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Teacher Assessment and Professional Development[focus questions | project samples | related projects] Overview Given the importance of teacher quality for improving student achievement, teacher assessment has emerged as an important tool in improving education. In addition to measuring the quality of teacher practice, teacher assessment also serves to further the dialogue about what is considered good teaching practice. ASDS is involved in teacher assessment projects that are making use of new methodologies to document teacher knowledge and skill, both for formal certification and for teacher support and improvement. These include projects that address a specific need for a targeted group of teachers (e.g., certifying teachers to teach English language learners, helping beginning teachers improve their practice) as well as projects that are targeted at improving teacher quality in different academic areas (e.g., science and arts). Across all projects, ASDS attempts to support teachers during the assessment process, with the primary goal being improved teacher quality and student achievement.
An Example of our work in Teacher Assessment and Professional Development: Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) & the California Teaching Portfolio The California Teaching Portfolio was originally developed for BTSA programs. The portfolio approach is grounded in a developmental view of teaching, recognizing that this complex, demanding profession is learned over the course of several years of study, consultation, and reflective practice. The purpose is to support beginning teachers in their development, and to focus it through a dynamic, ongoing process. The California Teaching Portfolio is a focused collection of evidence selected from a teacher&rsquos work. The portfolio serves as the centerpiece of this reflective process because it includes such information as lesson plans, student work samples with evaluative comments, video clips, anecdotal records, and observation notes. Collectively, this information offers an accurate picture over time of the teaching you want to examine in order to improve. Specifically, the California Teaching Portfolio consists of four parts. A completed portfolio will include the following:
Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment The work with the California induction program, the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program, has evolved over time. It began in 1993 with the development of the initial version of the California Teaching Portfolio, working with the California Commission on Teaching Credentialing, the California Department of Education, and a few local BTSA projects. The local projects were sponsored either by a single district, a county office of education, or a consortium of districts, often in conjunction with one of more teacher preparation programs. The California Teaching Portfolio now includes an entry with a structured exploration of the specific context in which the beginning teacher works, entries focused on each of five California Standards for the Teaching Profession, and an entry where the beginning teacher explores a classroom-based research question. The sixth standard, Developing as a Professional, is addressed by the portfolio work itself. The portfolio process includes training for support providers, expert teachers who assist the beginning teacher in their professional development. The support provider training focuses on strategies for using evidence to look at beginning teaching, strategies for talking with beginning teachers about their work, and practice in analyzing samples of teacher and/or student work and discussing them with beginning teachers. WestEd BTSA staff participate on the Design team for the California Formative Assessment and Support System for Teaching (CFASST), being developed for statewide implementation in BTSA. The CFASST assessment materials currently being piloted integrate focused o work on narrow aspects of teaching, broader snapshots of the teaching of a lesson, and individualizes induction plans, together with a training process for support providers. Staff also work on developing assessments for the Pre-Intern Program, designed for elementary teachers (adding math/science teachers next year) who have little or no formal preparation in teaching and who have completed some, but not all, of their subject matter requirements. California Teachers Association--SB 1969 The California Teachers Association (CTA), in response to SB 1969, has developed a comprehensive program to prepare practicing teachers in the areas of English language development (ELD) and specially designed academic instruction in English (SDAIE). This program includes 45-hours of instruction and focuses on concepts to provide teachers with knowledge, skills, and abilities integrated into a set of coherent strategies for working with English language learners. WestEd has been contracted by the CTA to develop and implement assessment system for the curriculum. WestEd has worked closely with CTA staff and other trained professionals in all phases of development to ensure the assessment is aligned with the curriculum, as well as clearly measures the intended outcome--preparedness to teach English language learners. The assessment system consists of a formative assessment and a summative assessment. The formative assessment asks participants to complete a set of formal tasks during the course, including development of lesson plans, interviews with English language learners, and analysis of student work. The summative assessment is designed as an end-of-course assessment. It consists of multiple-choice and written response tasks (short answer items). Although participants are given an unlimited amount of time to complete the summative assessment, the assessment is designed to take between 3-4 hours to complete. Participants are required to complete both the formative and summative assessments in order to be considered for the SB 1969 certificate. In addition to developing the assessments, WestEd also facilitates all aspects of administering and scoring of the assessments. This includes working with trained professionals to select benchmark papers, training prospective scorers, conducting formal scoring sessions, and reporting the results to the participants, participating districts, and the CTA. To date, over 2,000 practicing teachers around the state have participated in the certification process. National Board of Professional Teaching Standards The mission of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is to create a national certificate program that recognizes the most accomplished teachers across the country within their respective content areas and grade levels. WestEd was designated by the Board as an Assessment Development Laboratory for art (1993-1996) and science (1996-1999). As such, WestEd has developed, field-tested and scored assessments (teaching portfolios and sets of assessment center exercises) to evaluate teacher performances. These major efforts involved extensive national research on existing assessments instruments as well as bringing together teachers from all over the country to participate at key junctures in the assessment development process. Funded at over $1.1 million, this national effort involved extensive research of skill requirements of health care workers at the national and international levels. Over 100 health care organizations and educational institutions collaborated in the development and validation of the national standards. Moreover, over 1,000 individuals representing key constituencies and stakeholders in the health care field participated in the process. We succeeded in achieving broad consensus for the standards and sought the input of persons from diverse geographical areas and levels of health services. The results of this project included two documents presenting the standards and describing their development and validation as well as their use in various model programs. This WestEd led project accomplished much over the three years and in a timely fashion. Specifically, we were able to bring industry, labor, and education representatives together in a way that was not previously done at a national level in health careers. Moreover, we were able to complete development and validation of standards well within the timelines, including the development of support materials and prototypical assessment tasks. The impact of this project has been phenomenal, evidenced by the number of states who have adopted/adapted these standards for their own educational and training needs as well as the high number of requests (thousands) for our materials. California Commission on Teaching Credentialing WestEd has been contracted by the California Commission on Teaching Credentialing to conduct two studies of teaching that will have significant influence on the preparation of teachers in California. The studies involve thousands of practicing teachers around the state through focus groups and surveys. One study focuses on the pedagogical knowledge and skills needed by all teachers in grades in grades K-12. Results from this study will be used for developing both the teaching performance assessment and new standards for professional preparation programs programs. The second study focuses on subject matter knowledge and skills needed by teachers in self-contained classrooms in grades K-8. The results of this study will be used to determine if any changes are necessary in either the preparation programs or the Multiple Subjects Assessment for Teachers (MSAT)--the examination that can be taken in lieu of a subject matter preparation program--to align them with the new student standards.
This information can be found at
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