August 13, 2001

ISU selected for national initiative
on teacher education 

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- Indiana State University is one of seven universities in the country chosen to serve on the National Academy of Education (NAE) Committee on Teacher Education (CTE).

Funded by a two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the CTE will bring together researchers, teacher educators and practitioners from around the United States to reach a consensus on the essential knowledge base for new teachers.

"I think it’s going to be an excellent opportunity for Indiana State University to continue to demonstrate a leadership role in the field of teacher education and to be in the mainstream of new developments in this field," said C. Jack Maynard, dean of the ISU School of Education. "Ultimately, this may have a tremendous impact on teacher education programs across the country, including our own."

Provost Steven K. Pontius was also pleased with the appointment. "It speaks volumes about the strength of Indiana State’s teacher education programs to be asked to be a part of this highly regarded and select group of institutions. It also positions us to be on the leading edge as this discipline continues to evolve."

Tom Dickinson, ISU professor of curriculum, instruction and media technology, has been asked to serve as the university’s institutional liaison to the project. He has worked on committees with national leaders in education before, but this appointment is a special honor, he said.

"As an institution, it is very good to be chosen. But I was personally flattered,"  he said. "This is a very smart group and the way they’ve designed the committee will be excellent for bouncing ideas off each other and collaborating on ideas as well. I think there’s going to be a lot of listening to and sharing of ideas."

Dickinson will share and translate information he receives at the meetings with professionals in the School of Education. He will listen to their perspectives and reactions and take their comments back to the committee, he said.

"We’ve been given a seat at the table to make an impact, not only for the School of Education and ISU, but for Indiana and the country as well," Dickinson said. "It’s an opportunity for people to see we are really doing things in education. I think it’s pretty exciting for us."

The first meeting of the cooperating institutions will be Sept. 12 in San Francisco. Other universities involved in the project are New York University, Stanford University, the University of Georgia, the University of Texas at El Paso, Vanderbilt University and Xavier University of Louisiana. Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University and John D. Bransford of Vanderbilt University will co-chair the committee.

The purpose of the committee is to set up a recommended knowledge base for new teachers. Members of the CTE will evaluate the results of prior research in learning in social contexts, human development, principles of teaching and educational assessment and then develop recommendations concerning ways in which this foundational knowledge for new teachers can be incorporated into programs of teacher education.

The initiative also includes a 10-member subcommittee on the teaching of reading, chaired by Catherine Snow of Harvard University. The reading committee will focus on what new kindergarten and elementary school teachers need to know and be able to do to teach reading effectively.

The NAE, in its proposal, stated this initiative is important because of a variety of forces that focus the public’s attention on teachers and the quality of instruction received by students. Among these are calls for high academic achievement for all children, demands for accountability of educational institutions and stakeholders, new federal legislation, the recommendations of a prestigious commission and new research findings demonstrating teacher quality is the single most important school variable affecting student achievement.

In addition, student enrollments are at an all-time high, at the same time that the teacher work force is aging, and large numbers of teachers are likely to retire in the next few years. It is anticipated that 220,000 new teachers must be hired nationwide each year in the foreseeable future, if the country is to meet the educational needs of an ever-burgeoning student population.

The NAE  believes the way to improve teacher preparation is to develop programs of pre-service and in-service education that allow teachers to understand, master and deploy an increasing range of strategies to help children learn and that encourage them to become even more reflective about their own practice. 

"My perception is that this group will build upon and extend the work INTASC (Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium) has done on developing standards for new teachers," Dickinson said. "This is a group made up of people from large and small institutions, public and private institutions, institutions from the Midwest, the South and both coasts." 

The diversity of the committee assures that every institution is represented, Dickinson said. He expects the group to make recommendations from the information they gather, but he stresses anything a college or university implements would be voluntary.

"Nobody wants to be fed standards, but we do want consensus in practice of what could and should work," Dickinson said. "Any mandated changes would have to be adopted by state governments."

Dickinson expects another goal of the committee will be to "professionalize"  the education profession.

"For example, in law, medicine, architecture or accounting there are bodies of standards that everyone agrees upon," he said. "The committee is not so much a criticism as an attempt to elevate the status of education as a profession, to both teachers and the public."

The push toward establishing a set of standards, Dickinson said, is partially due to how society has become so mobile. If there is a consensus in standards, parents and students can be assured that teachers will be of a certain quality, no matter where in the country a family lives.

The CTE hopes to find ways to help colleges and universities emphasize to teacher candidates the importance of the human development, assessment, teaching strategies and reading instruction.

In its proposal, the NAE explained these terms as follows:

Human development:  Interpreting learners’ statements and actions and framing productive experiences for them also requires knowledge of development — how children and adolescents think and behave, what they are trying to accomplish, what they find interesting, what they already know, what they are ready to learn and what they are likely to have trouble with in particular domains at particular ages in particular contexts.

Assessment:  With the introduction of standards-based reform, the nature of what     constitutes the job of teaching and the understanding of teaching and learning has     changed profoundly.

Teaching strategies: Methods should address a variety of ways to learn and a variety of purposefully selected goals for learning.

Reading instruction: Reveal what teachers need to know and can do to assure that all students can learn. 

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