(Page 1 of 4) - Using Web-Based Technology to Effectively and Efficiently Place and Evaluate Student Teachers, Supervisors and Programs authored by Clarken, Rodney.

Using Web-Based Technology to Effectively and Efficiently Place and Evaluate Student

Teachers, Supervisors and Programs

Section I: Content
A. Statement of the issue:
The new technologies also allow education programs to more efficiently place and evaluate
student teachers, supervisors and programs. This paper will describe the issues and factors to be
considered in deciding whether and how to implement web-based systems for placement and
evaluation such as programming, computer support, web access, institutional support
(administration, faculty and staff), internal and external reporting of data, buy-in by all
constituencies involved and compatibility.

Teacher education programs are increasingly required or expected to supply data that supports
their contentions that their programs are effective in producing teachers who have the
knowledge, skills and dispositions needed to be successful teachers. One important source of
such data is evaluation of the student teachers by their classroom supervisors, university
supervisors and themselves. How can we effectively and efficiently obtain data from all of these
sources in ways that can be easily interpreted and analyzed across several variables? This paper
will present the knowledge learned from one mid-sized state university’s experience in
successfully answering this question over the last four years.

The School of Education Field Experience Office has placed all evaluation forms related to
student teaching online. These forms are filled out by the evaluators and the entered data is used
to make grading, programming, processing and accreditation decisions. All student teachers
(about 100 a semester) all supervising teachers (about 150 a semester) and all university
supervisors (about 25 a semester) complete 1-3 evaluation forms online. These student teaching
evaluations forms include the First Progress Report, Mid-Term Evaluation, Final Evaluation by
Supervising Teacher, Final Evaluation by Student Teacher, Final Evaluation by University
Supervisor, Evaluation of the Student Teaching Program by Supervising Teachers and Student
Teachers, Evaluation of the University Supervisor by Student Teachers and Supervising
Teachers and Evaluation of the Supervising Teacher by the Student Teacher and the University
Supervisor.

The online student teaching application process makes data accessible to the parties that need it
in a timely manner, decreased the amount of work and provided needed records for follow up.
For example, we created three separate systems that work to manage student teacher
information. These systems are a teaching application, a system to manage active teaching
assignments, and a system to receive and manage the state certification applications. There are
also a number of minor systems that allow for the interaction of third parties with this data.

The first system, the student teaching application, allows a student to enter all the information
necessary to request a student teaching placement through the School of Education. This system
begins with the entry of the candidates available data from university programs already inserted
into the applications, such as address and majors. The students then confirm or correct the data
which is part of the existing university record and then enter the remaining data needed to
complete the application. The administration side of the system allows the School of Education
to then take these applications and assign them to various K-12 schools around the region, and as