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Innovative Ideas Push Partnerships to The College of Education Assessment and Research team plays an important role in the sustainability of a strong PDS partnership with local school districts. By seeking out relevant partnerships and innovating agile research systems, the team hopes to support the wide range of collaborations in place and build the capacity to understand the quality of their designs and outcomes. Meanwhile, data continues to arrive for analysis through a variety of assessment tools recently put into place. This fall, the full Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) will provide initial results on the effectiveness of the assessment and our teacher candidates. That data will complement the results from final versions of the Entrance, Exit, and Transition surveys administered to Minnesota State University, Mankato, education students. Employer surveys will be ready by the end of this school year. Our deep PDS network allows the College of Education an unique opportunity to locate the impact of our preparation program on our candidates as well as the teachers they work with and the students they all strive to reach. New Partnership Daria Paul-Dona, Coordinator of Assessment and Research, and other NExT Area Leads hosted new partners from the Minnesota Modeling and Simulation Center in September in response to a need for employing research in real classrooms. The Center assists by developing models to increase the predictive ability of certain data variables gathered by us and partner Universities in the NExT project. In particular, the Minnesota State Mankato team hopes to understand the changing needs of the education workforce in southern Minnesota. These predictive measures can help our teacher preparation effectively respond New Levels to expected fluctuations in the supply and demand within PDS districts. Minnesota State Mankato can then make smarter decisions in efforts to accurately recruit teacher candidates that successfully impact our student’s achievement amidst economic changes. Dr. Paul-Dona explains another strength in the new partnership, “It challenges us on our assumptions, working with researchers outside the field.” For a field built on reliability and validity, bringing in a new research partner increases an ability to perceive cumulative data with fresh eyes. 28 http://ed.mnsu.edu/csup/
New Systems for Working Together This fall, the Assessment and Research team welcomed an experienced education leader in research systems and higher education. Bob Hugg, now Educational Research Systems Liaison, for the College of Education worked closely with faculty across the University this fall to spearhead development of a common research system all stakeholders can access. The result will be a “system of systems” with portals connecting faculty research interests and archives with education communities’ needs and desires. The system will hold six separate yet interconnected databases. The web-based Faculty Research Interests database does just what it says, it stores information on current faculty interests and Winter 2012 Partnership publications. Another node allows community partners (PDS K-12 & research collaborators) to put in requests for more information on best practices and research methodologies. A third piece links the previous two together so that practical questions can be answered on both sides of the common goal. Bob Hugg One portal houses archives of faculty research while the remaining nodes build in related data systems, such as the one storing all College of Education and Unit data. The Assessment and Research team expects to use this clarified research connection to yield bigger research questions as well as identify capabilities for longitudinal studies in relevant topics. Hugg defines the current questions driving the development of MavAIR/Prism as “the quality of teacher preparation in terms of the needs in the field, enhancing capability to reach out to partner schools, and the ability to clarify and refine the impact and application of our preparation program curriculum. “I like to put it this way, this will allow us to collaborate to innovate to collaborate,” says Hugg. “And we will have an ability to take multi-level surveys from our graduates that will help us clarify and refine, over time, the trends, needs, and impacts of our students.” With new partners and new opportunities our Assessment team comes ever closer to understanding what our students must know when they enter the field. When they become new teachers, their colleagues have already helped pave a path toward success in their practice and, consequently, in their students’ achievement. Their collaborations, facilitated by the Assessment team and sustained in the PDS, extend to improve the whole of teaching practice as a result, a collective engagement that requires solid foundations. 29
Page 1 and 2: artnership PCENTER FOR SCHOOL-UNIVE
Page 3 and 4: TABLE OF CONTENTS Winter 2012 Partn
Page 5 and 6: Note From the Editor Ben Pendarvis
Page 7 and 8: Heather Verstraete, Bloomington TOS
Page 9 and 10: of the Leadership Institute, which
Page 11 and 12: How has AVID impacted your school,
Page 13 and 14: ng Deeper and Wider Pipeline #2 - P
Page 15 and 16: QUT students and exchange program f
Page 17 and 18: After the last full school year of
Page 19 and 20: Marti Sievek can speak to the posit
Page 21 and 22: 7th Annual Fall Play Therapy Confer
Page 23 and 24: Innovative Program Targets Coaching
Page 25 and 26: if a student can make one strong co
Page 27 and 28: Teaching Fellows ? ? Describe your
Page 29: Jenna Haala Graduate Program: Maste

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