Assessment of Intern Progress

Interns benefit from a regular assessment sequence that is designed to help them take stock of progress made and make plans for the future.  Each semester, they will participate in a mid-term and end-of-semester conference, and following each conference they will create a Professional Learning Plan that will guide their ongoing learning between conferences.  These events are outlined below.  Collaborating teachers and field instructors each write a Final Report that is sent to the MSU Placement Office and used by the interns to communicate with prospective employers.

Mid-term Assessment

The first formal assessment conference of the year takes place in the fall during week 8 or 9, during the time period when interns are in school full-time.  Having prepared in advance, the intern, collaborating teacher, and field instructor meet to discuss the intern's progress and to make plans for the intern's growth.  The assessment and conference should be conducted in ways that help interns to learn to evaluate their practice honestly and to plan their growth as teachers specifically. In addition to coming away with an awareness of general areas of strength and those that need further development, the intern should have a clear understanding of concrete ways to work on that development. 

Standards for assessment.  The program's Professional Teaching Standards for interns should be the basis for assessment. These standards not only provide a framework for working toward shared goals, but also provide a structure for discussing and debating visions of good teaching and visions of effective ways to learn to teach.   Opportunities to practice each standard, with support, should also be considered.  Is the intern having difficulty in an area due to lack of opportunity to work with the standard, or does the difficulty stem from something else?

Emphasize progress and professionalism.  For the fall semester mid-term assessment, it makes sense to emphasize the sub-set of standards titled "working and learning in a school and profession" (Standard 4) since interns should be actively working to promote their learning and make every effort to build relationships and opportunities that help them to do so.  In relation to Standards 1, 2, and 3,  the main concern should be whether interns are making progress that is reasonable to expect for that time of year; in the spring, whether they have achieved enough is considered.

Use the Assessment Form. The program standards are summarized in the Assessment of Intern Progress: A Tool for Discussion (PDF | Word )  This form is available on this website to be downloaded and used by CTs, interns and field instructors to prepare for the mid-semester discussion.  Used cumulatively across the fall and spring mid-semester conferences, the form provides a record of the intern's professional growth over time.

The intern, the CT, and the field instructor should each fill out the form before they meet to discuss the intern's progress.  All three should help to define the strengths of the intern's practice, the areas of practice in which the intern needs to improve, and the intern's professional learning plan for the remainder of the semester. In addition to giving the intern a rating for each standard, an overall judgment of how the intern is doing should be given, so that it is quite clear as to whether the intern, overall, is meeting expectations.

The intern speaks first.  At the three-way conference, the intern goes first in  discussing her or his progress and plans for growth.  This helps to make clear that the intern should be learning to assess and improve his or her own performance.  The CT's and field instructor's assessments will be based, in part, on the intern's ability to describe approaches to planning and classroom activity accurately and to assess them honestly and thoughtfully.  One common benefit in letting the intern go first is that the CT and field instructor might have the opportunity to compliment the intern not only on the strong aspects of her or his practice but also on the ability to assess his or her own work.

Face trouble squarely. Trouble of some kind is not a disgrace, but rather is normal in the internship, as it is normal in teaching.  Trouble swept under the rug is likely to breed more trouble.  The earlier we recognize trouble and the quicker we get to working on it, the more likely that the intern will succeed by the end of year.  Calling on TELs, principals, and cluster leaders to help out is reasonable.

The Professional Learning Plan

After every assessment conference, the intern will develop a Professional Learning Plan to identify strengths and weaknesses with respect to the MSU Program Standards. The form can be downloaded from this website. The intern will set goals for improvement, and outline a plan of action to achieve those goals.  The plan will incorporate specific actions to be taken by the intern, field instructor and/or course instructor from that point until the next assessment conference.  The plan should challenge the intern to grow and not reflect a tendency to accept the status quo. 

Goal setting.  Interns may come away from an assessment conference feeling confused or unfocused after receiving feedback on several areas at once.  CTs and field instructors can be very helpful to interns in sorting out priorities and figuring out a rational approach to working toward improvement.  They should discuss with interns long-term goals and then help them identify reasonable short-term goals to work toward between assessment conferences. They also need to  help interns, across the year, keep a focus on whether they are maintaining a sustained focus on key areas that need attention.

Developing an action plan.  Sometimes interns are able to say what they need to learn to do better (e.g., develop more thorough lesson plans), but may not know how to go about achieving a certain goal.  CTs and field instructors--more experienced educators who are more familiar with a range of resources--can play a key role in helping interns develop reasonable action plans for pursuing their goals.  Sometimes the action plan will entail more focused work in the classroom (e.g., teaching reading strategies during guided reading lessons; leading a discussion in science using open-ended questions).  Sometimes it will require interns to figure out better ways to organize their time.  Other times, the area of need will require interns to work outside the classroom (e.g., do more research on a social studies topic as part of planning) or to seek help from a resource person in the building (e.g., work with the Reading Recovery teacher to learn more about making adaptations and accommodations for a particular learner).  An 800-level course instructor could be a key resource person for interns to work with if their areas of need involve subject-specific issues.  The important point here is that interns need support in translating the goals they want to achieve into action plans that match them up with appropriate resources.

Revisiting and updating the plan over time.  Since the Professional Learning Plan is updated and revised after each assessment conference, it will become a "growing and living" document that represents areas for growth targeted across the year.  It is intended to be a useful tool that interns, CTs and field instructors refer to as they continue their ongoing work together, not a document that the intern writes to get an assignment done, and then ignores. Field instructors and CTs should ask interns how they're doing with their plan, and whether they need additional suggestions for resources or strategies for working on the plan.  The Professional Learning Plan is also a source of information for developing the Professional Portfolio, which chronicles the intern's professional learning over time.

Readiness for Subbing

During Phase 2 of the internship, there is a three-week time period when interns are in school full time (weeks 7 - 9) and they are engaged in collaborative unit teaching.   Preparation for the mid-semester assessment conference (weeks 8 or 9) may be a good time to study the Substitute Teaching Policy, which is included in this website. In brief, the policy is that, during the period of internship, an intern may substitute teach for her or his own collaborating teacher, for up to 15 days (or 30 half-days), under some specific conditions.  To avoid confusion and misunderstandings, CTs and interns should read and follow the policy, which calls first for an explicit decision (agreed upon by the field instructor and the collaborating teacher, in consultation with the intern and cluster leader) that the intern is ready to substitute for her or his CT.

It is generally recommended that the intern's readiness for subbing is most accurately assessed toward the end of week 9, when the intern has had opportunity to demonstrate readiness through full-time involvement in the classroom.  In some cases, even more time is needed to be sure the intern is ready to take on that responsibility.  Readiness is decided on a case by case basis in consultation with the intern, the collaborating teacher, the field instructor, and the cluster leader.  There are forms to be completed and signed before an intern substitutes for the CT, and reports to be made in writing about the intern's subbing (see Report on Substitute Teaching).

End-of-Semester Assessment and Grading

This assessment is conducted at the end of fall semester (week 15 or 16), and at the end of spring semester (week 14 or 15).  It should be conducted in much the same way as the mid-semester assessment, giving the intern an opportunity to speak first, and making sure that both strengths and areas for further growth are identified.  Interns will update their Professional Learning Plan at the end of fall semester, and use it to guide their work during the early weeks of spring semester.  That plan might show how the intern will grow as needed to succeed during the spring guided lead teaching period.

MSU's Teacher Preparation Program Grading Policy for TE 501/2 and information on the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification are available on this website.

Consultation about the grade.  Formally, the grade for TE 501 and TE 502 is set by the Team Coordinator who is the instructor of record for Team 2. In practice, the grade for TE 501 is set by consultation among the cluster leader, the field instructor and the collaborating teacher.

The CT works with the intern most days over the semester, and so has more specific information about the intern's performance and growth over time.  The field instructor works with several interns and the field instructors' group during weekly meetings, and so is in a better position to achieve consistency in the application of standards and make judgments about the interns' participation in professional learning experiences outside the classroom. Our aim should be to combine these two perspectives, not to set them up as competitors.

If the field instructor and collaborating teacher cannot settle a grade by consultation, the cluster leader and Team Coordinator will attempt to preserve their working relationship and do right for the intern by talking with all of them, gathering any other information that s/he believes s/he needs, and setting the grade.

Grades for TE 501 and 502 should be processed by the Team Two Coordinator; they will be reported to the Registrar according to MSU due dates, as required through the University.

The Final Report

Collaborating teachers and field instructors write a Final Report for each intern with whom they work.  In mid-March, interns should give field instructors and CTs copies of a draft list of their accomplishments to date, so that writers of the report can, from then to mid-April, reflect with the interns on their performance and progress throughout the year.  CTs and field instructors will begin drafting final reports, and have the option of attending a Team Two writing workshop to get feedback on their draft.  By early May, interns should have read each report in its final form, and decide whether to sign them, thus authorizing Team Two to send them to the Placement Office.

Team Two will send all signed final reports to the Placement Office by the second week in May.  Given that all reports for all interns must be processed during a short span of time, that is the earliest date that any intern reasonably may expect the reports to be filed with the Placement Office.

Purpose and audience.   The purpose of the final Intern report is not to tell the saga of the year's development.  Rather, it is to describe the level of development the intern has attained.  The description should be based primarily on the intern's spring guided lead teaching period.  Our view of learning to teach in the Team Two Teacher Preparation Program is that learning to teach is a life-long process.  This description of the intern's "exit performance" is the beginning of that continuous process.

Potential employers are the audience for the final report.  They are interested in the knowledge, dispositions, habits, and skills that the intern has acquired by the latter part of the year, especially as shown in the latter half of the spring lead teaching period.  The final report is the equivalent of a letter of recommendation and interns may choose whether or not to include their Final Report in their Placement File.  The Final Report is the place where collaborating teachers and field instructors can comment on the extent to which interns have developed a thoughtful and skillful practice of teaching by the latter half of the spring semester.

Organization and content.   Potential employers need to know about the internship situation, the context in which the intern has worked on developing his or her teaching practice.  They also need to know, in relation to the program's professional standards, the extent to which the intern has developed as a professional.  The following is the suggested order for discussing the intern's professional development, based on the Teacher Preparation Program Standards.

Description of Internship Situation 
Knowing Subject Matters and How to Teach Them
Working with Students
Creating and Managing a classroom learning community
Working and Learning in a School and Profession