Education Students Gain Broader Vision of Roles

By Joanne M. Haas
Today’s college students studying to join the ranks of Wisconsin’s elementary and secondary teachers will lead their classrooms as licensed professionals equipped with broader visions of their roles, greater understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, and a deeper appreciation of the school-community relationship.

That’s the aim of PI 34, Wisconsin’s new state law for teacher preparation and licensing. Still in the implementation phase on nearly all levels, the law officially took hold in 2000 when the Legislature promulgated rules requiring higher education institutions to rework all professional education programs to include performance-based assessments and other requirements, including testing for content knowledge.

“The whole philosophy of PI 34 is performance rather than credits. We need to look at what each teacher should know and be able to do.” --------------- Kathryn Lind

“(PI 34) is having a huge effect,” said Ken Zeichner, the Hoefs-Bascom Professor of Teacher Education and an associate dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And, Zeichner added, Wisconsin is not the only place where showing what you can do in the classroom is taking priority over earning a pile of credits for the title of certified professional teacher. “The same kind of reform, performance-based assessments and content, is pretty much everywhere for a variety of reasons, and I think really causing a lot of changes.”

JoAnne Caldwell, the associate dean of Cardinal Stritch University, agrees. “It is very far-reaching,” Caldwell said, adding the university has been working on PI 34’s requirements for years and was ready for its enactment.

Caldwell said the 10 professional standards outlined in PI 34 are closely aligned to those already in place at Cardinal Stritch. “It wasn’t a shock to us,” she said. “Basically we have revamped our total assessment system. It is no longer driven by credits and courses. It is basically, ‘Can you do X-Y-Z?’”

Kathryn Lind, the DPI’s director of teacher education, professional development and licensing, has been involved with PI 34 since the start, going back to 1993 when former State Superintendent John Benson organized the first of two task forces that developed key recommendations leading up to the law’s enactment.

DPI has always been involved with program approval – carefully monitoring teacher training programs at higher education institutions statewide. But what changed with PI 34 was how program approval was judged. The new law demands that approval be based upon 10 basic standards, which are what a teacher needs to know and be able to do to be successful.

“The whole philosophy of PI 34 is performance rather than credits,” Lind said. “We need to look at what each teacher should know and be able to do. We are now reviewing programs based upon assessments.”

Under PI 34, each college with teacher training programs is required to create an assessment system using the law’s standards. “They have to show us how they are assessing their students and at what point,” she said.

Those assessments are addressed in a student’s portfolio, which the graduate shows to potential employers.

Lind said the creation of the student portfolios has been a challenge for institutions. “Prior to PI 34, students didn’t have to have a portfolio and didn’t have to take a content exam,” she said.

Institutions have the flexibility under PI 34 to develop preparation programs reflecting the unique missions, goals and structures of that specific organization. Lind said institutions have been developing assessment systems for the last several years. “They (students) are going to be assessed continually throughout the program.”

The DPI performs on-site reviews of teacher preparation programs once every five years. “All of the institutions will be visited under the new system by 2005,” Lind said.

The first level of licensing under PI 34 is the Initial Educator, a non-renewable five-year license held by new graduates. Lind said the graduates who complete their coursework after August 31, 2004, will be the first group of certified Initial Educators.

“The first real licenses won’t be issued until December 2004,” Lind said. “The largest group of people with that license will be in the fall of 2005. That’s when you will feel the impact.”

Lind said while colleges and universities have had to invest tremendous time to creating a system to fit PI 34, reaction so far has been positive because it has allowed for intense scrutiny of existing programs for their effectiveness.

Cardinal Stritch’s Caldwell said “once you get over the initial shock” of what is expected of PI 34 – meaning assessments, content testing and portfolios among the main items – the institution’s staff jumped right in and “enjoyed” the process.

Students are certified as Initial Educators upon graduation. Once they are hired, they begin work on a Professional Development Plan (PDP), which becomes the basis for relicensure as a Professional Educator, the next five-year and renewable license of the three-tier PI 34 system.

Cardinal Stritch will gather student feedback after the students enter the work force and use that information to refine the assessment system. The next step for Stritch is “wrestling with how can we support school districts with the professional development plans,” Caldwell said. Current teachers may use a professional development plan to renew five-year licenses, although the college credit system will still be available.

Caldwell said university representatives are meeting with area superintendents to “talk about how we can support” the districts in their efforts to support and work with new and veteran teachers.

UW-Madison’s Zeichner is also pleased with PI 34.

“This has added a layer of analysis ... teachers being clearer about what they have accomplished, what they are, and what they do,” Zeichner said. Graduates are not just completing some generic programs; “they have specific goals,” he said.

Meeting the changes dictated by Wisconsin’s new three-tiered teacher licensing law has not been easy. As Zeichner put it, it isn’t like the factory assembly line that can shut down for a day or two as a key part is replaced or an entire machine is retooled. Colleges and universities have had to retool programs while educating existing students progressing under the old licensing program.

The act of assessing student performances was already in play. But
PI 34 made it much more organized, translating it into a living resource -- the portfolio -- that the graduate may use to relicense while documenting professional growth.

UW students may use an e-portfolio, in which they can log and provide documentation as to how they are meeting the standards, and that portfolio is shared electronically with professors.

“Overall, there are a lot of good things that come with being clear about what is done and having the students take more responsibility for their own assessments,” Zeichner said.

The process is far from completed, and will be refined as students graduate and feedback is collected. “There will be a period of transition. It is a major change,” he said. “We are moving ahead.”

PI 34 transforms teacher training programs
Resource page on teacher licensing

Posted November 10, 2003