Standard Four Compendium 1 - R4.1 Completer Effectiveness

Grambling State University Standard 4 Compendium 1 R4.1 Completer Effectiveness

Alignment to National Standard: CAEP Standard 4 - The EPP demonstrates the effectiveness of completers’ instruction on P-12 student learning and development and completer and employer satisfaction with the relevance and effectiveness of preparation.

CAEP R4.1: The EPP demonstrates that program completers effectively contribute to P-12 student-learning growth and apply professional knowledge, skills and dispositions in the P-12 classroom

How Alignment is Assured: The Assessment Coordinator, in consultation with Program Leads and Department Head, aligns the evaluation measures and assessment tasks with CAEP, InTASC, and appropriate Technology Standards. The Assessment Coordinator maintains alignments and adherence to multiple Louisiana state laws and policy regulations. All Standards have been maintained utilizing Watermark – Taskstream. This standards database is maintained by the Assessment Coordinator so that alignments can accommodate updates to standards, program competencies, courses, or assessments.

Evidence Overview

Use of Assessment as Part of the Quality Assurance System: The state develops charts for completer effectiveness in the classroom in the areas of Impact on Student Learning and Development and Validated Observations by both principals and state personnel.

How the Evaluation is used to Measure Computer Effectiveness: Teacher data is classified into four categories using the Louisiana COMPASS evaluation. The COMPASS evaluation is based on the work of Danielson and covers four areas:

• Impact on K-12 students

• Demonstrated Teaching Skill

• Overall Impact and Demonstrated Teaching Skills

• State Value Added Scores for New Teachers in Grades 4-8 with Less than Two Years of Teaching by Content Areas (Ten or More New Teachers)

The performance ratings are Novice, Effective-Emerging, Effective-Proficient, and Highly Effective.

Details of Assessment Administration: “Teacher Preparation Data Dashboards have been voluntarily developed by public universities, private universities, and private EPPs to provide the public with information about individual state-approved teacher preparation programs in Louisiana.” These data are compiled and available for viewing for every year since 2014, except in 2019.

Evidence and Analysis

Evaluation Instrument: The Dashboard evaluation was developed by the State of Louisiana

Grambling State University Standard 4 Compendium 1 R4.1 Completer Effectiveness

Individual factbooks for the years 2018, 2020 and 2021 can be found at the following links:

2018 Teacher Prep Fact Book

2020 Teacher Prep Fact Book

2021 Teacher Prep Fact Book

Assurance of Reliability and Validity: These instruments are created by the State of Louisiana and the instruments, administrations, scoring and interpretations are proprietary.

Presentation of Data: The Louisiana Board of Regents website states the following for each of the years for which Dashboard information is available: “Individual Teacher Preparation Data Dashboards have been developed to provide the public with information about state-approved teacher preparation programs offered by public universities, private universities, and private providers.” Each year’s Dashboard , tracks completers back to the EPP where they received their training.

The Dashboard information presented each year is arranged first by type of EPP (public university, private university, or private provider), then alphabetically by EPP with alternative programs presented first, then undergraduate program completers. The first page summarizes the candidate selection profile, the knowledge and skills of the completers teaching, and the programs productivity and alignment to state needs of completers. The second page captures the performance of new teachers with less than two years of teaching by charting Impact on K-12 Students, Demonstrated Teaching Skill, Overall Impact and Demonstrated Teaching Skill, and State Value Added Scores for New Teachers in Grades 4-8 with Less than Two Years of Teaching by Content Areas (Ten or More New Teachers). Unfortunately, with fewer than the minimum number required, we do not have Value-Added data.

Louisiana Dashboard 2018

Undergraduate Link: GRAMBLING 2018 Undergraduate DASHBOARD

MAT (post-baccalaureate) Link Initial: GRAMBLING 2018 ALTERNATE DASHBOARD

Louisiana Dashboard 2020

Undergraduate link: GRAMBLING 2020 TRADITIONAL DASHBOARD

MAT (post-baccalaureate): GRAMBLING 2020 ALTERNATE DASHBOARD

Louisiana Dashboard 2021

Undergraduate link: GRAMBLING 2021 TRADITIONAL DASHBOARD

MAT (post-baccalaureate) link Initial: GRAMBLING 2021 ALTERNATE DASHBOARD

Template for the Presentation of Evidence by Dr. Michele Brewer and Dr. Amber Vraim is licensed under Attribution 4.0

"College of Education Office of Technology, Assessment, and Compliance: Template for the Presentation of Evidence." Copyright 2020 by Wilmington University.

Grambling State University Standard 4 Compendium 1 R4.1 Completer Effectiveness

Additionally, the Louisiana Department of Education maintained a scorecard for each EPP with a teacher preparation program. This scorecard provides a more personalized snapshot of the EPP’s completers with overall ratings, a performance profile and additional information as well as highlights/testimonials from compl eters.

CAEP Reviewers are encouraged to view Louisiana Scorecard for Grambling State University 2019-2020 State Review and Scoring of Teacher Preparation Quality Overview of the Undergraduate program. This includes short interviews with candidate completers. The overall quality score was 3.0/4.0 as of February 11, 2023. There is also an overview of the post-baccalaureate (MAT) program that also includes short interviews with candidate completers. The overall quality score was 4.0/4.0 also as of February 11, 2023. These specific dates are provided because the scores on the state website changed slightly from the first time the site was accessed in October 2022 and when it was accessed again in February 2023. The website states that the state board of elementary and secondary education (BESE) “approved a waiver for non-public release of the 2020-2021 Performance Profiles due to the availability of value-added data during Covid-19”, and does not appear to have been reactivated yet.

CAEP Reviewers are encouraged to view GSU’s Case Study of a Completer The completer is a 2021 graduate of the undergraduate elementary grades 1-5 program and is teaching math at an urban elementary school in Louisiana. This is an evaluation completed by a school administrator at the school using the National Institute for Excellence in Training (NIET) evaluation. NIET has developed a partnership with the state of Louisiana and is working with several districts across the state to improve teaching and learning in order to close academic achievement gaps. As an example, the Louisiana Department of Education website includes a Phase in plan for using NIET with early elementary classrooms and the last page of the link contains a chart for converting NIET scores to the COMPASS scores that are used in the Dashboards.

Analysis and Interpretation from the State Dashboards and Scorecard

Undergraduate:

The 2018 Louisiana Dashboard combined scores for all new teachers between 2014 and 2017 with less than two years of teaching. The completers received an overall score of 3.3/4.0 in the area of Impact on K-12 students. Ninety-one percent were rated as Effective Proficient or Highly Effective using the “Compass Student Outcome Scores for the New Teachers by LDOE Teacher Effectiveness Levels”. The lowest score was in Demonstrated Teaching skill where the EPP’s completers received an overall score of 2.9/4.0. Seventy-three percent of the teachers scored "Effective Proficient”, with nine percent scoring “Highly Effective”. In the area of Overall Impact and Demonstrated Teaching Skill, twenty-four percent of completers were rated as “Highly Effective” and sixty-four percent of completers were rated as “Effective Proficient”. There were not enough completers per year for a score in the area of State Value Added Scores for New Teachers in Grades 4-8 with Less than Two Years of Teaching by Content Areas (Ten or More New Teachers).

The 2020 Overall Rankings for Impact on K-12 students showed that 52% of completers ranked either “Effective Proficient” or “Highly Effective”. Another 29% were ranked as “Effective Emerging”. In the area of Demonstrated Teaching Skill, eighty-six percent of the completers ranked either “Effective Proficient” or “Highly Effective”. When evaluated in the area of Overall Impact and Demonstrated Teaching Skill, 72% of the completers ranked either “Effective Proficient” or “Highly Effective”. Similar to the 2018 Louisiana Dashboard, there were not enough completers for a score in the area of State Value Added Scores for New Teachers in Grades 4-8 with Less than Two Years of Teaching by Content Areas (Ten or More New Teachers).

Grambling State University Standard 4 Compendium 1 R4.1 Completer Effectiveness

The 2021 Dashboard included the statement: “Due to COVID, the Louisiana Department of Education did not use COMPASS as a teacher evaluation tool and did not administer achievement tests to K-12 students during the 201920 academic year. Thus, COMPASS and value-added data are not available for the 2021 Teacher Preparation Data Dashboards”. Therefore, overall effectiveness scores were not provided for that year. The Dashboard only reported completer pass rates on licensure tests (100%), clock hours of clinical experiences before and during student teaching (180 and 480 hours respectively), and median GPA of completers.

MAT (post-baccalaureate)

As was done with undergraduate completers, 2018 Louisiana Dashboard combined scores for all new teachers with less than two years of teaching who graduated from the Master of Arts in teaching Alternative Teacher Preparation program between 2014 and 2017. The 2018 overall rankings for Impact on K-12 students showed that 52% of completers ranked “Highly Effective” and 39% ranked “Effective Proficient”, with an overall score of 3.2/4.0. In the area of Demonstrated Teaching Skill, ninety-seven percent of the completers ranked either “Effective Proficient” or “Highly Effective” with an overall score of 3.2/4.0. In the area of Overall Impact and Demonstrated Teaching Skill, ninety-one percent of the completers ranked either “Effective Proficient” or “Highly Effective” with an overall score of 3.2/4.0. As with the undergraduate program, there were not enough completers for a score in the area of State Value Added Scores for New Teachers in Grades 4-8 with Less than Two Years of Teaching by Content Areas (Ten or More New Teachers).

The 2020 Overall Rankings for Impact on K-12 students showed that 80% of completers ranked either “Effective Proficient” or “Highly Effective”. In the area of Demonstrated Teaching Skill, ninety-six percent of the completers ranked either “Effective Proficient” or “Highly Effective. In the area of Overall Impact and Demonstrated Teaching Skill, 80% of the completers ranked either “Effective Proficient” or “Highly Effective”. Similar to the 2018 Dashboard, there were not enough completers for a score in the area of State Value Added Scores for New Teachers in Grades 4-8 with Less than Two Years of Teaching by Content Areas (Ten or More New Teachers).

Overall summary for Initial Certification Programs

The data from the 2018 Louisiana Dashboard indicated that the undergraduate and MAT completers received the highest ratings as a group in the area of Impact on K-12 students. The lowest group scores for the undergraduate and MAT were in the area of Demonstrated Teaching Skill, although fewer of the MAT completers scored in the Effective Emerging range that appeared to indicate as a group, they had better teaching skills. The data from the 2020 Louisiana Dashboard indicated that the highest scores for both undergraduate and MAT completers were in the area of Demonstrated Teacher Skill. The lowest scores for both undergraduate and MAT were in the area of Impact on K-12 Students, although scores in that area were higher for the MAT completers. This was the most recent information on completer knowledge and skill as documented by the state.

For both undergraduate and MAT programs: The 2021 Louisiana Dashboard reported completer pass rates on licensure tests (100%), clock hours of clinical experiences before and during student teaching (180 and 480 hours respectively for undergraduates only), and median GPA of completers. The dashboard included the statement: “Due to COVID, the Louisiana Department of Education did not use COMPASS as a teacher evaluation tool and did not administer achievement tests to K-12 students during the 2019-20 academic year. Thus, COMPASS and valueadded data are not available for the 2021 Teacher Preparation Data Dashboards”. Therefore, effectiveness scores based on Compass evaluations were not provided for either program.

From the 2019- 2020 Louisiana Scorecard (State Assessment of Educator Preparation Programs):

Grambling State University Standard 4 Compendium 1 R4.1 Completer Effectiveness

Undergraduate Performance Profile

Strengths: Quality of Recruitment and Selection = 3.0/4.0

Quality of Content Knowledge and Teaching Methods = 3.0/4.0

Meeting Educator Workforce Needs (esp. High Needs schools) = 2.5/4.0

Focus areas: Quality of Feedback and Candidate Performance = 2.0/4.0

Quality of Continuous Improvement Process = 2.0/4.0

Post-baccalaureate Performance Profile

Strengths: Quality of Recruitment and Selection = 3.0/4.0

Quality of Content Knowledge and Teaching Methods = 3.0/4.0

Meeting Educator Workforce Needs 4.0/4.0

Focus areas:

Quality of Feedback and Candidate Performance = 2.0/4.0

Quality of Continuous Improvement Process = 2.0/4.0

Analysis from the Case Study

Case Study Analysis: The EPP engaged in a case study to provide further documentation of completer effectiveness. The completer selected graduated from the undergraduate program and is teaching 4th grade Math at an urban elementary school in Northwest Louisiana. The case study represents an unannounced evaluation, indicating that the lesson observed was more likely to be typical of the completer’s general teaching ability. The evaluation used in the district is the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), rather than the Danielson evaluation with which the completer was trained. Both evaluative tools examine completer content knowledge, knowledge of students, planning, instruction, assessment, and classroom climate thereby demonstrating the similarities between the two evaluation tools as well as with the InTASC standards. The completer scored “At Expectations/Proficient” or above in all areas and there were no areas that were evaluated as being “Significantly Below Expectations/Unsatisfactory”. In the major area of “Designing and Planning Instruction” the administrator rated the completer with an overall average of 3.3/5.0. In the area of “The Learning Environment” the completer’s overall average from the administrator was 3.5/5.0. In the area of “Instru ction” the administrator gave the candidate an overall average of 3.16/5.0. This sample case study provides evidence that completers can demonstrate the tenets of effective teaching in their classrooms regardless of which tool was used to evaluate them.

Additional Evidence

New Teacher of the Year: One of the undergraduate completers in the initial program was selected by the parish as “New Teacher of the Year”

Template for the Presentation of Evidence by Dr. Michele Brewer and Dr. Amber Vraim is licensed under Attribution 4.0 International "College of Education Office of Technology, Assessment, and Compliance: Template for the Presentation of Evidence." Copyright 2020 by Wilmington University.

Grambling State University Standard 4 Compendium 1 R4.1 Completer Effectiveness

Continuous Improvement

Focus Area(s):

Low Ns = Case Studies

The data from the 2020 Louisiana Dashboard, the most recent state generated data available, indicated that the highest scores for both undergraduate and MAT completers were in the area of Demonstrated Teacher Skill. The lowest scores for both undergraduate and MAT were in the area of Impact on K-12 Students, although scores were higher for the MAT completers. We will work on developing knowledge and skills to allow completers to have greater direct impact on K-12 student learning. It is apparent that they have the skills to teach, so we will look at augmenting engaging and scaffolding skills methods to improve P-12 student learning. In addition, the Louisiana Dashboard scores are not disaggregated by program. Consequently, the EPP will pilot a program to ask selected principals to evaluate completers at their schools using the Danielson Framework for Teaching to ascertain if there are differences in the effectiveness of candidates according to area of certification, race, ethnicity or gender.

The data from the 2019 -2020 Louisiana Scorecard: indicate there were several areas of focus for continuous improvement. For undergraduate and MAT completers, the focus areas of lowest scores were in Quality of Feedback and Candidate Performance where the EPP received a score of 2.0/4.0, and in Quality of C ontinuous Improvement Process where the EPP scored 2.0/4.0.

Action Steps Taken: We augmented the evaluation method for both undergraduate and MAT candidates in the yearlong Residency I and II for undergraduate candidates and Internship year for those in the Master of Arts Teaching programs. The Residency Coordinator maintains communi cation with the partnering schools and mentor teachers; in addition, she works continually with candidates in their clinical settings. University supervisors are now required to add a pre-conference meeting with candidates as well as a formal post conference meeting with the candidate and mentor teacher(s).

Additionally, the low numbers are preventing the EPP from having access to Value-Added Scores that could provide more evidence of effectiveness or highlight areas of focus. With an increase in the number of completers, the EPP could refine methods and deliveries to meet identified needs. To improve the number of candidates completing the undergraduate programs, we have intensified the licensure testing process and embedded test preparation in several methods courses in order to further link candidate knowledge of content with pedagogical skill and application of content to the P-12 school setting.

Utilizing the Louisiana Teacher Preparation Data Dashboards, the EPP will monitor the scores for Impact on K-12 students and Demonstrated Teaching Skill to determine if more resources or development is needed to bolster skills in these areas.

One of the completers interviewed for R4.3 stated that he believed he could be more effective with more training in differentiated instruction and providing more samples of how to teach to reach students who are struggling whether they received special education services in the general classroom, had access to accommodations through Section 504, identified as linguistically diverse, or fell behind in their academic learning.