California State University, Long Beach
College of Education
Status Report
of the 2007 Accreditation Review by the
National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
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Background
The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) is the primary national body for accrediting initial teacher preparation programs, advanced teacher preparation programs, and programs for other school personnel in schools, colleges and departments of education. Institutional membership in NCATE is voluntary. The College of Education has held NCATE accreditation since 2001. During the 2006-2007 academic year, the College was reviewed by NCATE for continuing accreditation. NCATE examiners conducted a site visit in spring 2007, doing an exhaustive review of a large set of documents submitted by the college. The NCATE decision based upon the team’s findings was made public in fall 2007.
Accreditation Decision
Continuing accreditation with conditions is granted at the initial teacher preparation and advanced teacher preparation levels.
Areas for Improvement
1. Candidate knowledge, skills and dispositions.
The initial teacher preparation programs need evidence that:
- Candidates have the appropriate professional and pedagogical knowledge and skills.
The advanced preparation programs need evidence that:
- Candidates’ proficiencies are aligned with the conceptual framework and state and national standards
- Candidates have developed the appropriate professional knowledge, skills and dispositions
- Candidates in programs for other school personnel have an impact on student learning
2. Assessment System and Unit Evaluation.
The unit needs evidence that:
- Members of the professional community have input in developing the assessment system
- Assessments are aligned with the unit’s conceptual framework and national and state standards
- There is a comprehensive set of evaluation measures for candidate performance, program improvement, and unit operations
- Data on candidate performance, program quality, and unit operations is systematically compiled and analyzed
- Assessment methods are fair, accurate, and good predictors of candidate success
- Information technologies are utilized in unit operations
- Advanced preparation programs have specific transition points at which candidates are assessed
- Advanced preparation programs have at least two semesters of candidate performance data
Actions Taken
The following actions to address the Areas for Improvement have been taken or are in progress:
- Appointed Dr. Don Haviland as college Assessment Coordinator in a tenure track position, effective August 2007.
- Established an Assessment Office to centralize assessment activities. Dr. Haviland oversees the office with Meredith Broadhurst as Administrative Assistant (mbroadhu@csulb.edu).
- Formed an Assessment Committee to work with the Assessment Coordinator in developing assessment policies, practices, and procedures. The committee includes faculty, administrators, and off-campus members of the professional community. One of the charges of this committee is to review college level data and make recommendations on program and unit operations. The committee is also tasked with oversight of ensuring that program assessment measures are fair, accurate and good predictors of candidate success.
The members of the committee are: Jean Houck (Dean, College of Education), Marquita Grenot-Scheyer (Associate Dean, College of Education), Steve Turley (Associate Dean, College of Education), Cathy DuCharme (Chair, Department of Teacher Education), Jennifer Coots (Chair, Department of Educational Psychology, Administration and Counseling), Dan O’Connor (Chair, Department of Liberal Studies), Karen Hakim-Butt (University Coordinator, Single Subject Credential Program), Don Haviland (College of Education Assessment Coordinator), Paul Boyd-Batstone (Professor, Department of Teacher Education), Ruth Knudson (Professor, Department of Teacher Education), Ali Rezaei (Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, Administration and Counseling), Marge Lichty (Professor, Department of Family and Consumer Sciences), Stacie Bauerle (Institutional Research), Rosemary Perry (Long Beach Unified School District), Carol Welsh (Cypress College).
- Each program will have a program assessment plan in place by the conclusion of the year. This plan should describe:
- Program outcomes
- Means of assessing outcomes
- Analyses of outcome data and use of outcomes data to inform program improvement
- Spring 2008 we are running a 4-part assessment workshop featuring Dr. Mary Allen, a well known Assessment Consultant. The sessions, offered February 15th, March 14th, April 11th and May 2nd cover candidate learning outcomes, signature assignments that measure candidate performance on learning outcomes, scoring rubrics, and using data to inform program improvement. Over 30 faculty from the Departments of Teacher Education, Educational Psychology and Administration and Liberal Studies in the College of Education, and another 7 faculty from the Departments of Social Work, Communicative Disorders, Nursing, Professional Studies and Kinesiology from the College of Health and Human Services are participating in the workshop.
- Faculty are developing program improvement plans linked to the conceptual framework so that data can be aggregated or summarized at the college level as a way of analyzing the overall performance of college programs as part of the unit assessment system.
- The College is expanding use of Filemaker Pro software as the college data management system.
