More Than a Baker's Dozen:
What Teacher Educators at Four Institutions Have Learned
In Three Years of Experience Using Teacher Work Samples

SECTION I - CONTENT


This symposium will feature "in-the-trenches" experiences of teacher educators who
have been part of an eleven-institution teacher work sample development process. All
have gone through the trials and tribulations of implementing the new teacher
preparation initiatives at their respective institutions. The smallest of the four institutions
produces about 200 new teachers per year and the largest about 1,000. Thus, some of
what has been learned is the same and some new knowledge has resulted from unique
settings and conditions. The presenters from each institution will focus on practices
they have found to be most successful.

Background and Context
In the late 1990's, teacher educators and researchers from Western Oregon University
presented teacher work sample methodology to the teacher education community as a
viable model of development and assessment of teacher performance that links
teaching and learning (Schalock, Schalock, & Girod, 1997). The Western Oregon
University team described more than a decade of development using teacher work
samples and the ability of the process to produce credible evidence that teacher
candidates could produce learning in the students they teach. Since 1997, the Western
Oregon team has developed and published a collection of concept papers, research
reports and program descriptions of the use of teacher work sample methodology. See
Connecting Teacher & Learning: A Handbook for Teacher Educators on Teacher Work
Sample Methodology (Girod, 2002).

In 1999, ten Renaissance Group institutions that had been working together for about a
decade applied for and were awarded a five-year Title II Teacher Quality grant. This
now eleven-institution project is known as the Renaissance Partnership for Improving
Teacher Quality. A key innovation initiative of this five-year development program has
been the development and implementation of a Renaissance Model for Teacher Work
Samples. This development effort utilized the basic concepts of the Western Oregon
methodology but moved the development to a totally new level by developing a
common set of teaching tasks, prompts and scoring rubrics; establishing validity and
scorer reliability and a system for reporting teacher candidate performance on teacher
work samples. A description of the process and products of the Renaissance
Partnership are presented on the project web site http://fp.uni.edu/itg.

The Renaissance Teacher Work Sample was developed around seven teaching
processes that focus on the teacher candidate's ability to facilitate learning of all
students and advances the paradigm shift in emphasis from teaching to student learning
proposed by Barr and Tagg (1995). 

After three years of development and experience with the Renaissance Model of
Teacher Work Sample, teacher educators from four of the eleven institutions propose to
share their new knowledge about teacher preparation from this experience.

Statement of the Problem
While the ideas developed at Western Oregon University around teacher work samples
appear sound and descriptions of implementation efforts believable and helpful, the
important questions that need to be addressed are: (1) Is teacher work sample
methodology transportable to other settings and contexts than Western Oregon? and
(2) What are the development and implementation challenges at institutions much larger
than Western Oregon University? Western Oregon University graduates about 300 new
teachers each year. The proposed symposium will address these questions and
provide experiences from four different size institutions located in four different states.

Content of the Symposium
The symposium will consist of the presentation of four papers prepared by teacher
educators at four Renaissance Partnership institutions that describe the most important
concepts and practices they have learned over the past three years through their
experience in implementing teacher work samples at their respective institutions. All
four institutions require teacher candidates to produce teacher work samples during
student teaching as a performance assessment. Components of the work sample
process have been integrated into pre-student teaching preparation programs.

The Renaissance Teacher Work Sample consists of seven teaching tasks (prompts)
related to seven teaching processes to which a teacher candidate must respond in a 20-
page narrative, plus charts and graphs. The teacher work sample is a teacher
candidate's performance report that results from planning and implementing a four- to
six-week instructional unit during student teaching. Each of the seven components of
the work sample is scored using rubrics for each of 32 indicators directly related to the
seven teaching processes.

Paper 1
Using Teacher Work Samples as a Performance Feedback Tool for Both Teacher
Candidates and Teacher Educators Who Instruct and Mentor Candidates
This paper and presentation will describe how teacher work samples at one institution
have been used successfully to not only provide feedback to teacher candidates on
their performance but also to inform teacher educators of their performance in preparing
teacher candidates to facilitate learning of all students. Also, this paper will describe
how major program changes have resulted from the feedback produced from
performance on teacher work samples. The feedback on candidate performances given
to teacher educators has been very effective in prompting improvements in candidates'
instruction. 

Paper 2
If You Want High Performance Start Early: What Pre-Student Teachers Need to Know
and Do to Impact P-12 Student Learning
This paper describes what teacher educators at one institution have found to be key to
producing higher performance at the student teaching level. This paper describes from
experience the knowledge, skills and performances needed by pre-student teachers
that are essential to showing credible evidence of P-12 student learning during student
teaching. A major area of development at this institution has been the increased use of
student assessment tools for planning, implementing and evaluating learning progress.

Paper 3
Critical Performances: A Productive Strategy for Organizing and Assessing the
Instruction and Professional Growth of Teacher Candidates
This paper will describe one institution's developmental efforts to identify "critical
performances" candidates need to demonstrate at different levels of development to be
able to perform at high levels during student teaching on state standards and teacher
work samples. Critical performances at this institution have been identified at four
levels: knowledge, application, stimulation and live classroom performance. Critical
performances have been identified for nine state teaching standards and related to
specific preparation courses. Electronic portfolios have been developed and used to
track the professional development of candidates, the effectiveness of courses to
produce critical performances and programs to produce candidates who can facilitate
learning of all students.

Paper 4
Using Teacher Work Samples to Evaluate Teacher Preparation Programs: What
Teacher Education Students are Telling Us About Our Programs Based on Their
Experience with Teacher Work Samples
This paper will feature the use of teacher candidate feedback on their experiences with
teacher work samples to evaluate and reform preparation programs. In fact, a new
teacher who was a student teacher in 2002 will be part of this presentation to illustrate
how feedback from experience with teacher work samples can inform programs and the
public about what they are doing right and about components that need attention. What
has been learned at this institution about teacher candidate feedback is being expanded
to other programs.

Significance
The papers and presentations of this proposed symposium will add a lot of new
knowledge about teacher preparation and the use of work samples to the teacher
education community. The papers and presentations represent real-life experiences in
the trenches that resulted from three years of development and implementation. This
symposium is about what works, what does not work and why 
Conclusions
Teacher work samples have been a driving force for reform in teacher preparation
programs in the Renaissance Partnership. The success of this innovative effort is
credited to the collaborative nature of the project, the high level of professional effort of
teacher educators in the project, the focus on P-12 student learning, the focus on
greater use of assessment tools for teachers and the developmental resources made
available by Title II funds.

SECTION II - OBJECTIVES / METHODS


Participant Outcomes
Participants will:

Methods of Presentation
After brief introductions, presenters from each of the four institutions will show an eight-
minute PowerPoint presentation that highlights the most important concepts in their
papers. Next, the symposium discussants will summarize and critique the presentations
in less than ten minutes. This will be followed symposium participants by responding to
audience questions about issues related to experience with work samples. At least
thirty minutes will be devoted to audience participation and discussion of both specific
and general questions about the efficacy of teacher work samples as an important
initiative for improving teacher candidate performance. A key topic for participant
discussion will be the potential role of various factors in producing futuristic reform in
teacher preparation.

For example:

References

Barr, R.B., & Tagg, J. (1995, November/December). From teaching to learning - a new
       paradigm for undergraduate education change, pp. 13-25.
Girod, G. (2002). Connecting teaching and learning: A handbook for teacher educators
       on teacher work sample methodology. Washington, DC: AACTE Publications.
Schalock, D., Schalock, M., & Girod, G. (1997). Teacher work sample methodology at
       Western Oregon University. In, J. Millman (Ed.), Grading Teachers Grading
        Schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Coi-win Press.