Standard 3: Aspect C

Preparation programs ensure that candidates, upon completion, are ready to engage in professional practice, to adapt to a variety of professional settings, and to grow throughout their careers. Effective program practices include: consistent offering of coherent curricula; high-quality quality, diverse clinical experiences; dynamic, mutually beneficial partnerships with stakeholders; and comprehensive and transparent quality assurance processes informed by trustworthy evidence. Each aspect of the program is appropriate to its context and to the credential or degree sought.

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Description of stakeholder engagement in program:
The Multiple Subject Credential Program engages with various stakeholders -ranging from CSU Vice Chancellors and University Presidents and Superintendents to Program Faculty and Mentor Teachers and Completers throughout the academic year as detailed in the table below. An improvement research framework (Bryk et al., 2015; Lemire, Christie, & Inkelas, 2017) guides our engagement with key stakeholders who help shape our continuous improvement efforts. Centering the user and/or “problem” is essential in implementing program changes. An improvement science approach employs inquiry to deploy and test focused changes in short, rather than protracted, cycles of planning, doing, studying, and acting (Langley, et al., 2009). Each stakeholder provides a unique perspective that helps the program better understand the systems that produces its outcomes. The following themes have consistently been the focus of our key stakeholder conversations over the past three years:  

1. Recruitment and retention of teacher candidates of color; cultivating early interest among K-12 students of color into the teaching profession and supporting teacher candidates of color
2. Recruitment and retention of BIPOC faculty and putting systems in place that sustain anti-racist, social justice-oriented policies, practices, and outcomes. 
3. Improving data systems and routines for meaningful, strategic data use
4. Strengthening partnerships with K-12 employer districts
5. Accreditation- before, during and after the site visitation year 
6. Implementing, expanding, and sustaining residency programs

In addition to traditional research tools (e.g., surveys, interviews), improvement science utilizes specialized research tools for understanding the problem and the system behind it, focusing on defined aspects of the system, generating change plans, and building evidence for the effectiveness of the change idea (Grunow, Park, & Bennett, n.d.). Empathy interviews and journey maps are used as tools for understanding the system and identifying problems from the user perspective in Multiple Subject Credential Program. We use the data generated from these interviews and journey maps to identify user-centered levers for program change. Click HERE to view the different types of data collected by the Multiple Subject Credential Program during the academic year. Two significant challenges exist with employing an improvement science approach to engaging stakeholders 1) Data collection overload without enough research assistant capacity for data preparation, initial analysis, and write up to prepare information for data discussions with stakeholders 2) Balancing program management issues and updates with that of building in regular routines for data discussions in which sometimes program updates can use up valuable meeting time with stakeholders. Having data from multiple sources is most beneficial when you invite key stakeholders into making sense of the data that leads to decision making related to program developments.        

Stakeholder Engagement: 

Aspect D →