Project Details
Hiring Manager: Dr. Emily Klein, Professor, Teaching and Learning, College for Education and Engaged Learning and Dr. Jennifer Goeke, Associate Professor, Teaching and Learning, College for Education and Engaged Learning
Total Hours: 200
Project Stipend: $5000
Project Goals and Objectives
In December 2023, New Jersey eliminated edTPA as a certification requirement for new teachers. Accomplished with significant pressure from teachers’ unions and the public, this legislation freed teacher educators from what they considered to be a costly, cumbersome, and unreliable predictor of teaching success. Teacher preparation programs were then called upon to replace edTPA with an alternative culminating year assessment. As our department contemplated a move away from edTPA, we were drawn to AR as a truly authentic assessment with few bureaucratic and financial constraints that would be more equitable for our students and reflective of our program mission and goals. After a year-long pilot, this fall we launched year one of full implementation and all P-12 students will conduct action research during their clinical year. This project will allow us to continue to gather data on our full-scale implementation of AR as a culminating assessment during the clinical year and guide its ongoing development. Importantly, the goals of our proposal involve both uncovering new knowledge about the implementation of AR, seeking to improve our program’s pedagogical expertise in implementing it, and disseminating our learning to others. See below for proposal’s intended goals and outcomes.
- To collect end of semester data from students and faculty about their experience using action research.
- To analyze that data to help us better understand students’ learning
- Assist in writing a scholarly article for publication about the types of learning action research supports.
Methods
- Our intern will work with us to conduct focus groups (already scheduled) in April with students who have completed their action research to better understand how they report their learning and experience doing this work.
- They will analyze student work samples across approximately 8 sections of Clinical II seminar sections aligned with NJ State teaching standards to see what kinds of learning are evidenced from those samples.
- They will assist us in drafting themes and examples of themes that we can use to
- Share with faculty in our ongoing development and learning about action research
- Draft an article that disseminates what we have learned in replacing edTPA with action research to the broader research community.
Skill Set Developed
Interviewing, data analysis, and writing are key skill sets necessary for completing a dissertation and working as a scholar. Engaging in this project will allow for them to have a highly mentored experience doing the research and work of scholars. Additionally, it involves the very practical work of teacher education—aligning assessments with the knowledge and skills we are developing in preservice teachers in order to best prepare them for the work of teaching.
Key Deliverables
- Transcripts of student focus groups
- At least 30 work samples coded using the NJ State Teaching Standards
- Draft of a research article