Supporting the Preparation of Beginning Teachers with Online Assessment Products

The teacher education literature is replete with recommendations regarding the preparation of new teachers who are equipped to face the complexities and instructional demands of their first year of teaching. Recently, teacher education programs have begun to use online assessment products to provide evidence that their teacher candidates' can demonstrate competency with respect to established standards. While this process may initially be driven by the demands of accreditation requirements and/or institutional assessment needs, online systems can be configured to accommodate a host of relevant assignments and student performances across time to demonstrate student achievement and growth. This evidence can be aggregated and disaggregated to show the readiness of candidates to become first-year teachers in a variety of school settings. The purpose of this paper is to describe ways in which online products can be used to showcase teacher candidates' work that demonstrates what the experts claim sets apart graduates from exemplary programs from those less rigorous. This process will enable teacher education programs and their K-12 partners to prepare beginning teachers together and use the online assessment product to document preparation levels and identify strengths and possible areas for improvement in teacher preparation programs. (Contains 3 figures.)