Students to participate in testing
By SARAH RYKOWSKI
News Writer
Twenty-two students from Saint Mary's education department will participate in a nationwide trial run of a proposed national licensure test for teachers on March 1.
The testing will take place at The Inn at Saint Mary's and will last four to five hours. The test itself, called the Test for Teaching Knowledge (TKK), has been in the works for the last 18 months. It is the result of a collaborative effort between the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) and the Educational Testing Service (ETS).
The TKK was developed after the release of principles of good teaching developed by the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) in 1994.
There are 10 principles to the program, the most basic requiring that teachers have a concrete knowledge of the subject matter. Other issues covered include the development of the learning processes of students, how well the teacher can support their intellectual, social and personal development, the diversity of student learning, encouraging the development of critical thinking, problem solving and performance skills in students and creating a safe and nourishing environment for education.
The principles also state that teachers must master effective verbal, nonverbal and media communication skills, develop lesson plans that deal not only with the subject matter but also with the students and local community, meet the curriculum goals and devise strategies in order to successfully teach the lesson plans.
Continual self-evaluation and good relationships with colleagues, parents and agencies in an effort to support student learning were the final goals of the INTASC principles.
"The new TTK is intended to assess higher level performance skills instead of lower level knowledge-based skills," said Marie Doyle, chair of the Education Department at Saint Mary's.
Twenty-nine states, including Indiana, adopted the INTASC principles. To comply with Indiana's adoption of the INTASC principles, colleges within the state must submit a complete performance-based teacher preparation curriculum to the Indiana Professional Standards Board by June 30, 2002. The TKK is one option being explored as a means to meet these new standards.
"The objective of this particular filed test of the exam is to refine the questions and prepare a final test of states to consider adopting as part of the licensing requirements," said Doyle. "The results will not be used to assess our program or its participants. The objective is to `test the test' and establish reliability and validity."
Saint Mary's, with the rest of the state of Indiana, has formally adopted the INTASC principles and seems eager to participate in the pilot test. The education department was notified by the AACTE of the option to participate in early December.
"The faculty at Saint Mary's saw participating in the field test as a way to provide input on the test," Doyle said. "The test supervisors will provide feedback to the test developers on the testing experience. It also gives us an idea of the kind of assessment our students will be facing in the future."
Unlike most standardized tests, which are multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank, the TTK consists of four parts which must be answered in written form, Doyle said. Test takers will be given documentation on a particular child, instructional sequence, episode or unit. The teachers-to-be must read the documentation and answer several questions about each case study, using their knowledge of the INTASC principles to analyze the situation.
"The teacher preparation programs at Saint Mary's College are moving toward a performance-based structure," Doyle said. "In a performance-based teacher preparation program, pre-service teachers need to be able to use their theoretical knowledge base to analyze problems they encounter in the classroom. Traditional tests do not address these performance skills."
"Performance-based" means that the curriculum must not only impart knowledge but must also ensure that teacher education students can take that knowledge to the practical level by making their lesson plans stimulating, motivating, and effective. In short, prospective teachers must show that they have more than a good script; they must perform the lead role like a star.
"If we're going to require that students learn new methods, we must have a means of evaluating their mastery of those methods," Doyle said. "That's why we feel it's important to take part in this pilot test. It gives us a glimpse of the future today, and provides an opportunity for us to help shape the format of a test that could affect licensure of teachers across the country."
Most of the students who are participating in the trial test are juniors and seniors completing the education preparation program, but who have not necessarily finished student teaching. There are three versions of the test: elementary, middle school and high school. However, all questions are general education topics, not limited to any specialty.
All News Stories for Wednesday, February 23, 2000
