Indiana Wesleyan University students are assessed multiple times as they progress through the Teacher Education Program and acquire the knowledge, skills and dispositions required of successful educators.
- Admission to the Teacher Education Program. Students must be formally admitted to the program before they may enroll in upper-division classes.
- Must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.75 and a minimum GPA of 3.0 in the major.
- Complete an admission portfolio including two metacognitive papers, a philosophy of education and autobiography, a résumé, and personal and professional goals.
- Satisfy the University mathematics competency requirement.
- Take and pass all three sections of the Praxis I test -reading, writing and mathematics.
- Choose a professor to review and assess the degree to which you are meeting expected professional dispositions.
- After the previous requirements have been met, students are assigned to a professor in the School of Teacher Education who conducts an interview as the final step in the admission process.
- Admission to student teaching. Students apply for admission to student teaching on or before November 1 of the year prior to the academic year in which the student teaching semester occurs.
- Maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.75 and a minimum GPA of 3.0 in the major.
- Design a lesson plan that is assessed by a School of Teacher Education faculty member using an assessment rubric that is expressly designed for that purpose.
- Submit two disposition assessments, one by a University professor and one by a cooperating teacher in the student's field placement.
- Exit from student teaching. The student teaching semester culminates with the following assessments:
- Students develop a standards-based portfolio during the student teaching semester, assembling artifacts in eight different domains that provide evidence that they have met the standards and expectations required of them. The portfolio is assessed with a rubric designed expressly for that purpose.
- Student teachers develop a Teacher Work Sample that is designed to determine the degree to which their teaching has been effective in producing the learning expected of their students.
- As the concluding activity of the student teaching semester, a defense committee, consisting of the student's supervising teacher, School of Teacher Education faculty, other University faculty and practicing P-12 teachers, conducts an interview with each student teacher. The student teacher is assessed on his or her professional impression and also the degree to which he or she answers questions successfully.
