The Teacher Education program received confirmation that the Inquiry Brief Commission for the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) concluded at its meeting on October 22, 2013 that the evidence presented in the Inquiry Brief for Caldwell University, as verified and evaluated by the Initial Review Panel, merits TEAC Accreditation status for seven years. There are two areas for improvement.

Please follow link to the approval noted by panel October 22, – 23, 2013.

Two areas of improvement include a) improve training of cooperating teachers in the use of student teacher assessment and b) improve the consistency of the validity of assessments of claims.

Program claims:

The College and the Division of Education claim a commitment to preparing teachers, nurses, and curriculum specialists who:

1. Demonstrate mastery of the subjects they will be expected to teach;
2. Are knowledgeable in the application of instructional and technological strategies that are learner-centered and appropriate to the diverse needs of the students;
3. Reflect upon classroom practices as they relate to competent instruction and the caring nature of their teaching.

Grades (Claim 1)

Undergraduate candidates are required to maintain a 3.0 GPA overall, and graduate candidates must have a 3.0 GPA for admission to the program.  the mean subject matter GPA for undergraduates is 3.4 for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Graduate candidates in Literacy, Special Education and Curriculum and Instruction Programs are as follows for 2012-2013 academic year:

Literacy:  3.89

Special Education:  3.9

Curriculum and Instruction:  3.9

Evaluations (Claim 1, Claim 2, Claim 3)

Undergraduate candidates are evaluated using the Clinical Competency Inventory (CCI), which is a cross-institutional assessment instrument designed to align with the New Jersey Professional Teaching Standards.  Caldwell supervisors are trained to use the instrument and in turn train the cooperating teachers.  The Clinical Competency Inventory (CCI) is completed by college supervisors, cooperating teachers and the students themselves each semester during student teaching.  The CCI aligns teacher behaviors to the eleven New Jersey Professional Standards of Teaching.  This evaluation instrument provides feedback on the progress of student teachers as they complete their student teaching experience.  For the 2012-2013 academic year, candidates were rated overall as 84% advanced proficient and 16% proficient by their college supervisors, 83% advanced proficient and 12% proficient by their cooperating teachers.  Candidates rated themselves as 92% advanced proficient and 6% proficient.

Portfolio (Claim 1, Claim 2, Claim 3)

Undergraduate candidates develop a portfolio during their time in the program that demonstrates their practical mastery of the TEAC claims and the New Jersey Standards.  Only six portfolios were evaluated and all earned an A, indicating skills of proficient or above.  There was no rubric for the portfolio, one is currently being developed and will be piloted during the 2014-2015 school year.

Lesson/unit plans (Claim 2)

Candidates are assessed on lesson plans and unit plans, with rubrics based on the work of Madeline Hunter and on Wiggins & McTighe, respectively.  For the 2012-2013 academic year, candidates were rated as follows:  On the advanced lesson plan, 65% were rated advanced proficient and 26% were rated proficient.  On the unit plan, 83% were rated advanced proficient and 13% were rated proficient.

Praxis (Claim 1)

New Jersey requires passage of the Praxis for all content area licensing.  In 2012 -2013, the overall pass rate of Caldwell candidates was 99%.

Reflections  (Claim 3)

Reflections are required on the student teaching experience and students are rated on the following criteria: pedagogy, evidence of caring teaching, course content integration and the quality of writing.  For the 2012-2013 academic year, 79% of candidates were rated as advanced proficient and 16% were rated proficient.

This reflection and rubric has been revised and will be piloted in the 2014-2015 academic year.  A reflection will be required at the beginning of the program with a similar prompt.  The two courses with required reflections will be at the beginning and end of the program.  Both of these reflections have been revised and will be piloted next year.

Surveys (Claim 1, Claim 2, Claim 3)

At the end of each semester, students in student teaching seminar complete a survey about their experiences in the education program.  For the 2012-2013 academic year, 64 students completed the survey.  The survey results indicate that 97% reported that the program prepared them for student teaching, 95% reported that they had adequate field experiences prior to student teaching, and 97% would recommend the program to other students.  Faculty review the responses and consider student suggestions for change.

Plans for program improvement

Education Division faculty reviewed the artifacts and the data from the rubrics associated with the artifacts.  After consideration of the data, the faculty decided to improve the quality of the data by revising the reflection artifacts and rubrics, revising the lesson plan rubric and by creating a rubric for the student teaching portfolio.