The Truman MAE program is fortunate to receive meaningful data from DESE in the form of the First-Year Teacher Survey Questionnaire data, as well as the Principal of First-Year Teachers Survey Questionnaire data. The findings of these surveys have indicated, among other things, that the MAE program meets the needs of our completers for the most part; however, we need to address students with special needs more (ESOL, gifted, and students with IEPs). To some degree, these areas reflect our focus on social justice more intentionally in the MAE program as supported by the MAE 2028 vision document. Furthermore, our professional disposition rubric was not providing enough information for growth as the majority of our students earned the highest scores regardless of their clinical placement (ED 394, XXX 608G and ED 609G) and social justice seemed the natural progression for growth. Led by the department’s Assessment Committee, Education Department faculty participated in a retreat in the Spring of 2020 specifically focused on Social Justice. PowerPoint Slides from the social justice disposition retreat can be viewed here. Meeting minutes from a retreat in Fall 2020, with content related to social justice highlighted in green, can also be viewed here.
The MAE faculty, students, Advisory Board, mentors and other stakeholders have investigated our effectiveness relative to our goals for social justice for MAE 2028 completers. Our rationale for including as many stakeholders as possible was twofold: a) the topic is an important one and focuses on cultural awareness, which is represented more thoroughly through multiple lenses and b) we believed it would increase buy-in if we had representation from multiple stakeholders. We have had rich discussions, attended several professional development opportunities, have a common understanding of social justice, and created a tool to measure social justice dispositions based upon expert sources, which has undergone several revisions based upon data from stakeholders. During the Spring 21 pilot of the social justice disposition, we surveyed all XXX 608G and ED 609G students, University Supervisors, and mentors about the measure. During Summer 21, Dr. Jones and Dr. Miner presented the data to the students in ED 618G and they worked to revise the rubric based upon the data. They piloted the new version in the summer, but data collection about the use was limited. An institutional worker and Dr. Miner added examples to the new version and discussed possible curriculum activities to support the social justice initiative. In addition, they examined the portfolio data to determine where students used technology and social justice. The faculty met in Fall 20 and agreed to pilot the new version. At our retreat in F21, we will focus primarily on the social justice disposition and now need time and examples to delve deeper into how those dispositions manifest in the classroom. This year, we are going to create an action plan for our State of the Art MAE in 2028 and how it will be assessed and monitored.
Since 2018 when the Education faculty identified technology as another compompency, skill, and knowledge important for MAE 2028 completers, the MAE faculty, students, Advisory Board, mentors, students and other stakeholders have investigated our current status and our goals for technology for MAE completers. After numerous discussions regarding what we would want and attending MoreNet to gather information about possible technology, the Education Department created/built an innovative lab classroom with Virtual Reality, Nureva Span Walls, and Smart TV for students. Since the completion of the classroom, multiple professional development opportunities about these technologies have been held for MAE Faculty and students as well as for local elementary school students. We collected data about comfort levels of people’s use of the technology and provided training on how to use the equipment. COVID-19 impacted our use of VH 1304 when we were closed and on a smaller number of students per room. However, we are back face to face and have greater use of the room. All ED 393 courses are scheduled in that room so students can learn the technology. We are working on a plan to enhance our students’ technology use to prepare for virtual learning as well as face to face learning.