Summary of the Case Cornerstone University Teacher Education Department Undergraduate Elementary and Secondary Programs

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1 Summary of the Case Cornerstone University Teacher Education Department Undergraduate Elementary and Secondary Programs The Summary of the Case is written by the auditors and approved by program faculty. The Summary reflects the auditors understanding of the case the faculty is making for accreditation. Introduction Cornerstone University is a Christ-centered university with a passion for global influence through the transforming power of the gospel. Cornerstone University is an independent, evangelical Christian institution founded in 1941 as the Baptist Bible Institute of Grand Rapids. The University experienced periods of growth, relocation to the current 130 acre campus in Grand Rapids, a merger with Grand Rapids School of Bible and Music, and several name changes. The state of Michigan approved the consolidation of Cornerstone College and Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary into Cornerstone University in The University currently has 55 full-time faculty, total enrollment of more than 2,600 students, and offers more than 50 undergraduate programs in the arts, sciences, theological, and professional studies. Cornerstone University offers 16 advanced degrees, along with adult undergraduate and graduate programs, through the Professional & Graduate Studies Division, Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and Asia Baptist Theological Seminary. The University also provides radio broadcast ministries with millions of daily listeners. The Teacher Education Program began in 1973 as a combined program with Calvin College and was approved as an independent program by the state in The program is one of eight university departments and has five full time faculty, two part time faculty, and thirteen adjuncts serving just under 300 students in the areas of elementary and secondary education. The Teacher Education mission, aligned with the university s mission, is to prepare students to serve as highly qualified teachers in public, Christian, or Overseas schools by developing the knowledge, skills, and Christian character to enable them to be servant leaders who are influencers in their world for Jesus Christ. The Teacher Education Program is conceptually organized around a teaching-learning model in which the teacher is the center. This model includes a hierarchy of seven teaching roles defined in ascending order as: instrument, scholar, designer, manager, instructor, evaluator, and professional. The program measures outcomes in these roles through the Student Teaching Rubric. All elementary and secondary candidates are required to complete a certifiable major and minor along with a professional sequence of education courses. Teaching practicums are offered in various settings, including overseas, Chicago, inner city, suburban, rural, and multi-age environments. The program graduated 43 students in and enrolled 284 students in in the following major program options:

2 Table 1 Cornerstone University Elementary and Secondary Options Option Name Level Number of completers in previous academic year ( ) Number of students enrolled in current academic year ( ) BIOLOGY UG 1 3 COMMUNICATION SEC UG 0 1 COMPREHENSIVE MAJOR EL UG 0 18 ENGLISH ELEM UG 3 1 ENGLISH SEC UG 3 33 HISTORY ELE UG 1 1 HISTORY SEC UG 1 12 INTEGRATED COMP SCI SEC UG 3 4 INTEGRATED SCI ELE UG 1 4 INTEGRATED SCI SEC UG 0 7 LANGUAGE ARTS ELE UG 4 33 LEARNING DISABILITIES ELE UG LEARNING DISABILITIES SEC UG 1 9 MATH SEC UG 1 15 PHY ED ELE UG 0 2 PHY ED SEC UG 0 15 SPANISH ELE UG 0 3 SPANISH SEC UG 0 8 SOCIAL STUDIES ELE UG 0 9 SOCIAL STUDIES SEC UG 2 10 TRIPLE MINOR UG 8 51 MUSIC ED INSTRUM UG 1 8 MUSIC ED VOCAL UG 3 9 Total Claims of Student Learning Cornerstone University is seeking accreditation for its undergraduate secondary and elementary programs. The faculty makes five claims of student learning explicitly tied to the elements of TEAC Quality Principle I: Claim #1: Candidates have a foundation in liberal arts with Christian world view integration. (Subject Matter Knowledge)

3 Claim #2: Candidates are proficient in the subject matter that they will teach. (Subject Matter Knowledge) Claim #3: Candidates use instructional strategies that meet the needs of diverse learners. (Pedagogical Knowledge) Claim #4: Candidates integrate technology into their teaching. (Pedagogical Knowledge) Claim #5: Candidates are caring and effective teachers. (Caring and Effective Teaching Skill) Proposed Evidence Supporting the Claims The program proposes evidence for the program claims from 10 sources: 1. General Core GPA (Claim 1) All students at the university are required to take a core sequence of courses aligned to the mission of the university, and the program calculated the GPA for these core courses from the students sampled in its Internal Audit (n = 15, GPA = 3.05 for all students) and compared it with the core course GPA of the general university population (GPA = 2.97 over the sampled years). 2. Capstone Course Assessment for Student Teaching (Claim 1) Beginning in the academic year, all University students complete a common capstone assignment based on the same reading and evaluated with a common rubric. These data were not available at the time the Brief was written but will be included in the future. 3. Cumulative GPA (Claim 2) The program has a well-defined policy to ensure that students maintain an overall 2.7 or higher GPA in their major and at least a 2.3 GPA in minors in order to remain in the program. The program offers their students adherence to this policy as evidence that the students demonstrate proficiency of content in both their general core courses as well as professional education courses. 4. MTTC Subject Matter Tests (Claim 2) The program offers the pass rates of the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification (MTTC) as evidence for subject matter knowledge for both elementary and secondary students. Tests are taken in both major and minor areas. The program provides pass rates for each of the test areas for the and academic years (90.8% and 89.6% pass rates) in comparison with the state pass rates for the same years (88.1 % pass rate overall). The program identifies areas that had below 70% passing rates in its discussion and analysis. The program provides information regarding content validation of the tests by the publisher and the state of Michigan. 5. Descriptive Statistics from Methods Courses (Claim 3) The program provides course GPA data for five academic years from six methods courses (overall GPA for the six courses = 3.37). Additional descriptive data included standard

4 deviation, the number of students, and course grade range. The program stated that at least 50% of each methods course grade was determined by coursework requiring the application of the course content, thus supporting the validity of the grades as a measure. In addition, the discussion and the analysis of the results addressed the variance of course grades (with standard deviations ranging from a low of.15 to a high of 1.4) as a measure of reliability. 6. Student Teaching Grading Rubric and Pedagogy Score (Claim 3) The Student Teaching Grading Rubric rates students by each of the seven teaching roles of the program s conceptual model. The program drew data from the , , and academic years for the roles of Scholar and Instructor and then performed t-tests using an alpha-level of.05 between scores of subcategories within each role. The program discussed areas of significant results (for example, the area of differentiation showed significant t-tests with other categories) and identified areas for monitoring. The program states that multiple raters review the rubric each year to increase the reliability in terms of providing feedback for possible revisions. 7. Course Integration & Instruction Work Samples (Claim 4) The program offered links to four student online efolios from EDU 262 and two efolios from EDU 230 to provide examples of technology integration by students and to demonstrate that the students had met ISTE, NETS-T and 7 th Entry-Level Standards for Michigan Teachers in technology. 8. Descriptive Statistics from EDU262 (Claim 4) The program provides mean GPA (3.54 GPA over five years) and descriptive statistics (n ranges from 41 to 58, standard deviation ranges from.41 to 1.14, grade ranges from 2.0 to 4.0) for the EDU 262 Computers and Technology course. Discussion of course content and grade variance is provided to support validity and reliability of the measure. 9. Cooperating Teacher Student Teacher Survey (Claim 5) The program presents data from the Cooperating Teacher Post Student Teacher Survey for and The survey asks for ratings on a 1 to 5 scale to evaluate the program s ability to train teachers in each of the seven roles defined by the program model. Data providing the number of responses for each level of each item was provided for each semester for both secondary and elementary candidates. Most ratings were at the 4 or 5 level. The program identified areas of strengths and weaknesses of its candidates based upon the survey results. The program stated that the survey may be revised in terms of wording, structure, and the addition of a neutral option in order to increase validity. 10. Michigan Department of Education Supervisor Survey (Claim 5) The MDE survey provides ratings by supervisors on candidates for eight categories on a scale of 1 to 4, and data was provided from the and surveys (79% of the scores were 4, 15% were 3, 4% were 2, and 1% were 1). The

5 program also provided a qualitative sampling of words and phrases from the narrative sections of the survey which supported the claim, and 32% of the students had comments associated with relationships with students or staff, or meeting the needs of students. Internal Audit The program organized the Internal Audit around four points of contact for students earning their degree: Admissions, Curriculum, Faculty and Resources. The Teacher Education Faculty and Staff conducted an internal audit of the Quality Control System in May 2011 and the summer of 2012 using a sample of 15 student folders, representing 10% of the program completers from Spring 2010 to Spring 2012 for the Admissions area. Probes for other sources were developed for each of the remaining three areas, and findings for each probe were described. Recommendations were made based upon the findings in the Admissions area to improve staff checks of specific items submitted to the student folders. Plans for Program Improvement The Brief provides an analysis of the results for each of the measures and then concludes the discussion with Next Steps that the program plans to take. The Brief identifies areas of future research with plans to run correlations and regressions between variables to explore predictive validity (for example, between methods course grades and student teacher performance), exploration of gender differences in performance measures, and a qualitative study of Michigan Department of Education (MDE) survey results. The Brief proposes plans to explore possibilities for additional evidence for Claim 1 due to weaknesses identified in the Brief in the evidence for this claim. The Brief also describes additional plans to reinstate the Teacher Education Advisory Council, to expand the sample for the online Principal Survey, to solicit data from program graduates, and to develop methods for gathering additional student feedback on program elements. Statement Regarding Capacity The faculty provided evidence in Appendix B of the Brief which supports the case that the program has sufficient capacity and also has parity with the institutional norms for the listed criteria.