Assessing the assessors How mentor teachers assess practical experience

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Assessing the assessorsHow mentor teachers
assess practical experience

• Alison Mander
• mandera_at_usq.edu.au

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background to issues in professional experience
the structural issues

• Old program
• Pass/Fail/Result withheld discretion for
  additional experience
• Provided Course information booklets to detail
  requirements and liaison personnel to assist
• New program
• Graded 1-3, level 4 unsatisfactory/ RW Course
  information booklets detail requirements and
  liaison personnel to assist
• Specific scope and sequence grid provided
  graduated demonstration of knowledge, skills and
  dispositions

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Issues of assessment

• Mentor teacher judgement what is this decision
  making based on?
• Implications of the variety of professional
  experience sites impacting on students
• Large range of mentor teachers experience in
  role
• Various ways mentors are recruited in sites
• Difficulty of course examiner maintaining
  accountability, reliability and validity in
  experiences for all students
• Do we all agree about skills in teaching?

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Some inherent tensions

• Mentoring versus the assessment role
• Apprenticeship model versus the collective
  professional learning / support model
• Payment versus the contribution to the
  profession position
• Gate keepers of the profession or professionals
  who can dialogue about their work and their
  thinking

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Students say

• Prac was the best time in my whole degree
• I wish prac started earlier and we did less
  theory in lectures. I learned more on prac
• Prac confirmed for me I wanted to be a teacher
• I love interacting with the kids
• Prac showed me I can make a difference

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The students also say

• My mentor is scary she wont listen to
  anything I say She just walked out of the staff
  room without saying what I should do. I had to
  run after her
• She said she wants me to experience teaching, as
  it is. I find her attitudes all so negative. She
  yells
• My teacher is so slack, he hasnt opened the
  booklet yet, hes got no idea what I have to do
• I hate it when she says things like, why do you
  want to get into teaching get out now

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On the whole

• For Most students, professional experience runs
  smoothly
• Most mentor teachers do a great job well beyond
  their remit
• Most students experience a good range of school
  sites and different age groups over their degree,
  and gain professionally from this variety
• Most students return from professional
  experience, excited, keen and empowered, with
  great stories to begin to engage their thinking
  and hone their practices

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The new paradigm

• Scope and sequence detailed in booklets
• Graded results from mentors to examiner
• Difficulty of comparison / levelling of results
• Employing authority (EQ) ratings system
• Pressure on universities to grade practical
  experiences
• ? Trustworthiness of these results?

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Pilot study - method

• Collated student graded results for two semesters
  (4 courses)
• Compared these to detailed written feedback from
  mentors and liaison
• Compared these gradings directly with other
  student profile data from courses (expectations
  align?)
• Interviewed groups of students about their
  experience to see what they valued
• Interviewed their mentor teachers, liaison and
  school coordinators

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Some initial findings

• Student results varied depending on the site and
  the mentor. Good students got good results, but
  often at level two.
• Some mentors were loathe to give level one
  especially in early experiences (they cant be a
  one!)
• Some mentors believed in positive support and
  gave inflated results and comments
• Inability to fail students- supportive

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The interpersonal issues

• Personal relationships between student and mentor
  clearly influenced grades given
• This advantaged some students
• Initial early perceptions of students impacted on
  mentors beliefs about abilities
• This exaggerated with-in school, and between
  school, variations
• No clear direct correlation exists between
  gradings and written comments

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The Professional Issues

• Professional Standards for Teachers
  underpinning
• Faculty of Education course objectives
• Queensland College of Teachers
• Education Queensland
• USQ Graduate Attributes
• And the personal what mentors believe is
  important for teachers their own biography
  influences

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Some Vignettes

• With-in school differences (TEA 2204)
• One student said," Kris gets to go to lots of
  different classes to observe. His teacher is
  relaxed about that and hes done swimming and
  other excursions. My mentor wont let me go
  anywhere. Ive to sit at the back of the class
  and watch, and then says she cant assess me till
  Ive taught something. She wont help me as she
  says she doesnt believe in planning

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A Level One - TEA 4204

• Inconsistencies - A Mentor teacher report said
• Donna worked through a long term plan with the
  unit overviews supplied
• With further practice Donna may be more
  confident to introduce different resources, media
  and technology (Course Examiners are the enemy?)
• Compare this with a student in this same class
  also on level one

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Level One TEA 4204

• Sarahs planning has been excellent! Great
  effort and creativity can be witnessed in her
  medium and short term planning. Her major
  strength has been her personal reflection of
  lessons taught. At all times she has implemented
  appropriate technologies to enhance her engaging
  lessons. Sarah is a wonderful communicator. This
  is supported by her excellent vocal and body
  language techniques

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Same context - same student two results

• Level One
• Renee needs to be more punctual but always
  finished on time. She plans well but needs to
  remember that her planning is for her and to
  follow it
• Level Three
• Renee never hesitated to participate in school
  activities beyond core hours. She developed a
  great relationship with the children and showed
  interest and value in all aspects of her
  engagement with them
• Different teachers, one who believes a three is
  quite satisfactory, the other that the student
  needs encouragement by giving a one despite
  issues

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A school decision TEA2204

• Three students at one school all received level 3
  satisfactory (all other students got access to
  the full range of grades)
• In this experience, we dont feel that we can
  give anyone more than a satisfactory
• Teachers didnt take the time to discriminate, or
  to provide a variety of activities from which
  they could reasonably observe the students
  demonstrate their capacities
• fairness? comparability? who is in control of
  results?

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The Fourth Year failure!

• Bob managed to get successfully through three
  professional experiences, two of which required
  additional weeks to achieve competency. On each
  occasion, the school was encouraged to fail him
  by USQ, but couldnt do it. "We'll get him
  through! (Teachers dont like having failures)
• Fourth and final prac the mentor wrote, We had
  serious concerns when Bob contacted/ bugged us
  nearly every day in the lead up to the prac he
  appeared to be grossly under prepared for
  employment in the near future. I was prepared to
  work with him but he was in tears before he
  taught his first lesson. He chose to terminate
  his prac .
• Student said, I have been told that I ask too
  many questions I could not prepare my lessons
  my way.
• A terrible outcome for all due to misguided
  support earlier

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The SI rating

• Did you get your rating interview over coffee at
  the photocopier?
• Do I go to State or Private school for my rating
  prac?
• And which state school will I get the best result?

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Some Analyses of data

• Mentor teachers do have a good sense of what is
  required gut feeling about their student
  teachers. Rough grained search, looks OK
• At a finer grain personal biographies of
  mentors becomes apparent, as influencers (Gently,
  gently, or the real world approach)
• Awareness of school context issues impacting
• The likeability of student personal response
  to character becomes apparent this influences
  how deeply the mentor probes the student
• The diligent, but quiet student doesnt go so
  well
• All will be forgiven if you charm the mentor!
• I feel so guilty the emotional dimension
  experienced by mentors

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And to the future

• Further extension of criteria and standards
  descriptors that may enhance mentor teacher
  judgement about professional standards and so
  enhance inter- teacher consistency
• and
• Attempt to conceptualise the two- way
  relationship or dynamic that develops in the
  classroom. Assist mentors to be clear about the
  task/role