Program Quality and Effectiveness

Candidates will demonstrate skills to plan, implement, assess, and modify effective instruction for all students.

The Teacher Work Sample (TWS), adapted from The Renaissance Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality Project (http://fp.uni.edu/itq), is a performance assessment designed to demonstrate evidence of Sam Houston State University candidates' ability to facilitate learning for all students. This sample illustrates the candidate's ability to plan, implement, modify and assess instruction during their student teaching semester. Prior to the student teaching semester, candidates choose one (12 to 14 week placement) or two (6 to 7 week placements). During the first 6 to 7 weeks of their placement, candidates are required to create and teach a unit as a Teacher Work Sample. After consulting with their mentor teacher about the unit focus, candidates teach a minimum of five lessons from the unit in their mentor's classroom. Additionally, the candidates are evaluated on their unit planning and teaching of unit lessons. They are also required to reflect on their decision-making and teaching practice including their impact on student learning. The Teacher Work Sample (TWS) focuses on seven teaching processes that are crucial for effective/reflective teaching and must be considered when planning for the learning of all students. Each process is defined by a performance standard, specific task, a student prompt and a rubric that identify the desired performance of the candidate related to that process.  Candidates score a 1 - they have to redo the assignment; a 2 or 3 demonstrates that the candidate proficiently completed the document.

At least 87% of candidates during the 2012-2013 academic year will achieve a score of 2 or 3 on the Teacher Work Sample. Information on Scoring Procedures: As recommended by the Renaissance Group, each candidate's Teacher Work Sample is blindly scored by a minimum of two trained scorers. Each scorer evaluates and assigns a score of three(target), two (acceptable), or one (unacceptable) to each indicator, Additionally an overall score of three, two or one is given to each of the seven processes as well as and an overall three, two or one to the entire Teacher Work Sample. If the first two scorers agree on the overall Teacher Work Sample score, the scoring process is complete. However, if the two scorers do not agree the Teacher Work Sample is scored for a third, possibly fourth time, until agreement is reached. For this reason, the data presented in the following charts represents the number of scorings not the number of Teacher Work Samples scored. Once agreement is reached on the Teacher Work Sample score, the overall scores are sent to the student teachers.

As stated last year, we are transitioning our rubric for accreditation purposes to use terms, target, acceptable, and unacceptable, rather than using numerals. We are eager to see how the results for 2012-2013 compare to 2011-2012.

The Department set a goal that 87% of teacher candidates would score acceptable or higher (score of 2 or 3) on the Teacher Work Sample.  In fact, 96.7% of teacher candidates scored 2 or 3 on their submission.

The breakout scores is as follows:
EC-6 - 97.5%
4-8 -  96.4%
EC/8-12 - 96.9%
PB - 90.7%

Since the scoring procedure change in 2011, Candidate scores have been lower than before the change. However, the scores are improving each semester. With the measures the C & I faculty have in place the scores should continue to rise.

The area of main concern for the department is the Post Bac candidates. In each of the other programs, over 51% of candidates score a 3. This level demonstrates the highest degree of mastery. In the Post Bac program only 31% of the candidiates scored a 3. For 2013-2014, the professors in the Post Bac program will target the lowest competencies to devise a plan to raise the scores.

Candidates will demonstrate mastery of the state-mandated pedagogy standards.

Candidates seeking initial certification, advanced teacher certification, or certifications for other school personnel must take one or more of the Texas Examinations of Educator Standards (TExES). These examinations directly correspond to the state content competencies that have been identified for the certification desired. These content competencies are aligned with and based on the appropriate state standards the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) statements, which describe the state mandated curriculum for students.

Each TExES examination is criterion-referenced and is designed to measure a candidate's level of content knowledge and skills appropriate for educators in the State of Texas. Each test was collaboratively developed by the State Board of Educator Certification (SBEC), National Evaluation Systems, Inc. (NES), an independent corporation specializing in educational measurements, with additional participation by committees of Texas educators. Individual test items developed to measure the state competencies were reviewed and rated by the various committees of Texas educators to ensure appropriateness of content and difficulty, clarity, and accuracy. These committees also ensured that the test items matched the appropriate competencies and were free from potential ethnicity, gender, and regional biases. The committees also helped prepare scoring rubrics for written response items and training materials for those who would score the tests.

Separate standard-setting panels were convened to review statistical data about candidate scores from initial pilot studies of the tests during their development. Recommendations were forwarded to the SBEC, which made the final decisions about establishing passing scores. TExES examinations are centrally administered by SBEC and NES at pre-determined sites and on pre-established dates across Texas similar to many of the national achievement tests. This regime provides for a professional, equitable, and secure testing environment for candidates. Alternative testing arrangements are also permitted for those requiring special consideration. Sites are selected after a careful review of security and accessibility potential, and the quality of overall testing conditions. Tests are scored centrally.

First time pass rates on all levels of the Pedagogy and Professional Examinations will exceed 85%. While the accountability system for the state examines scores for each completer cohort and provides for students to repeat the examination if they are not successful on the first attempt, the faculty decided to focus on the first time pass rate instead of the overall pass rate for the 2012-2013 academic year. 

As the certifying examination is transitioning to all-level, we are seeking to expand candidate deep knowledge to include developmental all public school levels of development.

Candidates have a full year from their graduation date to pass the PPR.  So, some of the candidates may still pass the PPR.  The data available right now indicate the following pass rates:

EC-6 - 98%
4-8 - 97%
EC/8-12 - 91%
PB - 83%

The State requires a minimum 80% pass rate for each program.

Since the examination changed from a program level exam to an All Level exam in 2011, Candidate scores have improved except for the Post Bac program.   With the measures the C & I faculty have in place the scores should continue to rise.

The area of main concern for the department is the Post Bac candidates.  In each of the other programs, candidates score above 90% .  In the Post Bac program only 83% of the candidiates passed the exam.  For 2013-2014, the professors in the Post Bac program will target the lowest competencies to devise a plan to raise the scores.

Visibility and Impact

The Department will involve all faculty in recruitment efforts to increase  enrollment in all programs.

All recruitment efforts for the 2012-2013 academic year will be documented by Dr. Bob Maninger, our recruitment coordinator, along with the names of the faculty members who attended the event.  We also document which recruitment strategies yield the most enrolled students.

As reported last year, our newly named recruitment director will organize, gather materials, set up booths, and keep the recruitment log for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Each program will increase enrollment from fall 2012 to fall 2013.  This information will be gathered for each program as well as for the department overall.

This will be our first year to gather information by department, so the results will be the initial baseline.

From Spring 2012 to Spring 2013 Curriculum and Instruction, through its recruitment efforts, increased semester credit hours by the following percentages:

CIEE  0%
CIME 55%
CISE  18%

The attached is a list of recruitment events and the faculty that attended.  The C&I faculty consistently go above and beyond to recruit.

Since the department recruitment efforts are proving successful, we will continue.  Even though CIEE grew 0% overall, it grew 1175% at University Park.

We will continue to have a recruitment coordinator and track recruitment events and faculty efforts. 

Faculty Excellence

Increase Curriculum and Instruction faculty productivity through contributions to the field in publications and presentations.

Annual professor to publication ratio and professor to presentation ratio for Curriculum and Instruction compared to 2011-2012. Each professor will report on their FES document all publications and presentations. The total number of publications for all professors will be divided by the total number of professors. This will be converted to a percentage. This percentage will be compared to the percentage from the 2011-2012 FES reports. The same procedures will be followed for presentations. We are looking for an increase from year to year, not necessarily a statistically significant increase.

Last year we decided junior faculty would be paired with senior faculty as writing/presenting partners to increase junior faculty productivity.  We also attempted to increase time blocks where junior faculty would have time to research and write.  We are keen to determine whether these interventions had any impact.

The average number of faculty pubications did not improve from the 2011-2012 academic year:
09-10 - 2.11 average publications
10-11 - 2.00 average publications
11-12 - 2.73 average publications
12-13 - 1.98 average publications

For the 12-13 academic year, C & I hired 6 new tenure track faculty members.  Since these junior faculty were mainly focused on teaching and learning about SHSU and C & I, their publication rate was extremely low.  Over the next year, their publication rate should improve.

The average number of faculty presentations did not improve from the 2011-2012 academic year:
09-10 - 5.1 average presentations
10-11 - 4.3 average presentations
11-12 - 5.6 average presentations
12-13 - 4.9 average presentations

For the 12-13 academic year, C & I hired 6 new tenure track faculty members. Since these junior faculty were mainly focused on teaching and learning about SHSU and C & I, their presentation rate was extremely low. Over the next year, their presentation rate should improve.