|
Ball State University
Muncie, IN
2000 Implementation Grant
Annual Education Degrees Awarded: 739
PT3 Abstract - PT3 Website
Project Contact: ,
(765) 285-4226
Performance Assessment Tools: Aligning Assignments with Standards and Streamlining Accountability
At Ball State University, ensuring that preservice teachers graduate with a full set of technology integration skills is no longer a "hit or miss" process dependent upon the interests of individual faculty. Today, faculty-designed rubrics provide a framework for ensuring that education course syllabi cover the technology and teaching competencies outlined in national and state-level standards. The rubrics are listed in an online interactive database format that allows for easy access and use.
The online database is one facet of a larger program of PT3-funded change within the Ball State, which also includes comprehensive course redesign, faculty development, video case studies, and a technology-enriched field program, all supported by PT3 funds. The online tools are examples of the power of technology to transform not only learning, but also the delivery of preservice teacher education. With the help of a PT3 Implementation grant, Ball State relies on these kinds of technology tools to streamline, track and assess its teacher preparation program - the largest in Indiana.
Performance assessment is a central component of the NCATE 2000 standards, requiring participating teacher preparation programs to document evidence of their students' competencies. At Ball State, faculty are working to measure the effectiveness of existing projects, training, and overall technology competency-not just their students' abilities, but their own. Through a variety of databases, surveys and web-based tools, they can quantify and qualify competency in accordance with standards and existing project goals and use the results to guide long-term institutional change.
Online Artifact Management
The main component of the performance assessment project at Ball State is the Competency Data Engine (CDE) developed in partnership with Apple Computer.
The CDE hosts the course rubrics, which are based on standards outlined in the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS), NCATE, INTASC and the Indiana Professional Standards Board.
The CDE also serves as the centralized management system for Ball State's digital portfolio program. As preservice teachers capture and collect artifacts for their portfolios, they store the digital artifacts on the CDE. Over time a student's portfolio is filled with the various artifacts produced in and outside of their courses, including multimedia presentations, papers, digital video clips and written case studies. Students can sort through their database of artifacts and select those that they feel best demonstrate their teaching skills.
Faculty and staff evaluate individual portfolios four times throughout the entire teacher education program to gauge competency and student progress. The information allows the PT3 staff to benchmark the program's progress in meeting standards. "The CDE serves multiple purposes," notes Laurie Mullen, co-director for the PT3 project at Ball State University. "It links student-created artifacts to official student records leading towards graduation and license, it permits institutional assessment of individual and collective performance, and it relates all measures of performance with state, national, and professional standards."
The CDE also serves as a course-mapping tool, allowing students to identify the standards covered and artifacts required by each of their education courses.
Adding A Few Extras
The CDE is supplemented with the PT3 Dataport a series of Web-enabled databases that demonstrate key technology practices, such as portfolio samples, technology integration ideas, and lesson plan development. The Dataport tools and discussion forums guide preservice teachers as they learn to develop lesson plans and develop artifacts for their courses in accordance with the standards.
The Dataport also hosts another valuable performance assessment tool: the NETS surveys. Preservice teachers are responsible for logging onto the Dataport and completing the NETS self-assessment survey at the beginning and end of each semester. The questions concern the students' overall understanding of and proficiency with technology in the classroom. Separate surveys measure and track faculty's comfort level with technology, as well.
The survey data helps the PT3 staff chart the progress of the project. Currently, the staff is conducting tests on the survey in order to assess its validity and reliability as a tool for benchmarking technology integration and competency at BSU.
Looking to the Future
In a relatively short period of time, the PT3 staff and BSU faculty have managed to integrate technology into the teacher education curriculum and steer the focus of courses towards achieving the national and state technology standards through standards-based assignments. Though the project is still in its early stages, the information acquired through these tools will be essential for evaluating and adapting institutional policies and programs for years to come. With a strong program for course redesign and performance assessments tools in place, BSU's work is leading to systemic reform of its teacher education program.
November 2002
|
