New information relating to the Internship program?

Although, under semesters, all four licensure programs are four-years in length, the student teaching experience is handled very differently in each of the licensure programs. Websites and Handbooks: You might find valuable information in the four licensure program Handbooks available on the college web site: http://www.cech.uc.edu/student_services_center/. The Handbooks for each of the programs is available at this site, as well as the information related to student teaching, cohorts, Praxis tests, licensure, and BCI/FBI/TB testing. Transitioning from student to professional? Most of this information is located on the college website (e.g., how to make sure all forms are completed, readiness to student teach, details that need to be taken care of before being ready); however, some of this information is very program specific. Once in the program and beginning your field placement/ student teaching your program field coordinator will be your best source of information. Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA)? The TPA is required of candidates in all 51 Ohio teacher preparation programs and in thousands of teacher preparation programs across the United States, it is not unique to UC. Candidates who have competed the TPA speak about how the TPA changed their practice (e.g., high stakes made them achieve at a much higher level; TPA revealed the full arc of instruction; TPA became a model of effective instruction; TPA revealed the reality of teaching; and TPA put it all together.

Additional TPA Notes:

Ohio has 100% of their IHEs involved in TPAC and Ohio candidates will account for 30% of the completed field-test portfolios that will be scored by Pearson this summer. Peter McWalters, a policy consultant hired by the Stanford project, was the former commissioner of education in Rhode Island and a former school superintendent. He made some interesting points (a) There are many ways to teach well, but you must know what good teaching is; (b) TPA describes good practice; (c) TPA is the best assessment of performance he has ever seen, especially when compared to paper and pencil tests like the PRAXIS 2 PLT; (d) since the current teacher evaluation efforts, the No Child Left Behind efforts and the value-added efforts are beginning to sour in Ohio and some other states, we have a small window to advocate for the TPA; (e) Ohio was fortunate to have TPA in their Race to the Top proposal; (f) TPA is still alive in Ohio and we need to push to adopt TPA and align TPA with the later Resident Educator assessments; (g) the effectiveness of US teachers has not changed over time 30% of their students are ready for college, 40% are questionable and 30% do not graduate at all; (h) however, among poor and minority students, 50% dont finish high school; and (i) our cooperating teachers (placements for practica and student teaching) are random acts of excellence. The officials at the Ohio Department of Education indicate that they want to wait until after the field test data are available from Pearson later this summer before making a decision about the TPA being used for licensure or for program accreditation. Beginning next year, the TPA will be required for program accreditation in Minnesota and will be required for licensure in the State of Washington. Whatever Ohio decides to do will not be contingent on what the other states are doing. Whatever is done will be determined by the Ohio SEAs for all 51 IHEs.