IDAHO SELECTED TO JOIN NETWORK FOR TRANSFORMING EDUCATOR PREPARATION

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) announced today that Idaho is one of seven states selected to participate in a two-year pilot that will focus on transforming educator preparation and entry systems to the profession.

CCSSO created the Network for Transforming Educator Preparation (NTEP) to support states ready to take action in making sure all educators are ready on the first day of their career to prepare every student for college, work and life.

NTEP will focus on three key policy areas, including teacher preparation programs, or what an individual learns at a College of Education or through an alternate route before being certified as a teacher.

NTEP grew out of CCSSO’s Our Responsibility, Our Promise: Transforming Educator Preparation and Entry into the Profession report, which was published last year. While serving as President of CCSSO, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna chaired the state-led task force that prepared the report.

“The goal of the Network for Transforming Educator Preparation is all about improving the craft of teaching. For those who choose teaching as their life’s work and passion, it is incumbent on us to provide the support and opportunities they need to be prepared as soon as they enter the classroom. This all begins with our teacher preparation programs,” Superintendent Luna said.

Earlier this year, Idaho’s Task Force for Improving Education unanimously endorsed Idaho’s efforts to implement the recommendations from Our Responsibility, Our Promise. NTEP is the first step in that direction.

The states participating in NTEP will include: Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Washington. States will be joined by seventeen national organizations committed to supporting the states’ efforts to accelerate change in educator preparation and entry into the profession by helping to communicate with their members and serve as thought partners.

“States across the nation have raised expectations for all students and that means that we have a responsibility to ensure that educators are prepared to help all students graduate ready for careers, college and lifelong learning,” said Chris Minnich, CCSSO Executive Director. “These seven states are among those on the leading edge of making substantive changes in the policy and practice of educator preparation. Over the next two years they’ll work with educators, preparation programs, institutions of higher education, non-profit and for-profit education providers, districts and schools to improve the way we prepare our educator workforce. These states are taking a comprehensive approach to creating a system where educators are ready when they enter the classroom. By focusing on certification, preparation, program approval, and information on how graduates are doing in the classroom, these states will improve teacher readiness and thereby help students perform at higher levels.”

CCSSO released Our Responsibility, Our Promise –Transforming Educator Preparation and Entry into the Profession in December 2012. The reportwas developed collaboratively by state education chiefs and representatives of the National Governor’s Association and the National Association of State Boards of Education to identify key areas they can change to ensure every teacher and principal is ready on day one to help all students meet raised expectations. The report contains ten recommendations that focus on three state policy levers – licensure, program approval, and data collection, analysis and reporting – to improve the way we prepare our educator workforce. 

The states participating in the pilot will use these recommendations as the foundation for their actions and more specifically will do the following:

•  Licensure: States will strengthen and change educator licensure standards and requirements to ensure teacher and principal candidates recommended for licensure demonstrate the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the high expectations for all students, and help teachers and principals continuously improve their practice throughout their careers.
• Program Approval: States will raise the bar on the approval process for all educator preparation providers to ensure they deliver high-quality, rigorous training to potential educators, as demonstrated by performance assessments that show that candidates can apply what they’ve learned in actual school settings and with the range of learners they will likely encounter.
• Analyzing and Reporting Information to Improve Preparation Programs: States will formalize and refine the process for collecting, analyzing, and reporting educator pre-service and in-service performance data to ensure this information is used as tools to improve the way we prepare our educator workforce.

The network will leverage promising practices that other states have used to begin to change policy effecting how teachers and principals are prepared and licensed to practice as well as the variety of new pre-service performance assessments being developed.

Idaho’s work through NTEP is aligned with the Idaho State Department of Education’s work to implement the recommendations from the Task Force for Improving Education, which includes recommendations specific to tiered licensure, enhanced pre-service opportunities, and mentoring.

Learn more about the Task Force for Improving Education recommendations on the Idaho State Board of Education’s website. 

New Study Looks at How Blended Learning in Idaho is Transforming Rural Education

Today, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), shared its findings of a joint research partnership between the Idaho Digital Learning Academy (IDLA) and Northwest Nazarene University on how blended learning impacts students in rural parts of Idaho.

The need for effective blended learning environments – the best of face-to-face and online learning, coupled with tools driving continuous assessment of progress and personalization of content – is on the rise throughout the United States. While the growth of blended learning programs is prevalent in urban and suburban centers, the need is no less great in rural areas.

The report is titled, Transforming K-12 Rural Education through BlendedLearning: Barriers and Promising Practices.

The review highlights three key points:

The positive impact that blended learning has on those teachers who choose to incorporate emerging models of practice into their classroom environments,

A correlation between the opportunity for self-pacing and the quality of a student's work and perseverance, and

The importance of comprehensive teacher training for blended and online learning environments.

Susan Patrick, President and CEO of iNACOL, said, "The promise of blended learning to provide a highly personalized experience for each student is not restricted by the geography in which a student lives. The emerging practices and real-world barriers found within this report offer a valuable look at transformation through blended learning in action and show the field both where we are and where we need to move."

For this report, co-authors Eric Werth, Ph.D., Lori Werth, Ph.D. and Eric Kellerer, Ed.D. of Northwest Nazarene University's Doceo Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning surveyed teachers working with students ranging from early childhood to 12th Grade, with a great majority of them (73.3 percent) teaching in Idaho's rural school districts.

Dr. Cheryl Charlton, CEO for Idaho Digital Learning, said, "For more than a decade, IDLA has strived to provide students throughout Idaho with access to high-quality, highly flexible educational options. This research reflects lessons learned in designing effective blended learning models and deepens our commitment to the countless benefits that personalized learning brings students and teachers."

Here are some of the key findings from their report:

65.4% of teachers said students were more motivated to participate in class because of blended learning.

87% of teachers found communication between parents and teachers, between students and students, and between teachers and teachers was the same or better after the use of blended learning.

77.5% of teachers indicated that their ability to monitor student learning was either better or much better with blended learning.

The report states, “Teachers indicated that the use of blended learning improved their ability to be innovative, assisted them in monitoring student learning, and allowed greater opportunity to provide 1-on-1 instruction. Strong correlations were found between allowing student self-paced learning, a teacher’s ability to be innovative, providing resources to those who miss class and/or who struggle, and students’ ability to locate resources on their own and important educational outcomes such as student interest level, perseverance, motivation, time on task, excitement, attendance and a teacher’s overall enjoyment of teaching.

“Those who had utilized blended learning cautioned that those beginning a similar endeavor to expect the project to take time and that there will be initial struggles that need to be persevered through. These individuals suggested that teachers build lesson material as they go and seek formal and informal training whenever possible. A number of respondents indicated that while it may seem time-consuming and difficult at first, the benefits later greatly outweigh the cost.”