Assessment

CAEP ACCOUNTABILITY MEASURES

The data that can be gathered are from recent academic years. It is hoped that with these data we can begin to provide a current snapshot of Sweet Briar’s Education Program and our completers.

MEASURE 1 (Initial): Completer effectiveness. (R4.1)

Currently, we do not have sufficient evidence to provide a profile of graduates of the teacher education program who are working in K-12 schools. During 2023-24, we will follow up with our completers to be able to provide a case study to include interviews with the completers and with their administrators; observations; and hopefully some feedback from the students and/or their parents with the goal being to better understand the efficacy of our program for first year completers.

May 2023 Graduates: two of the five 2023 MAT graduates were employed as elementary teachers during the 2022-23 school year. One of these two was hired February 2023. She had had a field placement in the school since September 2022, before the start of her January 2023 student teaching placement. The other 2023 MAT graduate had completed at Sweet Briar all but student teaching when she was hired for an elementary teaching position, supported by her MAT work during 2022-23.

May 2022 Graduates: one of the three MAT graduates currently is teaching. She is an art teacher in a rural county of Virginia. She reports being happy with her work with K-12 students.

May 2021 Graduates: three of the five MAT graduates are teaching. One is teaching middle school history and one is teaching high school Spanish. (in Virginia) One is teaching kindergarten (and dance) in North Carolina.

May 2020 Graduates: It is not known if the two MAT graduates are teaching.

MEASURE 2: Satisfaction of Employers and Stakeholder Involvement

Satisfaction of Employers

Sweet Briar College participates in the Virginia Education Assessment Collaborative (VEAC) Employer Survey for Initial Licensure programs. The Virginia Education Assessment Collaborative utilizes a common, standardized survey of program completers and their employers using the language and concepts of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Uniform Performance Standards. Each year, 36 Educator Preparation Programs in the Commonwealth of Virginia survey their program completers as well as their employers in order to improve their programs and meet the requirements of the Virginia Department of Education and CAEP. By standardizing survey recruitment, timelines, and process, VEAC hopes to reduce the complexity of surveys that principals and administrators complete each year to support EPPs. By benchmarking with the other VEAC participants, EPPs can better understand their strengths and areas for improvement. Additionally, VEAC provides a common language and prompts discussion for program improvement.

Stakeholder Involvement

The Sweet Briar College Education Department would not be able to provide the preparation of future preK-12 teachers without working closely with internal and external partners.

Our internal partners include Sweet Briar’s academic departments that provide the major coursework for our future PreK-12 and Secondary teachers and the academic departments that provide the various coursework outside the Education Department required for licensure. The Education Department Director (and as needed, other Education Department faculty) meets a few times each year with each of these departments to discuss alignment of coursework with Education Department coursework and licensure requirements.
At Sweet Briar, we also have the Teacher Education Committee (TEC). The TEC is made up of college faculty, one faculty member from a nearby college, and Sweet Briar’s Registrar. The TEC primarily provides support and advice to Sweet Briar’s Education Department.
Our external partners include not only the specific administrators and cooperating teachers who make our field placements possible, but members of the Teacher Education Advisory Committee (TEAC), representatives from the three school districts that, throughout their Education program, provide our students field placements, including student teaching. TEAC meets two to three times each year. TEAC is a vehicle for the Sweet Briar Education Department to receive feedback and input into the ways in which we interact with the K-12 schools, including securing field placements; the design or expectation for these placements; and the agenda for workshops with cooperating teachers.

2022-23 Academic Departments working with the Education Department

2022-23 TEC Members & Recent Meeting Agenda

2022-23 TEAC Members

2022-23 TEAC Minutes

MEASURE 3: Candidate Competency at Program Completion

The Sweet Briar teacher education program currently uses multiple forms of evidence to monitor candidates’ content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, classroom skills, and development as professionals. Beginning 2023-24, we will monitor candidate disposition, too. Prior to 2022-23, limited data are available to support “competency at program completion.” During 2022-23, the program began to collect these data.

As candidates approach program completion, they demonstrate their competency while completing their supervised student teaching placement (begun as a practicum the first semester of the student teaching year) and assemble a professional portfolio. As part of their student teaching, candidates engage in formal coaching with the student teaching supervisor. MAT students plan, conduct, and (beginning spring 2024) present an action research project, begun the fall of their student teaching year.

The portfolio includes evidence of demonstration of the 10 InTASC standards (primarily from the candidate’s engagement in formal coaching) and the candidate’s teaching philosophy, demonstrating development from their acceptance in the teacher education program, usually two years previously. The InTASC Standards (Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium) were developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). These Model Core Teaching Standards articulate what effective teaching and learning looks like in a transformed public education system – one that empowers every learner to take ownership of their learning, that emphasizes the learning of content and application of knowledge and skill to real world problems, that values the differences each learner brings to the learning experience, and that leverages rapidly changing learning environments by recognizing the possibilities they bring to maximize learning and engage learners.

2022-23 Summary of Evidence of Candidate Competency at Program Completion (name of link for document below)

This is a quick summary of the work of Sweet Briar’s Education Department with respect to gathering evidenced of “candidate competency at program completion.”

The six candidates seeking licensure (5 MAT and 1 BA) completed a basic portfolio that primarily included evidence of the 10 InTASC Standards. The student students each submitted evidence of their satisfactory demonstration of the expectation described by the standard (the learner & learning; content; instructional practice; and professional responsibility).

The student teachers demonstrated relative strength with “learner differences” and “planning for instruction.”
The student teachers appeared to struggle the most with “content knowledge.” [See “stakeholders” for Measure 2 in “Accountability Measures.” The Education Department is working with Sweet Briar’s academic departments to determine how our students can achieve good understanding of each of the disciplines for which they are responsible for teaching.]

The MAT student teachers worked on an “action research project” (teacher action research). Each MAT student gained greater understanding of the purpose for a teacher engaging in action research. First semester of the student teaching year, each student teacher identified what was particularly meaning to her and began to explore the literature about the topic: the concern in K-12 education and previous work to explore the concern.

Three student teachers completed a comprehensive annotated bibliography in order to better understand the concern and the previous work to address the concern. These student teachers continued to reflect on their interaction with their students relative to the concern.
Two student teachers completed their action research. As expected, they realized the need to keep exploring! Each of their research will be published to be placed in the Sweet Briar College Cochran Library: Building Positive Relationships to Increase Motivation: A Qualitative Teacher Action Research Study for Elementary Teachers Starting Mid-Year and Differentiated 5th-Grade Reading Levels: Understanding the Relationship Between Fluency and Comprehension.

MEASURE 4: Ability of Completers to be Hired in Education Positions (2019 to Present)

Ability of Completers to be Hired in Education Positions (2019 to Present)

Year of Completion	MAT	Undergraduate (2023—first BA class)	Total Completers (passed all testing)	#Employed (in K-12)
2022-23	5	1	7/13/23—4	7/13/23—6
2021-22	3	0	0	1
2020-21	5	0	1	3
2019-20	2	0	2	2

Ability of Completers to Meet Licensing Requirements and Additional State Requirements

Candidates also demonstrate their competency by taking and passing the professional teacher assessments required by the Virginia Department of Education | Home (VDOE). Per the Regulations Governing the Review and Approval of Education Programs in Virginia, the VDOE defines program completers as individuals who have successfully completed all coursework, required assessments, including those prescribed by the Board of Education, and supervised student teaching or required internship.

Student Loan Default Rates and Other Consumer Information

The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Institution Profile report provides annual data on multiple institutional data indicators (e.g., Student Charges, Student Financial Aid, Net Price, Enrollment, Completions, Retention and Graduation, and Outcomes Measures) relevant to Randolph College stakeholders. These data can be reviewed for Sweet Briar College and comparisons made with other institutions. Data are updated annually and can be accessed at this link:

https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/institutionprofile.aspx?unitId=233718.

The national average student loan default rate is publicly available from the Federal Student Aid website.

Sweet Briar College’s most recent three-year default rates are also publicly available from the NSLDS: Official Cohort Default Rate - Schools (ed.gov). Search using OPE-ID: 003742 or School: Sweet Briar College.

NDSL/Perkins Loan: Cohort default rate: 16.67%

Number of borrowers who entered repayment		Number of borrowers in default by
2021-22	4	6/30/23	1
2000-21	8	6/30/22	0
2019-20	6	6/30/21	2
TOTAL	18	TOTAL	3