progress report

Frank Medley and Bob Terry, Co-Chairs of the Teacher Development Task Force met with the Group Leaders and with the members of the four internal Working Groups at the 2003 annual meeting of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), to answer questions and to outline the goals of the Task Force. The Working Group Leaders then met with their respective Working Groups and established their agendas for the coming months. Here is a report on the outcomes of the four group meetings at ACTFL.

Preparing Teachers to Implement Content and Performance Standards

Internship

Induction

In-service Professional Development

Group Leader: Carmen Chaves Tesser
Group Members in Attendance: Sue Hendrickson, David Marlow, Arlene White, June Phillips

This group took as its charge to focus on teacher preparation programs vis-à-vis the NCATE standards. Members not familiar with the ACTFL/NCATE standards were encouraged to download them from the ACTFL website, and to review the FAQs on the site. The group agreed that this document would provide a good starting point for their work.

The group established several guidelines for their work, noting that any recommendations made or action taken should not disenfranchise small programs (e.g., requiring that programs have a study-abroad experience). One of the goals of the group is to figure out how to help Teacher Education programs that are preparing for NCATE accreditation. Throughout, the members of the Group will be looking for quantitative and qualitative data to support their work.

The Group reviewed the issues brought out in the NVA survey that directly affect their work, and discussed issues of teacher licensure raised by one of the members who was not able to attend the meeting this year.

Finally, they made general plans to stay in touch. The first means of communication will be through e-mail, with messages and responses sent to all members of the Group. If this proves to be unsatisfactory, or too cumbersome, the Group Leader will set up a bulletin board in the spring semester.

As a way of introducing themselves to each other, the group decided to write a bit about their own experience in teacher preparation (rather than sending each other cold CVs). In this way, they not only get to know each other better, but they also know where their group strengths that can be called on in the future. Carmen initiated the procedure by including a paragraph about herself to remind the others to do the same.

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Group Leader: Judith Shrum
Members in Attendance: Dave McAlpine, Anne Nerenz, Ruth Owens, Mary Lynn Redmond, Emily Spinelli

First, the group agreed that its focus on internship should also include those aspects of the FL methods course that relate to internship.

Second, the group centered its discussion on trying to identify high-quality but realistic models for internships that work well in a variety of teacher preparation programs. The group looked over two documents: (1) "The Student Teaching Experience: Definition of Best Practice," endorsed by the Michigan Foreign Language Association and brought to our attention by group members Emily Spinelli and Anne Nerenz; and (2) most important characteristics of internships based on frequency of responses to the NVIA survey.

With these two documents as stimuli, the group posed the question: "What else do we need to know?" and decided to describe the members' own programs for each other's benefit. Following ACTFL, members of the Working Group will conduct searches in their regions via personal contact, Internet, review of literature, or other means to identify documents similar to the Michigan Best Practices document. Since they do not represent all of the regions of the country, they decided to suggest colleagues whom they might contact in the northwest, southwest, and northeast regions.

Next, the group decided that a web-based survey could provide additional input, and lead to the creation of a database that might be useful for those seeking to establish, improve, or evaluate internships for second language teachers. The survey will seek input from purposefully selected colleges/universities in these categories: small liberal arts, medium-sized, and large research institutions. They envision a final product resulting from the survey, the best practice documents, and the NVA survey that would begin with a delineation of principles of best practice and narrative recommendations along the lines of "These principles can best be supported by the following practices in __x_ type of institution.” The group then brainstormed some of the principles of best practice that it felt might be included in the database.

Finally, the group decided to facilitate its work via an electronic connection where they can store and share documents such as those cited above as well as correspond via e-mail. Judith agreed to have a Blackboard site established at Virginia Tech with access for all members of the group.

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Group Leader: Nadine Olson
Group Members in Attendance: Desa Dawson, Frank Mulhern

The Induction Working Group has adopted the goal of describing the principal characteristics of effective induction/mentoring programs that will encourage and support new teachers. Induction is defined as “that period of transition from student to professional when beginning teachers are offered supervision and support as they adjust to their new roles” (Horn, Sterling, and Subhan, 2002). Induction is “training, support, and retention” (Wong, n.d.).

Participants discussed several key questions that must be addressed in order to carry out the charge, such as:

• What is the induction period?
• Who is an inductee?
• What additional support do alternatively certified inductees need?
• What resources for induction already exist in various regions, states, and school districts?
• What is the profile of a good mentor?
• Can the Internet be used for on-line mentor collaboration?
• What essential criteria will be used to identify characteristics of model programs?

The group also reviewed the original NVA survey questions. Noting that the original survey did not specifically address the role of inductees or mentors, Nadine Olson and Desa Dawson shared several new questions that they had recently developed and posed at their state language association conference in Oklahoma. They collected data from 21 respondents. Other Working Group members may be able to collect additional data for these questions.

Members volunteered to complete some specific tasks by the end of the holiday season. One will make a chart comparing the various standards describing what new teachers should know and be able to do (NCATE, INTASC, etc.). Another will develop a flow-chart or checklist delineating a possible process for gathering, analyzing, and disseminating information about current induction/mentoring programs. A third member will develop descriptors of the types of candidates who would need induction service and develop a preliminary profile of the qualifications of mentors. The Chair will contact group members who were unable to attend the initial meeting and enlist their help to find information about induction/mentoring programs that are already established in various states.

All such information will be shared with the entire Working Group for comments. Working Group members established a plan for communication, which will begin via regular e-mail contact. “Next steps” will be established in mid-January. By April, the group will be moving in a clear direction and they will have envisioned a final “product” for its work.

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In-service Professional Development

This Working Group established as its overall goals to (1) identify criteria for evaluating models, (2) identify exemplary models and determine why they are exemplary, and (3) establish a way to showcase these exemplary models.

Toward that end, each member of the group agreed to identify resources that they, as a group, need to read and analyze in order to begin figuring out what comprises effective professional development for teachers who work in different contexts--rural, urban, suburban, etc., and who may be in different stages of their careers--beginning, mid, veteran. These resources may include policy papers, research studies, descriptions of successful models, etc., that are focused on effective professional development. When members of the Group identify a resource they think will be useful, they will send the information to the Group Leader. She will compile a bibliography and send it to the Task Force Co-Chairs, who will retrieve the documents and make them available to members of the Working Group. The current deadline for completion of the task is “before Christmas.”

The Group members will divide up the reading of the documents (this will be facilitated by the Group Leader). Once the members of the Group have had a chance to actually read over the documents, they will have a conference call. The current time frame is for this call to be made in early February. The purpose of the call is to highlight what the Group members have learned from their readings that will facilitate their activities and to lay out the next steps/tasks. One subsequent task will be to synthesize the key information the group members found from reading the documents, create a chart that organizes and incorporates that information, and look carefully at the NBPTS & ISTE documents to see where the gaps are, what programs/models are meeting which standards, etc. This task will lead to identifying and articulating criteria for evaluating programs/models.

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