Summary of the Case Ferris State University Teacher Education Program Authorship and approval of the Inquiry Brief: The Inquiry Brief was written by Michelle Johnston, Jim Powell, Virginia Hines, Christine Conley-Sowels, Brendan Callahan, and Liza Ing and was approved by the School of Education faculty on January 22, 2013. Introduction: Ferris State University was founded in 1884 by Woodbridge N. Ferris as the Big Rapids Industrial School in Big Rapids, MI. The initial purpose of the institution was to prepare young men and women with the knowledge and skills needed for careers. In 1950, the institution became a public state funded institution and changed its name to Ferris State University (FSU). The University currently has eight colleges serving on-campus students as well as the College of Professional and Technical studies serving off-campus students in 19 different locations. These colleges offer 180 career oriented programs. In 2009, FSU had 13,865 students. At this time the University student population was predominately White (79%), six percent of the students were Black/African American, and two percent identified as Hispanic/Latino, while eight percent did not disclose their race/ethnicity. The Inquiry Brief Proposal does not provide demographic information for the remaining five percent of students. The College of Education and Human Services which houses the Teacher Education Program provided demographic data for all students enrolled in the college during the 2011 academic year. Of the 2,294 enrolled in the program .3% were American Indian/Alaska Native, .3% were Asian, 11% were Black/African American, .3% were Foreign National, 4% were Latino/Hispanic, 0% were Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, 79% were White, 2% were Multiracial, and 4% of the candidates enrolled did not report race/ethnicity demographic information. The Inquiry Brief Proposal did not provide demographic data for the Teacher Education Program. The Teacher Education Program at Ferris State University is part of the School of Education. The School of Education has a vision, mission, core beliefs, and a conceptual framework guiding all programs including the Teacher Education Program. The fundamental elements within the vision, mission, and core values and beliefs lead to the statements within the Conceptual Framework. The Conceptual Framework guides the practice of faculty and the preparation of candidates to ensure that the preparation of candidates is transformational, experiential, assessment-driven, collaborative, and holistic (TEACH). The Teacher Education Program offers initial preparation programs for candidates in Elementary and Secondary programs. Overall there are 26 major/minor options, five in Elementary Certification programs and 21 major or minor options offered to Secondary Certificate candidates. The Program also offers four Special Education graduate programs and one Reading Specialist Graduate program. The elementary preparation programs are offered on the main campus in Big Rapids, MI as well as Grand Rapids, MI. Additional

campuses in Lansing, MI, Flint, MI, and West Shore Community College offer limited elements within the program. The secondary programs are offered mostly in Big Rapids, MI, with Flint, MI and Traverse City, MI offering limited preparation options. In 2011, The Teacher Education Program consisted of 14 full-time tenure-track faculty members, one faculty member who is a full time faculty member at Kendall College Art and Design (this program hosts the art education program. The Inquiry Brief Proposal did not provide program graduate data but did provide enrollment data for the 2011-2012 academic year. Table 1 Ferris State University Teacher Education Program Options

Option Name

Level (UG, grad, post-bacc)

Number of students Number of enrolled in completers current in 2011academic 2012 year 2011-2012

Secondary Biology

UG

5

23

Secondary Business

UG

1

2

Secondary Certification Only

UG

NA

47

Secondary Chemistry

UG

0

3

Secondary English

UG

4

28

Secondary Geography

UG

3

1

Secondary History

UG

5

42

Secondary Marketing

UG

1

1

Secondary Math

UG

1

57

Secondary Political Science

UG

5

1

Secondary Physical Education

UG

4

22

Secondary Physics

UG

11

9

Secondary Speech Communication

UG

10

12

Secondary Spanish

UG

1

10

Secondary Social Studies

UG

10

34

Secondary Pre-Teaching

UG

NA

36

Elementary Education

UG

58

312

Program claims: The Teacher Education Program faculty make the following four claims regarding the graduates of their program: 1. Graduates demonstrate proficiency and know the subject matter they will teach. 2. Graduates are able to demonstrate their ability to teach the content they have been prepared to teach. 3. Graduates will exhibit professional behaviors in their teaching 4. Graduates will meet entry level requirements as designated by the Michigan State Board of Education’s Professional Standards for Michigan Teachers. Evidence supporting the claims The Ferris State University Teacher Preparation Program faculty will use the following assessments and indicators to support their claims: Michigan Test for Teacher Certification (MTTC) subject area exams, grade point average in the subject area, hallmark assessments, key assignments, field experience documentation, and professional behaviors. The EPP has aligned the TEAC Quality Principles to the Professional Standards for Michigan Teachers (PSMT). The EPP further has aligned their standards to the PSMT and thus will provide evidence of the program success through the use of the above mentioned assessments. The direct relationship between Claims and assessments/evidence is described in the table below. 1. Michigan Test for Teacher Certification (MTTC) Subject Area Exams and Basic Skills Exam Claim 1 The EPP utilizes the MTTC Basic Skills Test (BST) as a gateway prior to the Levell II coursework of the program. The BST assess a candidate’s general knowledge in math, reading, and writing and are used by the EPP as an indicator of readiness of the candidate to move forward in the program. The MTTC Subject Area exam is utilized by the EPP as an indicator of candidate readiness to student teaching. The candidate must pass both the major and minor content test prior to student teaching. The subject area MTTC is an indicator of the candidate’s ability to demonstrate content knowledge related to the subject areas they will teach. The MTTC

subject area is a criterion based assessment and that is constructed as a valid assessment by the test authors and the Michigan Department of Education. 2. GPA in Major and Minor content Areas Claim 1 The program requires each candidate to maintain a minimum of a 2.75 Grade Point Average in the subject area major and minors. The program faculty examines the GPA of the candidate with the pass rate data and utilize these two elements at the candidate level to determine the candidate has sufficient content knowledge and aggregates the data at the content area program level to determine the program is successful in preparing candidates in the content area. 3. Key Assignments Claim 2 The program uses two Key Assignments for claim two, the first is the assignment which requires candidates to facilitate and document student achievement as evidenced by effective assessment. This assignment The second assignment used to provide evidence for Claim 2, emphasizes the candidate’s ability to adapt instruction and apply best practices in technology to accommodate individual learning needs. Both of these assignments are graded on a five point rubric (5 = Exemplary, 4 = proficient, 3 = basic, 2 = progressing, 1 = underdeveloped, and 0 = missing). Candidates must score over a 75% or better on each assignment. Claim 3 The Program also utilizes Key Assignment as support for Claim three. The first key assignment for claim 3 is an assignment which requires a candidate’s ability to communicate high expectation of all students. The second assignment focuses on the candidate’s ability to collaborate with others to ensure student success, and the third and final requires the candidate to model professional behavior. These three assignments are assessed using a five point rubric ((5 = Exemplary, 4 = proficient, 3 = basic, 2 = progressing, 1 = underdeveloped, and 0 = missing). Candidates must score a 75% or better on each assignment. 4. Student Teaching Evaluation Claim 4

The program utilizes the student teaching evaluation to evaluate the candidates ability to demonstrate the elements of the Professional Standards for Michigan Teachers (PSMT). This assessment is done during the conclusion of student teaching and candidates must demonstrate the appropriate level of performance as indicated by the Michigan State Board of Education in order to be recommended for Certification. Internal audit: The Teacher Preparation Program (TEP) conducted an internal audit collecting and analyzing graduate data from the 2005-2006 academic yearthrough 2009-2010 academic year. The Teacher Preparation Program conducted the internal audit to verify the program is meeting TEAC’s Quality Principle III and did so by examining the elements that contribute to program quality. The plan for the audit was developed by two faculty members, and consisted of examining curriculum, faculty resources, and policies with a foundational grounding of examining the students and faculty as the key component to evaluating the program. They began the internal audit by examining random graduates of the SOE program (elementary, secondary, and special education and reading endorsement programs). They examined the permanent files of each randomly selected student for the following: graduation clearance, eligibility for certification, student teacher paperwork, field placement paperwork, and level II application. Further, for each student randomly selected the faculty selected two courses from their program of study to determine if the candidate had met program expectations for the courses. During the audit the faculty noted multiple issues with the data as the files were difficult to locate as the files many files were not in the centralized location in which the program stores permanent files. After all files were located, each faculty member reviewed four files, and the faculty recruited to review files were faculty from throughout the campus community. The internal audit committee provided narrative that articulated issues with the quality control system. The faculty concluded the system to be working as with some deviations, which were included in the plan for improvement. Plans for program improvement The Program faculty articulated several concerns and elements in which they wanted to address for improvement. · Adjunct quality · Program integrity · Sustainability of quality · Delivery Logistics · Student Learning

The Ferris State University Teacher Education Program offers options at the undergraduate level in initial teacher certification. Programs for initial licensure are offered at the Elementary (Elementary Certification programs can include the following endorsements Integrated Science, Social Studies, Mathematics, Language Arts, and Early Childhood) and Secondary level (Secondary Certification includes the following endorsements Biology, Business, Certification Only, Chemistry, English, Geography, History, Math, Marketing, Political Science, Spanish, Speech and Social Studies). The state of Michigan at its discretion, offers licensure to program completers in these option areas.