” which are grounded in

standards for both pre-service (state-based, INTASC) and in-service (NBPTS) teachers. The categories of
Classrooms as Communities, Formal Learning and Assessment, and Planning for Powerful Learning
embody the broad scope of best practice literature. Our question has focused on how to best prepare our
candidates to meet the increasing demands of today’s classrooms, and how do we know they are prepared,
and are ready, to meet these demands.

This system has allowed us to look beyond the confines of a teacher education program into the

first and second years of our candidates’ teaching lives to document their on-going development. Our
question, now, begins to address how well-prepared our candidates are in their first years, and describing
those qualities that make them prepared to meet the increasingly complex demands of teaching.

B. Literature review

Many scholars continue to confront the call for increased teacher accountability through standardized
testing (Cochran-Smith, 2003a, 2003b; Darling-Hammond, 2002), suggesting that evidence-based and
performance based assessment is a more fitting approach to assessing and evaluating the quality of
teaching. A teacher’s impact on student learning is increasingly cited as the new hallmark of effectiveness
(Washington Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, 2003). The profession continues to make the
case for the use of performance based assessments in practice rather than traditional, paper/pencil
standardized tests of knowledge. The following topics are relevant to grounding this work:

•

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) provides evidence of quality
teaching through description, analysis, and reflection (access information at www.nbpts.org). This
model has reinforced the notion of reflection as a critical ability in effective teaching; it has also
reinforced the notion of “best practices” as effective in classrooms, further assisting in a move
away from traditional, often ineffective, classroom practices (Diez & Blackwell, 1999). The
NBPTS structure of providing performance based evidence of best practice, framed around a set of
questions and descriptors, holds promise as an approach for teacher education.

•

The use of performance based assessments via portfolios is not new to teacher education (Bird,
1990; Darling-Hammond & Snyder, 2000). However, enabling teacher candidates to both collect
evidence of quality and reflect on their impact on student learning has remained variable across
teacher education (Delandshere & Arens, 2003). For many, standards provide an opportunity for
performance based assessment to become stronger and more focused (Darling-Hammond, Diez,
Moss, Pecheone, Pullin, Shafer, & Vickers, 1998).

•

Reflection has long been seen as a critical factor for effective teaching practices (Schon, 1983).
But, teaching reflection is, indeed, more difficult to teach and model than it might appear
(reflecion/refraction article; Riskos, Vukelich, Roskos, 2002). Teacher educators are challenged
to move beyond traditional teaching methods to assist teacher candidates in the development of
their reflective skills and strategies.

•

What is quality in teaching? Currently, federal legislation encourages the thinking that quality in
teaching can only be determined by standardized tests taken both by students and teachers.