Standard 2: Aspect B

Standard 2b: Program completers engage in professional practice in educational settings and show that they have the skills and abilities to do so in a variety of additional settings and community/cultural contexts. For example, candidates must have broad and general knowledge of the impact of culture and language on learning, yet they cannot, within the context of any given program, experience working with the entire diversity of student identities, or in all types of school environments. 

Candidate preparation includes first-hand professional experience accompanied by reflection that prepares candidates to engage effectively in different contexts they may encounter throughout their careers.

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Case for Standard 2b
For this aspect, the SPED program used three data sources: Student Teaching Placement Demographics, a Program Completer Survey, and the CSU Educator Quality (EdQ) Center Completer Survey. 

Data Sources & Analysis

Data Source 1

Student Teaching Placement Demographics, 2019-2021 

Description of Data Source:
We examined the demographics of learners in the districts in which our candidates were placed in recent semesters.

Perspective Captured from Data Source: Kremen personnel

Rationale for using Data Source: 
Although we understand that working with diverse students does not guarantee that our candidates leave our program with expertise in culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy, we wanted to understand whether our students had opportunities to use what they learn in our program about Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Pedagogy (CLSP) within the clinical practice setting. 

Specific Elements of Data Source: 
Percentages of candidate field placements within diverse school settings. 

Definition of Success for Each Element: 
It is the goal of the special education program to prepare all teacher candidates to infuse culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy in their present and future classrooms. Student teaching placements that are inclusive of diverse learners (including intersectionality of race, ethnicity, class, gender identity and expression, sexual identity, and the impact of language acquisition and literacy development on learning) will give our teacher candidates richer opportunities to practice creating more inclusive learning environments. Thus, our hope is that all of our students have some experience with diverse students. 

Displays of Analyzed Data:

Interpretation of Data: 
As highlighted in this data, the districts in which Education Specialist candidates have been placed in recent semesters are home to learners from a range of racial and ethnic backgrounds other than white. Given the overall demographics of our region, it is not surprising that the vast majority of learners identify as Hispanic/Latinx. It is also worth noting that, in all districts except Clovis Unified and Kings County Office of Education, the percentage of students classified as English Learner is well over 10%, providing candidates the opportunity to also develop expertise in supporting students who are Emergent Bilingual. 

Data Source 2

CSU Educator Quality Center Completer Survey

Description of Data Source:
Each year, the CSU Educator Quality Center administers a survey to program completers to learn their perceptions of how well the program prepared them in a number of areas aligned with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing’s Teaching Performance Expectations (TPE). Program completers from all CSU campuses are invited to respond to each item on a 1-5 scale, where 1 indicates they believed that they were “not at all” prepared and 5 indicates they believe they were “very well” prepared.” Fresno State has a high rate of completion due to the efforts of our credential analyst who requires completion as part of the credential application process. 

Perspective Captured from Data Source: Program Completers

Rationale for using Data Source: 
CSU Educator Quality Center Completer Survey captures program completers’ anonymous perspectives of how well the program prepared them at the conclusion of their teaching credential coursework and field experiences, providing valuable insights into their perceptions of the program.

For this specific aspect, we wanted to look at our completers’ responses in relation to one of the Teaching Performance Expectations (TPEs): Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning. We believed that looking at this cluster of responses would give us an overarching view of completer perceptions in areas most closely aligned with culturally responsive pedagogy. We also chose to combine three years of data, 2018-21, so that we could examine program effectiveness over a number of years. The tool that we used also allowed us to compare our performance with other CSU campuses. 

Specific Elements of Data Source:
We focused our assessment on four items:

How will did your program prepare you to:

1. Apply knowledge of students, including their prior experiences, interests, and social-emotional learning needs, as well as their funds of knowledge and cultural, language, and socioeconomic backgrounds, to engage them in learning.
2. Maintain ongoing communication with students and families, including the use of technology to communicate with and support students and families, and to communicate achievement expectations and student progress. 
3. Connect subject matter to real-life contexts and provide active learning experiences to engage student interest, support student motivation, and allow students to extend their learning. 
6. Provide a supportive learning environment for students' first and/or second language acquisition by using research-based instructional approaches, including focused English Language Development, Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE), scaffolding across content areas, and structured English immersion, and demonstrate an understanding of the difference among students whose only instructional need is to acquire Standard English proficiency, students who may have an identified disability affecting their ability to acquire Standard English proficiency, and students who may have both a need to acquire Standard English proficiency and an identified disability. 

Definition of Success for Each Element: 
Programmatically, our goal is to have our completer average within .2 of the CSU average. A more long term goal would be to have our average at 3.5 or above. 

Displays of Analyzed Data:
Table 1, CSU Completer Survey, Elements 1, 2, 3, 6, 2018-21

Link to Full Dataset: The link to the full dataset is unavailable. However, if reviewers would like to view the CSU Educator Quality Center Data Dashboards, we are happy to set up a time to provide them access by sharing screens in a Zoom session.

Interpretation of Data:
In looking at the data, we see increases in all four elements, indicating that we are improving our program. We were especially gratified to see that we exceeded the overall CSU average last year in Element 3, “Connect subject matter to real-life contexts and provide active learning experiences to engage student interest, support student motivation, and allow students to extend their learning.” We were very close to our goal of scoring within .2 of the CSU average on each item. Even so, this data source helped us identify that we still need to improve. We chose these items specifically because we recognized the correlation between these TPEs and our goal of having our alumni engage with diverse communities, implement CLSP informed curriculum, and consider the cultural and linguistic needs of students within their classrooms. 

Data Source 3

Program Alumni Survey (pilot)

Description of Data Source:
We realized that the data captured by some of the tools developed by the EdQ Center did not allow us to measure the progress of our completers with direct questions about CLSP and community involvement. Thus, when we developed a pilot survey, we specifically worked to solicit feedback from completers about these areas.

We reached out to graduates of the Education Specialist Credential Program (N=34) to measure the extent to which our graduates engage in various professional practices (e.g., collaboration with professionals, engaging in culturally and linguistically sustaining practices, involvement in community engagement). Candidates rated each item on a 4-point likert scale (1=none, 2=a little, 3=somewhat, 4=a lot).

The first two surveys, conducted in fall 2020 and spring 2021, resulted in thirty-four valid responses. Of the thirty-four respondents, one respondent completed the credential program in 2018, two respondents completed in 2019, seventeen respondents completed in 2020, and fourteen respondents in spring 2021. 

Perspective Captured from Data Source: Completers

Rationale for Using Data Source: 
Our pilot survey seeks to gather information from our completers in the specific area of how well the program prepared them to engage in culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy and the extent to which they engage in these practices in their current roles.

Specific Element of Data Source: 
For this data source we looked specifically at the responses to two survey items: 

To what extent do you currently engage the following professional practices? 

• Use culturally responsive educational practices with diverse learners?
• Involved with community or cultural organizations?

Definition of Success for Each Element:
Our goal is that 85% of our completers would respond with either “A lot” or “Somewhat.”

Displays of Analyzed Data:
Table 2, Program Alumni Survey, CLSP Items, 2020-21

Link to Data Source:  Alumni Program Survey Dataset (CLSP and Community)

Interpretation of Data: 
We were most satisfied with the response from the second element where we clearly hit our target; 95% use culturally responsive practices within their classrooms. Since our service area is one of the most diverse areas in the state, this is especially important as it indicates a high level of support for diverse students. The response to the first question was more disappointing.  Although 45% of the completers who responded to this survey are engaged in the community, there is a great deal of growth needed in order to reach our goal of 85%. 

Next Steps Narrative: 
Overall, this data reveals the importance of the program redesign that we are currently undergoing to transition to new state standards. In recent years, we have placed a considerable emphasis on CLSP given the demographics of our local context. We’ve also felt confident that our students perceive CLSP as being an important aspect of teaching in the Central Valley. Certainly our improvement over the last three years is supported by data from the Completer Surveys. Even so, the data reveal that there is still room for improvement in our program. In some cases, our alumni could engage more with the communities in which they work. Moreover, comparing our performance with the CSU helps us understand where we are in relation to other CSU campuses, giving us hope that with more intentional curriculum we can quickly make up the difference. 

Aspect C →