Professional Development Plan
When interns work on a professional development plan, their mentors help develop that plan with the interns and University Supervisors. The mentors often attend the same professional development activities.
MEES
Successful performance on the MEES demonstrates that intern candidates collaborate with colleagues to support professional learning. Standard 9 of the MEES, which measures professional collaboration, most directly demonstrates our completers’ ability to successfully collaborate. All Truman MAE completers have not only passed the MEES assessment but the mean scores for every standard have consistently far exceeded both the minimum and higher target scores. Truman intern candidates’ scores on Standard 5 of the MEES assessment, which assesses intern candidates’ understanding of how to create productive learning environments.
First-Year Teacher Survey Questionnaire (FYTSQ)
Responses on the FYTSQ support the claim that Truman completers successfully collaborate with colleagues to support professional learning. Almost all (98%) of completers from 2020-2021 agreed (39%) or strongly agreed (59%) that they were prepared to collaborate with colleagues to support student learning. (Please consult the summary document of the last six years of data from this questionnaire for additional evidence of support from prior years.)
Principal of First-Year Teachers Survey Questionnaire
Responses on the parallel measure for principals of first-year completers offers further support to the claim that Truman completers successfully collaborate with colleagues to support professional learning, with 88% of principals of 2020-2021 Truman first-year completers agreeing (46%) or strongly agreeing (42%) that completers were prepared to collaborate with colleagues to support student learning. (Please consult the summary document of the last six years of data from this questionnaire for additional evidence of support from prior years.)
Portfolio
In Standard 9 of the MEES, interns are asked how they collaborate with their mentors. One of our interns reported working with a professional learning community and found that work very supportive as she was not used to having other biology teachers to share ideas. Another intern reported that s/he was asked to create a faculty development opportunity on using Nearpod for their peers.
MAE Completer Survey
One hundred percent of the 2018-2019 completers who participated in the survey reported that they were well prepared (15.4%) or prepared (84.6%) to establish and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues to collaborate. On the item, “How well do you feel prepared to collaborate effectively with mentors and colleagues, maintaining focus on student success?” Ninety-two percent of completers reported being well prepared or prepared to collaborate effectively. All of the 2017-2018 completers reported they were well prepared (100%) to maintain effective working relationships with colleagues for collaboration and felt prepared to collaborate effectively focusing on student success.
School Partnership and Outreach
The Clayton partnership has a strong focus of collaboration with multiple opportunities to participate in professional development that is sponsored by the district. The same is true for our other interns in different settings. In Kirksville, the summer school program that elementary MAE candidates participate in will often have professional collaboration such as learning how to analyze data from STAR tests, focusing on co-teaching, and/or working with a team to implement strategies learned from the seminar course. In addition, our outreach provides teachers with unintended professional development such as with the social justice dispositions or bringing their classes to Truman State University Art Gallery, or having our students bring the Ozobots to their classrooms.
Professional Disposition Rubric
On the professional disposition rubric, students, mentors and University Supervisors are asked to rate how well our candidates are collaborating in regard to their interactions with others, addressing problems, and follow through. The disposition data indicates that our candidates are strong in collaboration.