Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 4, No. 2 | A Timeless University Trains Teachers for a New Era, page 5

The Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning brings to bear the capacity of the University of Virginia, the leadership of key faculty and more than $25 million in funded research grants already in place with the aim of affecting the future of education and influencing education policy nationally and internationally. Its day-to-day work involves faculties from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Curry School of Education in monthly assessment seminars and in small- and large-scale research studies on the effects of UVA teacher education and induction programs (the aspect of TNE that provides support for new graduates during their first two years in the classroom). The Center is also building an integrated database that tracks the characteristics, experiences and performance of teacher candidates from preservice education through their initial years of teaching using new techniques that make it possible to chart the development of groups of teacher candidates and to study the effects of changes to the teacher education program.

An important innovation in this work is the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS)3—a standardized method of organizing classroom observations that tracks teacher performance over time. Pianta and his colleagues conducted large-scale classroom observation studies as well as extensive reviews of other research on the teacher’s impact on students, which revealed more about how interactions between students and adults act as the primary mechanism of student development. Based on their work, the CLASS measures the instructional and social-emotional interactions proven to contribute to students’ academic achievement and social competencies.

The CLASS is designed for:

Researchers who want a classroom observation tool with established links to children’s social and academic development;

Administrators who want a standardized and validated tool to conduct classroom observations that will help assess and improve classroom quality across grades;

University teacher educator programs that want a quantitative measure of the degree to which they are successful in preparing students to meet the challenges of teaching;

Teacher trainers who want video examples of high-quality teaching to use during trainings; and

Teachers who want to learn more about effective teaching practices.

Validated in over 2,000 classrooms, CLASS clearly describes multiple dimensions of teaching and standardizes techniques for monitoring and responding to kids’ cues in the classroom. “It’s hard to train people to see these behaviors in a measurable way,” Pianta admitted. “But if engineers and biologists can deal with complex systems, so can we.” The CLASS Web site illustrates the rating system’s three broad areas of classroom quality—Emotional Support, Classroom Organization and Instructional Support—which are common across all grades.

Within each broad area are more specific definitions to help the teacher understand exactly what the category means. These can be explored through a combination of Web-based review, training sessions and an ancillary program, “My Teaching Partner,” a Web-based teaching tool that allows users to learn from videos of real-life classroom situations. “This feature allows teachers to access hundreds of examples of how to handle a classroom situation: how to respond to students’ emotional cues when they are off task or acting out; how to effectively de-escalate or re-engage, for example. When they see it, they can learn it,” Pianta said. “We’ve been able to show, within one year of exposure, a definite improvement in practice quality.”

Sustaining TNE at UVA
Forecasting life after Teachers for a New Era, Victor Luftig said, “we want to be small and fantastic. Our value is in producing models that apply globally. That’s our number-one priority right now, and it’s the right role for a research institution to play. “ How to sustain the benefits of the grant over the long term has been on provost Gene Block’s mind more or less since the beginning, although he might not have envisioned how much of his own time and interest would be invested along the way. “I thought I would host the seminars only for a while,“ he commented, ”but I was caught up and I learned something. It was selfish; simply doing something I liked.” To keep the program going strong, he has established a five-part strategy for sustaining the work begun through Teachers for a New Era:

The TNE Research Advisory Council, chaired by the provost, will guide future TNE research.

Three years of start-up funds have been provided for the Center for the Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, which will be responsible to Block, and will ensure that the Curry School of Education continues to benefit from TNE’s research-driven culture.

The Center for the Liberal Arts, which is directed by the current TNE project manager and reports to the provost, will manage College of Arts and Sciences engagement with in-service K-12 teachers.

Raising TNE matching funds to support the induction residency work has been presented to the University Development Office as a high priority.

The Teacher Education Com-mittee, reestablished by and reporting to Block, has been charged with managing and sustaining TNE efforts undertaken jointly by the School of Education and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Common Courses and Counterpoint Seminars will continue, given faculty replacement and graduate student support; funds that were needed to launch these courses are no longer essential due to the faculty’s interest in enlisting for intellectual rather than financial reasons. Dean Ayers has authorized any needed funding until additional support comes in from the College of Arts and Sciences capital campaign. Meanwhile, endowments will support Curry School of Education evidence-based and interdisciplinary efforts, while the induction, believed to have great promise because of its positive early results and replicability, will be funded by the local school districts that benefit from
the program.

At the end of the day, what might Thomas Jefferson have to say about Teachers for a New Era’s impact on the University of Virginia? Surely the man who wanted education available to every citizen, and who counted founding the University as one of his top three achievements, would see it as a rousing success. As evidence, here’s what Jefferson said about the university in 1821: “What object of our lives can we propose so important? What interest of our own which ought not be postponed to this? Health, time, labor—on what in the single life which nature has given us can these be better bestowed than on this immortal boon to our country? The exertions and the mortifications are temporary; the benefit eternal.”

Karen Theroux is an editor/writer in the Corporation’s Public Affairs department with many years’ experience in educational publishing.