2008-2009 Program Coordinator Reports a Summary

2008-2009 Program Coordinator Reports – A Summary

At the end of each academic year, program coordinators throughout

North Carolina State University’s professional education Unit write and submit annual reports for their particular program. This academic year, undergraduate and graduate programs from three different colleges in the

Professional Education Unit submitted these program coordinator reports. In particular, these reports highlight the programs progress over the course of the academic year, faculty work, program assessment, strengths and weaknesses, and improvements or upgrades they have implemented or will implement in the future.

This academic year, due to the North Carolina State Board of

Education’s adoption of new Professional Teaching Standards, many programs have been laboriously focusing on program “revisioning”.

Throughout the state, all professional programs must submit blueprints to overhaul their programs to meet these new standards. North Carolina State University (NCSU) has been in the forefront throughout this revisioning process, and programs across the state have recognized the leadership that the NCSU Unit has had. In their reports, several programs mention their tireless efforts to change their programs and meet these new standards set by the State Board of Education.

Several common methods to assess programs were discussed by the program coordinators. Surveys, including program surveys, department surveys, Unit surveys, and University-wide surveys (including ClassEval and the Alumni survey) were mentioned as important to the programs for assessment. Signature artifact assignments, which involve turning in rubrics for each student throughout the semester, were also very important to the programs. Scores on culminating projects, Unit mid-point and culminating essays, and signature artifacts were also utilized to assess the programs’ outcomes over the 2008-2009 academic year. The new SAGE system facilitates advising and assessment roles, and a large majority of programs posted information from this assessment system into their program coordinator reports this year.

Overall, programs reported that their biggest area for improvement was faculty participation and instruction. Several programs mention that faculty do not turn in their signature artifact rubrics on time, they are not successful in advising students well, they do not understand the assessment process, and they need to work better and more patiently with their students.

Courses were another area in need of improvement throughout many programs. Many mentioned the need to offer more courses or to offer the courses they have more often. Also, some programs’ signature artifacts do not address all the standards required by the Department of Public Instruction or the NCSU Professional Education Unit. These programs recognize their need to address all these standards, and mention that they are in the process to change this.

The NCSU Unit has a variety of strengths about which to boast. Many feel that they are better working with their faculty, students, and the educational Unit to achieve their goals. Their students are overwhelmingly meeting the standards and requirements of the signature artifact assignments, and field experiences are proving to be great assets to the students and their professional careers. In turn, students report that they are well-prepared by their programs to be professional teachers upon graduation and getting their first job in their teaching or administrating career. Overall, students are satisfied with their education from NCSU, and graduate ready to enter K-12 schools in a professional manner. Areas for SWAT

1. Additional assessment review in first CEPC in the fall.

2. Invite the SSAC (Advising Center) personnel to review Center’s ability

to help faculty with advising loads.

3. Review the Rubric task force work on the common rubrics for the 6

evidences

4. Discuss the streamlining of the score sheet process with the new

evidences.

5. The Student Teaching Rubric is yielding very high scores with little

variability. Supervisors are saying the rubric comes at the end of the

experience and the candidates evaluated are the ones doing well. With

Student Teaching moving to a year long experience, the rubric needs to

be completely re-done(if not thrown out) and a series of rubrics

created to replace. SWAT needs to form a committee (perhaps the

existing rubric committee for revisioning) to complete this task.