Standard Four Compendium 1 – RA4.1 Satisfaction of Employers

Grambling State University Standard Four Compendium 1

RA4.1 Satisfaction of Employers

Alignment to National Standard: CAEP Standard RA4 - The provider documents the satisfaction of its completers and their employers with the relevance and effectiveness of their preparation.

RA.4.1 Satisfaction of Employers The provider demonstrates that program completers: effectively contribute to P-12 student learning growth and apply in P-12 classroom the professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions that preparation experiences were designed to achieve. In addition, the providers include a rationale for the data elements provided.

How Alignment is assured: The Assessment Coordinator in consultation with Program/Discipline Chairs, 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 purpose of the case study focused interview is to ascertain how well a sample completer from the program is doing in his/her/their respective positions. The questions in the focused interview questions were created to reflect back to CAEP RA1 and the six areas of competence.

Details of Assessment Administration: This focused interview was with the principal of an elementary school (who was just named “Elementary Principal of the Year” for her district). The principal is an African-American female of an urban public school. One of the M.Ed. completers is working under her supervision. It should be noted that the M.Ed. completer is not working as a recognized Reading Specialist, but from the interview, is doing the job of one. The interview was conducted via Zoom and recorded with the principal’s permission. The interview was transcribed and analyzed by an external reviewer with qualitative research experience.

Evidence and Analysis

Directions Delivered to the Supervisor: After the principal to agrees to participate in an interview, we set up the meeting date and time for the Zoom meeting. At the start of the meeting, we asked the principal if she would consent to being recorded and she agreed.

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.

Evaluation Instrument

Grambling State University Standard Four Compendium 1 RA4.1 Satisfaction of Employers

Case Study Interview Questions:

1. You have hired a teacher who completed Grambling’s Master’s program, what are your experiences with that teacher?

2. Does the teacher know the content?

3. Is she able to engage the students?

4. Is she able to teach ALL students, including those who are diverse along multiple levels, such as those with IEPs, Section 504, English Language Learners?

5. Can you think of ways she works with other teachers, parents and the community?

6. Does she use technology?

7. You mentioned that she does research on her own. Can you think of a particular area?

8. Does she use data?

9. What can we do to create better candidates or better teachers for you?

Interview:

Presentation of Data

Question 1: You have hired a teacher who completed Grambling’s Master’s program, what are your experiences with that teacher?

THEME: THIS TEACHER HAS BROUGHT A GREAT DEAL “TO THE TABLE”

“With [Ms. M.], it has been a good learning experience, especially post-Covid. She has been instrumental. Her leadership, her ability to quickly diagnose instructional issues and then tailor interventions is beyond anything I’ve seen in a long time.”

Question 2: Does the teacher know the content?

THEME: THIS TEACHER KNOWS THE CONTENT

“Her eagerness to be a team player and instructional savvy are most impressive.”

Question 3: Is she able to engage the students?

THEME: SHE ENGAGES STUDENTS WELL

“She engages the students like no other that I’ve ever seen. I walked into her classroom…and her students were captivated, not just because she is so good instructionally but also because she understands the importance of building relationships…She does an outstanding job with that.”

Grambling State University Standard Four Compendium 1 RA4.1 Satisfaction of Employers

Question 4: Is she able to teach ALL students, including those who are diverse along multiple levels, such as those with IEPs, Section 504, English Language Learners?

THEME: SHE ABSOLUTELY KNOWS HOW TO WORK WITH DIVERSE STUDENTS

“Because she does so much outside research on instructional strategies, she addresses the needs of diverse students. There are students who were in Resource classrooms but we have sent them to [Ms. M.]—even though she is not a Resource nor SPED teacher and she immediately give instructional strategies or tools to those teachers to use…She is amazing!”

“Our school is about 86% economically disadvantaged, 96% African American with remainder being Asian and White. Our staff does not represent what our student population looks like. The staff is pretty diverse…I couldn’t have asked for a better staff.”

Question 5: Can you think of ways she works with other teachers, parents and the community?

THEME: SHE WORKS WELL WITH EVERY ONE OF THOSE CATEGORIES

“Another strength she has is the understanding of the importance of establishing relationships with students and parents. She establishes and maintains relationships with her students and parents, and I think that is why she is so successful.”

“Oh, wow! She is on my instructional leadership team and she is a TAP Teacher In that role, each week she leads PLC and Cluster meetings…As a result of [Ms. M] and others leading the meetings, we are able to be in supportive and facilitative roles. She provides support after those meetings to make sure teachers are transferring information from the meetings to the classroom. She is just phenomenal!”

Question 6: Does she use technology?

THEME: SHE IS UP TO PAR WITH TECHNOLOGY

“Yes, better than me. She continues to go to trainings and then she comes back and shares that information in our PLC and in our Learning Meetings.”

Question 7: You mentioned that she does research on her own. Can you think of a particular area?

“In particular, instructional strategies in the area of testing, test-taking strategies, higher-order reading skills. Social Studies is another huge area because we don’t have a Tier 1 Social Studies curriculum now, and she has led the effort. She has also worked with district administrators to bring back strategies that have increased our Social Studies scores.”

Question 8: Does she use data?

“It drives everything that she does…She encourages teachers to analyze data before they come to the meetings…and talks to them about particular things to look for in the data. ”

Question 7: What can we do to create better candidates or better teachers for you?

THEME: CONTINUE WHAT YOU ARE DOING BUT ADD MORE OF THE REALISTIC EXPERIENCES WITH LEADERSHIP

“Do the same thing you’ve done with [Ms. M.]. The more experiences they can have, the better, particularly those who are interested in leadership positions, to “live the work” [Ms. M] was the administrator I left in charge while the assistant principal and I were both out with Covid...The experiences of “sitting in the seat” and “walking the

Grambling State University Standard Four Compendium 1

Satisfaction of Employers

walk” will allow people to really determine whether they really want to do this. More realistic experiences of observations and shadowing can really help the program…Congratulations on expanding the program with online opportunities.”

Analysis and Interpretation

It appears that advanced completers are able to bring the knowledge, skills and professional dispositions back to their schools which demonstrate that that they can provide effective instruction for diverse P-12 students. It should be noted that in the focus interview with principals who supervise undergraduate and MAT completers (R4.2), one principal noted that ‘Mrs. White’ was very effective with technology instruction during Covid (Question 6). Mrs. White was also one of recent Advanced completers, but has moved to another school. The principal noted that the EPP should provide more leadership training and opportunities for those in the Advanced programs.

Continuous Improvement

Focus Area(s):

1. Determine the validity of the focused interview questions.

2. Continue the focused interviews and conduct bi-annual focused interviews with supervisors of M.Ed. completers in both programs.

3. Begin to look at ways to provide additional and/or varied leadership opportunities for candidates in Advanced programs. This could also address a completer concern raised in the focused interview in RA4.2 where the completer from the Special Education program wanted more training in the IEP process (to assist in leading the evaluative process).