Frequently Asked Questions

Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA) Frequently Asked Questions Following are some of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) regarding the Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA) pilot. Keep in mind that additional information can be obtained by referencing the MoSCPA Candidate Handbook for Participation in Pilot Testing (PDF). About the Assessment What is the Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA), and who needs to take it? The Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA) consists of three tasks. Each of the three tasks will take place during the school counselor candidate s clinical experience and will focus on supporting the Missouri Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Program (MCGCP), implementing program components, and developing professional relationships. During the clinical experience, the school counselor candidate will create task submissions that include a variety of artifacts, such as plans, written feedback, and video segments. This assessment will be one of several vehicles that determine if a school counselor candidate is prepared to enter the field of school counseling. A cumulative score for Tasks 1 3 will be one of the factors determining the school counselor candidate s acceptance into the profession. How long does the MoSCPA take to complete? The MoSCPA consists of three tasks. Each of the three tasks will take place during the school counselor candidate s clinical experience and will focus on the candidate as instructional counselor. During the internship, the school counselor candidate s task submissions will provide a variety of artifacts, including examples of plans and feedback. The school counselor candidate will be able to work on the tasks as he or she experiences the internship and will submit all three tasks simultaneously in mid-april. How will I find time to complete the MoSCPA? This assessment was specifically designed with time management in mind, as the tasks are embedded into the actual clinical experience. Any authentic, school-based activities that reflect effective counseling and demonstrate student learning are eligible for submission in the MoSCPA assessment. Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA) FAQs 1

I work in a nontraditional building. Do I need to do anything differently for my three tasks? No. The requirements for each MoSCPA task enable teachers in a wide variety of situations and settings to respond successfully. The tasks are not specific to each building s situation. All of the requirements can be addressed by the MoSCPA candidate regardless of his or her setting. The Tasks How do I know if I am addressing the Missouri School Counselor Standards when I compose my tasks? Within the tasks, all the guiding prompts that you will respond to are based on the Missouri School Counselor Standards. Continually check your written commentary against the four-point rubrics, which are also linked to the Missouri School Counselor Standards. How should I start building my MoSCPA tasks? Begin by reading through the task directions to get a sense of how your MoSCPA will be built. You may use the Plan Template as a guide for each task; then begin with the task that seems most appropriate to you, probably Task 1 or Task 2 because neither requires a video. As you complete your first task, you will become familiar with the building to which you are assigned. Your cooperating EPP instructor and site supervisor will be a good source of guidance as you get organized. For more information, read the MoSCPA Candidate Handbook for Participation in Pilot Testing (PDF). How should I organize my work schedule? After reviewing the task directions, develop a timeline by working backward from the deadlines for each task submission in order to set a manageable schedule for yourself. For more information, see the MoSCPA Candidate Handbook for Participation in Pilot Testing (PDF). How should I make use of the rubric? I know it is part of the scoring system, but can it help me as I work on my task submissions? Absolutely! Keep the rubric for each task nearby as you work. The rubrics for each task are included with the task directions on the About the Tasks page of this web site. When you finish a draft of a task, read the rubric for a description of the highest score level, and ask yourself whether you have provided adequate evidence to address each bullet. Ask a trusted colleague to serve as your scorer and to provide you with additional feedback. Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA) FAQs 2

May I use my own permission form rather than the Missouri Student and Adult Release Forms to gain student and parent consent to include materials in my tasks? No. All participants must get permission for the use of student materials using the forms approved for the Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment, which are included on the Building and Submitting Your Tasks page of this web site. These two forms must be used with the inclusion of any student or adult work in your tasks and for any adult who appears in your video. The signed permission forms must be submitted to ETS when you submit your assessment. The permission forms may also be sent to ETS via email, fax or mail at: Email: mopa@ets.org Fax: (609) 683-2040 include Attention: MO Performance Assessments on the cover sheet Mail: Educational Testing Service ATT: MO Performance Assessments 660 Rosedale Road M.S. 51L Princeton, NJ 08541 Do I need to submit the Student and Adult Release Forms I collect? Yes. You must submit the signed performs to ETS. When you submit your tasks, you will be required to sign and submit the MoSCPA Pilot Submission Terms which includes your guarantee that you have submitted the signed Student and Adult Release Forms. Is there a maximum character limit to task submissions? Yes. Each task has a specified character limit and a page limit for submitted artifacts. A character is counted by every letter, every punctuation mark, and every space you type. As you are typing your written commentary, you should access the character counter on your computer to show you how many characters you have used out of the allowable number of characters. You will not be able to submit any task that exceeds the maximum character or page limit. Therefore, you may need to edit your response before submitting a task. Are there penalties for accidentally answering a guiding prompt in the wrong place or including a colleague s name or the name of my school in a response? No. Raters are trained to collect evidence wherever they find it, as long as it has been included with the particular task. You should not intentionally include a student s name or the name of your school, but points will not be deducted if a name is accidentally included. Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA) FAQs 3

If my contextual information is the same for each of these tasks, may I just copy and paste my information into all three corresponding textboxes? Yes. You may copy the data to all three tasks. Each of the tasks is scored by a different rater, which is why the contextual information needs to be repeated. Raters will never see the information you provide with the other tasks. How do I select the evidence for my tasks? You will be required to submit different types of evidence for each of the tasks. Each task requires some form of a written response, which is part of your evidence. In addition, tasks may require other types of evidence, such as a plan, anecdotal notes from colleagues, and student work samples. Make sure that you clearly understand what type of evidence is required for each task. If an artifact is required, make sure that you include an artifact that does not exceed the required page limit, that addresses the indicators being measured, that gives you a good opportunity to discuss what was done with colleagues to generate the work, that provides the rater scoring your response with a picture of your practice, and that gives the rater good information on which to score your performance. For Task 1, do I need to request feedback from someone other than the site supervisor? Yes. You also need to get feedback from a colleague who works in your building and who has been involved in the Program Improvement Plan and/or the implementation plan. The colleague may have only read the two plans or may have been actively engaged in such things as helping you complete the IIR. In either case, a template feedback form is provided. You will need to determine ahead of time the areas of feedback you want the colleague and the site supervisor to each address, and then you must create the questions. The feedback form can be modified differently for each of the two responders. You may also choose to create an original form and not use the template provided. For Task 1, do I need to implement my Program Improvement Plan? No. The guiding prompts require that you develop a plan for implementation and that you determine what you would do if you were to implement the plan. For Task 2, do the pretest and the posttest have to be different assessments? No. The pretest and posttest may be the same. If they are the same, you need only link one document to your response to textbox 2.1.2. Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA) FAQs 4

For Task 3, does my video recording need to be a full fifteen minutes? No. There is no penalty if you do not submit a full fifteen-minute video. Raters are instructed not to view any video that exceeds the fifteen-minute maximum. For Task 3, can I use students for the audience for my interactive presentation? No. Task 2 requires you to work in the classroom with students. In order to show your ability to work with a variety of people, Task 3 focuses on adults (e.g., faculty, family, and/or community) When I choose colleagues/stakeholders to work with on all three tasks, what professional characteristics should I consider? Look for colleagues/stakeholders who most closely reflect the values you wish to emulate as a building counselor and who embody the intended characteristics of the task(s) at hand. Consult with your site supervisor to discuss these traits before asking any colleague to join you. Be mindful of colleagues schedules, workloads, and extracurricular activities that might impede their full participation in the tasks. Submissions How do I submit the video recording as part of my evidence for Task 3? The entire process of recording, analyzing, and submitting the video is documented in the MoSCPA Candidate Handbook for Participation in Pilot Testing (PDF). A summary of the process is as follows: You should check the quality and reliability of any equipment you intend to use. You should carefully select the stakeholders who will be observed and recorded, and you should have any stakeholder who will be recorded complete a permission form. You should also carefully plan any practice and final recording sessions in-line with the stakeholders schedules and their respective teaching and building responsibilities. Before you video record, you must first get a signed permission form from any adult and the parent/guardian of any student who will be video recorded. You should also check the quality and reliability of any equipment you intend to use. You should review the video file requirements for the pilot on the Video page of this web site. You will upload the video file to the ETS SharePoint site along with your artifacts and written commentary. Once my task has been submitted, will I receive a confirmation email? Yes. Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA) FAQs 5

Will I be able to make changes to a response after I have submitted a task? No. Once a task has been submitted, you can no longer make changes to your responses. Should I include the names of any colleagues, students, parents, or school officials in my submissions? No. Colleagues should be referred to as Colleague 1, Colleague 2, and so on, or as my cooperating teacher, my principal, and so on. Names should not be used. If I want to strengthen my writing skills, what do you recommend? The tasks in the MoSCPA require three kinds of writing: descriptive, analytic, and reflective. There are obvious essential differences among these three types of writing. As you compose your written commentary, keep these differences in mind. For more information, see the Writing and Formatting Guidelines in the MoSCPA Candidate Handbook for Participation in Pilot Testing (PDF). May I include a slide-show presentation as evidence? If so, how many slides may I submit on a page? Yes. Slide-show presentations are acceptable forms of evidence. You may submit up to six slides on a single page. May I include a double-sided document as evidence? You may do so only if the artifact requirement allows you to submit two pages. Raters are trained to look at only the first page of a multipage attachment when there is a one-page limit. If I want to submit pictures, may I place more than one on a page? Yes, but the pictures must relate to the same subject/topic/event and have appropriate captions. Raters are instructed to not consider photos if they have been resized to an extent that they are no longer viewable. May I submit more than one newspaper article on a page? Yes. You may do so as long as the articles refer to the same subject/topic/event. You may reduce the font size of the articles so that they fit on the same page. However, raters have been instructed not to consider articles that have been reduced to an extent that they are no longer readable. If I pass the assessment but would like a higher score on one of my tasks, may I resubmit a task? No, once you pass this assessment, you cannot reenter a task. Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA) FAQs 6

Technical Help What do I do if I need technical support or have questions about the website? Technical help and information are available via email at mopa@ets.org. You should also read the MoSCPA Candidate Handbook for Participation in Pilot Testing (PDF) for assistance. 2014 MoDESE. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, or disability in its programs and activities. Inquiries related to Department programs and to the location of services, activities, and facilities that are accessible by persons with disabilities may be directed to the Jefferson State Office Building, Office of the General Counsel, Coordinator Civil Rights Compliance (Title VI/Title IX/504/ADA/Age Act), 6th Floor, 205 Jefferson Street, P.O. Box 480, Jefferson City, MO 65102-0480; telephone number 573-526-4757 or TTY 800-735-2966; e-mail civilrights@dese.mo.gov. Missouri School Counselor Performance Assessment (MoSCPA) FAQs 7