The faculty teaching in the EC-6 Program will continue to meet and plan collaboratively, as a committee, to identify areas of improvement and ways to support our teacher candidates in becoming highly effective teachers for a diverse population. For example, we will review our course syllabi before the start of each semester to ensure that both national and state standards are addressed. We will continue to analyze data (from TK20) to help with program improvement. More specifically, the instructors will prepare teacher candidates to teach 21st century skills such as, critical thinking and problem solving. To support these goals, the faculty will continue to model and adapt project based learning (PBL) as a primary methodology in all our courses. We will require at least one major PBL assessment during the content methods semester. All these should help us meet goal 1 with more depth and rigor. Our candidates should be able to plan, implement, assess, and modify effective instruction that supports 21st century skills (communication, critical thinking, problem solving).

For goal 2 (demonstrate mastery of the state educators standards assessed in the PPR), the original criterion (85% first time passing rate) has been met. In addition, our higher criterion (93%) set for 2012-2013 was met (98% passing rate for first time test takers).  In anticipation for a much more rigorous revised PPR (for EC-12 certification) examination, the faculty will have the following measures in place in order to improve weak areas.  Two domains on the PPR (Designing Instruction, assessment to promote student learning, and Implementing effective and responsive instruction and assessment) will be reinforced in all our content methods courses. These two areas will be addressed in previous courses where lesson planning to meet the needs of diverse learners is taught. To help candidate become familiar with the rationale, language, and format of the PPR teacher certification examination questions, each instructor (in the methods semester) prepares 10 sample questions from his/her content area (includes Classroom Management) and use these items for either pre or post assessment in the course. Both instructors and candidates will discuss/analyze questions and rationalize choice of acceptable and unacceptable answers.  The faculty will further involve the certification office to provide feedback on the practice test results so that areas of concern can be identified prior to the state examination date. Finally, the content methods instructors in the EC-6 program will emphasize modeling and requiring interdisciplinary learning units (with technology integration). This will result in a stronger alignment with  the PPR state teacher examination. This plan should raise our passing rate (first time) to 95%.

We have adopted most of the plans described above (2012-2013 report) which focused on improving teacher quality in terms of their readiness to implement 21st century skills. The faculty worked intensely in modeling and adapting project based learning (PBL) as a primary methodology in all our courses. In our content methods courses, only "mini" PBLs were assigned in order to make the assessments more realistic, hence meeting the constraints of public schools setting.  All these steps helped us meet goal #1 with more depth and rigor. While many of the full-time instructors implemented project based learning (PBL) in their courses, we have no strong evidence to show that other instructors (e.g., adjunct) have been using PBL. They need to attend PBL workshops and be present at faculty meetings in order to stay updated. This is an area we need to work hard during the next report cycle. 
Although we have implemented most of the plans for continuous improvement (in 2012-2013 report), more work is needed in technology integration from both the faculty and the teacher candidates. Latest standards, define "use of technology" as students using tools to help them learn the content; Not only the teacher. The faculty needs to address this more by modeling strategies in the courses. 
The faculty worked intensely at aligning courses and syllabi with the PPR competencies. Content methods instructors have designed more authentic course assessments to closely link theory and practice.
Meanwhile, the offices for certification, field experience, and accreditation have supported instructors and field supervisors in providing current data, information, and other services which helped us prepare quality teacher candidates who are also successful on the state certification examination.

In order to meet both goals, the faculty will continue to model good assessment practices (e.g., project based, performance-based), engaging teaching models, and infusing instructional technology into all our courses.  We need to address our inadequate technology to model what public schools are using in their classrooms. Our department will purchase more “high” technology for faculty to use and to model effective practice. Additionally, faculty will collaborate with public school officials so that early field experience of our candidates will include professional development on the use of campus-based technology.

Faculty will focus more intently on helping teacher candidates address the needs of diverse population in planning and implementing instruction. Faculty will emphasize this more during lesson planning with particular attention to accommodation strategies (specific to English Learners and students of poverty).

We will challenge our faculty and teacher candidates by increasing our criterion for meeting both goals/objectives. The faculty teaching in the EC-6 Interdisciplinary Program will set a goal of 95% passing rate on the PPR (Goal 2) and 95% of all student teachers receiving an overall score of 2 or 3 on the Teacher Work Sample (TWS) (Goal 1).

For a tighter alignment between courses and new standards (national and state), a revised template for course syllabi will be used effective Fall, 2014. More importantly, the standards on Dispositions, Diversity, and professionalism will be given more emphasis in all education courses.

The faculty in the EC-6 Program, which include many adjunct instructors will develop a plan for better communication and information about "standardizing" courses, course assessments, etc. in order to strengthen the program. Currently, EC-6 program courses are taught in 3 different campuses (includes day and night sections). Consequently, communication among instructors and accountability is a challenge. This plan should support Goals 1 and 2.