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About Us

Standards & Accreditation

From the Associate Dean:

Our goal in the School of Education is to maintain strong programs that prepare our students well to take on the take on the educational challenges of this new century. To maintain high quality we are engaged in ongoing assessment of our programs by assessing the skills that are students have developed. We use the assessments to evaluate what we are doing and revise our programs, so students are able to be better prepared for their future professional work. Students measure their performances against rigorous state and national standards. As a School, we see it as our responsibility and challenge to encourage, inspire, and mentor our students, so they can demonstrate their mastery of these demanding standards.

As Associate Dean, I assist the Dean by overseeing matters of assessment in the School of Education. I Chair the Unit Assessment System (UAS) Taskforce, which is composed of faculty and staff that meet regularly to coordinate and implement the assessment systems of our many undergraduate and graduate programs [PDF]. With the UAS Taskforce members as liaisons, we work to involve the whole faculty, whose input and help we depend on. We also build into are Unit Assessment Systems the participation of stakeholders and students. We see this as central to providing the best programs possible by meeting the professional needs of our students and the standards of the state, NCATE, the professional societies, our School, and our programs.

We serve directly the State of Indiana’s Department of Education/Division of Professional Standards, as well as our accreditor, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). We use standards appropriate to our various programs (See “Programs”). For example, for the undergraduate teacher education programs we use the Interstate New teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) Standards; for the graduate elementary and secondary programs we use the 5-Core Propositions from the National Board for professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS).

We were last accredited by NCATE in spring of 2003. We had a Focused Visit on Standard 2 for the Advanced Programs in fall of 2005. We are planning for our next NCATE visit in spring of 2010. In spring of 2008 we will submit Program Reviews of 18 programs to the IDOE/DPS and we will also have a state UAS panel review.

We invite your feedback on our programs in our ongoing pursuit to strengthen them.

Kathleen Murphey

Professor and Associate Dean