NCATE Standard 4 | Diversity

4a. Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of Curriculum & Experiences

*** See 'Evidence of Standard 4' at www.northgeorgia.edu/soe/4evidence ***

4a. 1. What proficiencies related to diversity are candidates expected to develop and demonstrate?

The NGCSU SOE utilizes the relevant indicators from the Georgia Framework for Teaching.  The Georgia Framework for Teaching was adopted in 2005 by the Georgia Department of Education (GADOE), the the Georgia Professional Standards Commission (GAPSC), and the University System of Georgia Board of Regents (BOR) as the state definition of quality teaching. Developed by partners of the Georgia Systemic Teacher Education Program (GSTEP) through extensive focus groups across the state, the Framework identifies knowledge, skills, dispositions, understandings, and other attributes of accomplished teaching. The six domains and associated indicators provide common language and definitions for all stakeholders who are interested in quality teaching. The Georgia Frameworks for Teaching were designed to align with standards and principles developed by the following entities: The Georgia PSC, The Georgia BOR principles, NCATE Standards, the Interstate New Teachers Assessment Consortium (INTASC), Danielson’s Indicators, the teacher work sample process established by the Renaissance Partnership (1996), and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) (graduate levels). Please see the alignment document.  The 2011 release of learner centered standards by INTASC, and the Georgia adoption of Common Core standards by 2012, as well as adoption of NCATE Professional Development School standards will cause redesign and alignment of course content and assessments to begin spring 2012. 

Please see the tables for descriptions of the diversity indicators.

4a. 2. What required coursework and experiences enable teacher candidates and candidates for other school professional roles to develop?

All teacher candidates in traditional route teacher preparation programs receive their first exposure to diversity content in the pre-education Area F courses: EDUC 2110 Investigating Critical and Contemporary Issues, EDUC 2120 Exploring Socio-cultural Perspectives and EDUC 2130 Exploring Teaching and Learning. During these courses candidates must also complete thirty hours of structured tutoring in their content fields with students at risk (academically) in P-12/6-12 programs or 30 hours of support in  a preschool situation (ECE/SPED). These three courses explore multicultural theory and issues, areas of exceptionality, language and cultural gender and sexual preference differences and related educational implications, bias, prejudice and stereotypes, differences in learning styles in  legal, political, ethical, sociological and historical contexts.

Once admitted all teacher candidates must complete at least one term of field experience in a school where more than 20% of the student population is identified as diverse.

Post Baccalaureate and MAT students are required to take EDUC5104: Teaching Diverse Learners and complete literature reviews related to exceptionality issues as well as studies of stereotypes.

All initial licensure programs include differentiation as critical components of all lesson and unit planning. (see rubric)

Diversity content in advanced programs at the masters level are addressed in the graduate common core (Educ6001, Educ6101, Educ6102, Educ6103).

In the Leadership EDS program candidates are continually assessed against ELCC standards by their administrative mentors and faculty supervisors including the following indicators: Implementation of strategies that capitalize on diversity, accommodate learners with diverse needs, communicate with families and communities, apply knowledge of human development al theory and motivation to support communities with diversity, understand the complex causes of poverty, understand conflict resolution, and promote social justice. For further information regarding the Leadership program please see the program report.

4a. 3. What key assessments provide evidence about candidates' proficiencies related to diversity?  How are candidates performing on these assessments?

Please see tables describing candidate performance on diversity indicators.

4b. Experiences Working with Diverse Faculty

*** See 'Evidence of Standard 4' at www.northgeorgia.edu/soe/4evidence ***

4b. 1. What opportunities do candidates (including candidates at off-campus sites and/or in distance learning or alternate route programs) have to interact with higher education and/or school-based faculty from diverse groups?

Dr. Sanghee Choi a native of South Korea, was employed in fall of 2011. Dr. Choi teaches in the integrated sciences courses required in the undergraduate ECE/SPED program and available to middle grades candidates with science emphases. Dr. Choi also supports the ECE/SPED program through clinical supervision.

Dr. Rolonda Brown, an African American was employed in fall of 2009. Dr. Brown teaches in pre-education Area F courses required for all traditional undergraduate programs, as well as in the Middle Grades program. Additionally, Dr. Brown teaches reading/language arts courses required in both middle and P-12/6-12 programs.

Dr. Chantelle Grant, an African American was employed in fall of 2010. Dr. Grant teaches in the middle and P-12/6-12 programs and also teaches integrated sciences courses that serve the ECE/SPED and middle grades programs.

Dr. Mariana Stone, a bilingual native of Argentina and was employed until January 2010, taught in the ECE/SPED Spanish immersion cohort, supervised ECE/SPED candidates and taught in the ESOL endorsement program at the graduate level.

Dr. Carmen Mas, a bilingual native of Panama, taught in the ECE/SPED program, taught graduate core courses, and taught pre-education majors in Area F courses for many years prior to her retirement in 2010.

There is currently a position open for a TESOL faculty position.

Dr. Shirley Holmes, a wheelchair bound African American retired in 2010 after more than fifteen years at NGCSU, taught undergraduate and graduate special education courses, courses in working with students at risk, and Area F pre-education courses for all undergraduate candidates.

Most teaching in the Post Baccalaureate and MAT programs in education courses is conducted by Ms. Deborah Hartman who has a background in special education. Ms. Hartman is working with the Middle and P-12 Secondary programs to ensure exposure to faculty diversity.

4b. 2. What knowledge and experiences do faculty have related to preparing candidates to work with students from diverse groups?

Dr. Chris Dockery the program coordinator for Art Education has developed the grant funded ArtStream project. Dr. Dockery enlists art education candidates early in their programs to take a modified Airstream trailer outfitted to support instruction and activities in the visual arts to isolated Appalachian communities without access to arts experiences. 

Ms. Deborah Hartman has experience working in public schools, including in administrative and special education positions. Ms. Hartman works to provide candidates in advanced level programs with experiences in schools in Poland and China.

Dr. Amy Williams has experience working in public schools as a special education teacher. Dr. Williams spent time in China last summer visiting local schools and working with Chinese students in teacher preparation programs in a course on classroom management.

Dr. Alyssa Barnes  has experience working in public schools, including several years teaching at a  majority-minority elementary school. Dr. Barnes spent time in China last summer visiting local schools and working with Chinese students in teacher preparation programs in a course on classroom management. Dr. Barnes has studied, traveled, and taught abroad (China, Nicaragua, Kenya, Zimbabwe, S. Africa, London, Paris, Spain, Ireland) and developed a study-abroad program in Nicaragua.

Ms. Cindy Sherrill is a former special education teacher and Teacher of the Year in Hall county Georgia.  Ms. Sherrill also has participated in contract based projects through NGCSU to support effective literacy instruction for students at risk in Lumpkin County Schools. Ms. Sherrill is currently working with faculty and candidates at Martin Elementary in a research project sponsored by Dell to support the improvement of student engagement and achievement through utilization of on-line community that tracks critical elements of lessons.  

 Dr. Linda Reece has been working with Hall County schools for three years. Dr. Reece established supportive instruction with our teacher candidates at World Language Academy in an innovative bilingual immersion program. For the past two years Dr. Reece and Mr. Joe Covert have been working with a large group of candidates to provide instructional support at Lyman Hall Elementary. Lyman Hall is 99% Hispanic and free and reduced lunch. Lyman Hall works closely with the Boys and Girls clubs which supports a large program on the school site and include extensive after school and summer programming for this large population of students at risk. Dr. Reece and Mr. Covert continue to work with candidates in creative capacities to support instruction through innovative program design. Dr. Reece has also taken groups of candidates in the Spanish language immersion programs to Costa Rica and Panama, an experience that requires candidates to complete clinical experiences in local schools.

Dr. Jacque Leeper  coordinates many of the international experiences for teacher candidates in the School of Education including a long and successful program in Great Britain. Dr. Leeper arranges experiences for NGSSU candidates in public schools for children with severe disabilities and schools with Muslim majority populations. Dr. Leeper has a similar program in Poland and is currently working to design field placements in New Zealand.    

Dr. James Badger is a native Canadian who currently coordinates the work of our Center for Language Excellence (CLE). The CLE works with regional, state and international organizations to affect policy on issues affecting immigrants provide programs for English instruction and work with projects for foreign language instruction.

Dr. Dennis Whittle retired in 2010 after six years of service to NGCSU. Dr. Whittle taught in the ECE/SPED program in special education courses. Dr. Whittle is known for his development of elementary schools that with high student achievement among populations of students at risk for 30 years in Forsyth County. Dr. Whittle worked with Dr. Reece to develop the first Professional Development School site at World Language Academy in Hall County.

Dr. Carmen Mas retired in 2010 after over 15 years of service to NGCSU.  Dr. Mas initiated the Spanish language immersion programs in the School of Education, and organized professional development and partnerships with Project Dignity and Project YES that offers information and personal and professional development to students and faculty on issues related to the support and education of lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender youth.

Dr. Susan Brandenburg-Ayres has over 15 years of teaching and administrative experience in public schools primarily in special education and programs supporting literacy development in students at risk.  Dr. Brandenburg-Ayres has worked in and with a number of Title I schools to develop instructional support systems that prevent and intervene problems in reading in student populations characterized by minority majorities and/or poverty. 

 Dr. Kellie Whelan-Kim worked in a corporate sponsored preschool for the hotel and restaurant industry employees in downtown Atlanta that served over 200 children from 6 a.m. to midnight six days a week, and included services to preschool children with disabilities.

Dr. Alice Sampson is director of the Appalachian Studies Center, which is currently administered through the School of Education. Sampson’s experiences and knowledge related to preparing candidates to work with students, comes from the study of learning in rural and isolated settings. For example, her dissertation, Exploring the Relationship between a Small Rural School in Northeast Georgia and Its Community: An Image-Based Study Using Participant-Produced Photographs, examined learning needs, successes, and obstacles of students attending a small,   k-12 school in an isolated rural setting. Her dissertation was awarded the 2001 Rural Dissertation of the Year by the American Education Research Association. To further her experiences and knowledge, Sampson has served as the president, past-president, and president-elect (2008-2011) for the Appalachian Studies Association, a professional academic organization with a mission to assist learners in mountain communities and colleges. She wrote, secured, and directed grants that supported the study of Appalachia and it students, with grant awards totaled over one million dollars. Sampson founded the Georgia Appalachian Center for Higher Education and the Appalachian Studies Center for the State of Georgia. Each center has a mission to educate Appalachians on the importance of Appalachian culture and to support strategies that promote continued education.  Sampson also co-wrote the article, “The Appalachian Teaching Project: An Opportunity for Academic-Community Activism” (Appalachian Journal, Vol. 34, No. 3/4, SPRING/SUMMER 2007, pp. 352-383). This article examined students as community researchers investigating challenges to learning in rural mountain communities.

Ms. Sheral Frohberg recently left public school teaching in special education to join the NGSSU faculty. Ms. Forhberg completed specialized course work at Georgia State University in Applied Behavior Analysis that gives a unique skill set for working with learners with autism and emotional/behavioral difficulties. Ms. Frohberg has also studied gender identity and sexual orientation issues in children K-12 at the YES Institute in Miami, FL. 

Dr. April Nelms joined the faculty in 2010. Dr. Nelms has public school teaching experience in Alabama and is certificated in science and ESL and taught second language learners science. Dr. Nelms' dissertation research was conducted in rural, south Alabama in schools where the majority population was African American. 

Dr. Larry Berneking  worked as an administrator in the Rockwood School District for 9 years in  school where students were bused the school as part of the court mandated “Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation” or VICC program.  In this program students from the inner city (St. Louis, MO) were bused to the surrounding districts according to the court mandate.  The vast majority of the students coming to our school were minority.

Dr. Josh Cuevas recently comes to NGCSU from seven years of teaching in a Title I high school with a student population that is 80% African American.

4b. 3. How diverse are the faculty members who work with education candidates?

See Table 8 - Faculty Demographics

4b. 4. What efforts does the unit make to recruit and retain a diverse faculty?

The unit advertises internationally for positions in the Chronicle of Higher Education and HigherEdJobs in order to reach broad populations. The unit networks through the department of modern languages, the World Language Academy and the Center for Administration and Study of International Education (CASIE), organizations to identify and recruit bilingual or multilingual applicants for positions. The unit networks with universities with greater diversity in their candidate populations such as Georgia State University to identify prospective doctoral candidates from diverse backgrounds.

4c. Experiences Working with Diverse Candidates

 *** See 'Evidence of Standard 4' at www.northgeorgia.edu/soe/4evidence ***

4c. 1. What opportunities do candidates (including candidates at off-campus sites and/or in distance learning or alternate route programs) have to interact with candidates from diverse groups?

All candidates from initial licensure programs complete at least one term of clinical experience in a school where at least 20% of the school population is identified as diverse.  (See documentation in standard three)

Candidates in masters level advanced programs are virtually all employed teachers (if not a placement is arranged for them) so their structured clinical assignments take place in the context of action research in their own classrooms and schools. Georgia schools typically are diverse with regard to socioeconomic characteristics and/or culture or ethnic diversity, particularly with regard to English Language Learner populations. However, given the curriculum of the graduate core (Educ6001, Educ6101, Educ6102, Educ6103) if a candidate at the masters level is not in a school with a highly diverse population they still will complete assignments that structure research and interaction with diversity in their classrooms and schools. This situation is also true for the Leadership Ed.S. program.

Dr. John Wilson works with the NGCSU School of Education as the Assistant Director of the Center for Language Education. Dr. Wilson recruits international students for NGCSU. He has extensive background in K-12 education, and networks with K-12 ESOL teachers for programs like the Cadet English Language Teacher Training (CELTT).  Through his work with CASIE (Center for the Advancement and Study of International Education), he consults with K-12 systems and the Georgia Department of Education to create pipelines of students attending NGCSU.  Dr. Wilson is responsible for administration of the summer language camps known as the Federal Service Language Academy (FSLA) held at NGCSU including instructor selection, curriculum, and student selection.

4c. 2. How diverse are the candidates in initial teacher preparation and advanced preparation programs?

See Table 9 - Candidate Demographics

4c. 3. What efforts does the unit make to recruit and retain candidates from diverse groups?

The SOE sends representation for state level meetings of future teachers groups that recruit students from high school settings.  The SOE also houses the Appalachian Studies Center and a division of the organization the Georgia Appalachian Center for Higher Education (GACHE). GACHE actively solicits and awards grants made to support a variety of efforts to recruit at risk students into Higher Education including scholarships based on need (see documentation).  As a result of the size of NGCSU, most candidate recruitment efforts occur through the institutional office of admissions. The admissions office actively recruits honors high school students from all over Georgia, including minority candidates. The NGCSU Office of Admissions also administers an active Hispanic student recruitment campaign, directed by Mr. Josh Cuevas (see documentation below). Political and legal barriers to higher education exist in Georgia for Hispanic residents. Georgia has a large and rapidly growing Hispanic population, but when comparisons between estimates of this population by the census and Pew Research are compared, a significant portion of this population is likely to be illegal. Families that do not have legal documentation do not have access to in-state tuition rates in Georgia thereby creating further economic barriers to education for immigrant families.

NGCSU is classified as a regional institution by the University System of Georgia. This is reflected in the fact that 86% of NGCSU students are from Georgia. The greatest tool in the recruitment of students from diverse socioeconomic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds in Georgia has been access to the HOPE scholarship program. This program offers free tuition to students graduating from a Georgia high school with a gpa of 3.0 or higher. Students must maintain grade requirements in college to maintain the scholarship. Sixty two percent of students at NGCSU receive HOPE scholarships. Since Georgia is a largely poor and rural state, the significance of this program in providing access to higher education cannot be overstated.  See SOE Majors by Parental Academic Background chart.

4d. Experiences Working with Diverse Students in P-12 Schools

 *** See 'Evidence of Standard 4' at www.northgeorgia.edu/soe/4evidence ***

4d. 1. How does the unit ensure that candidates develop and practice knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions related to diversity during their field experiences and clinical practice?

The unit includes diversity indicators on all field evaluations, and in unit assessments including the teacher work sample, the professional portfolio and the internship evaluation. Candidates in masters level advanced programs are virtually all employed teachers (if not a placement is arranged for them) so their structured clinical assignments take place in the context of action research in their own classrooms and schools. Georgia schools typically are diverse with regard to socioeconomic characteristics and/or culture or ethnic diversity, particularly with regard to English Language Learner populations. However, given the curriculum of the graduate core (See key assessments) if a candidate at the masters level is not in a school with a highly diverse population they still will complete assignments that structure research and interaction with diversity in their classrooms and schools. This situation is also true for the Leadership Ed.S. program.

4d. 2. How diverse are the P-12 students in the settings in which candidates participate in field experiences and clinical practice?

See Table 10 - Demographics on Sites for Clinical Practice in Initial and Advanced Programs (pwd-protected pdf)

4d. 3. How does the unit ensure that candidates use feedback from peers and supervisors to reflect on their skills in working with students from diverse groups?

The unit ensures that candidates receive feedback in reflecting on their skills for working with students from diverse groups in the following ways:

• Ensuring that all candidates in initial programs receive placements in schools with diverse populations and providing extensive clinical feedback during those placements
• Ensuring that clinical evaluation instrumentation at the initial levels includes indicators addressing effectiveness of practice with diverse populations
• Ensuring that coursework includes vehicles such as reviews of research, case studies conducted in the field, and simulations that will support thinking and effective practice when working with students and families from diverse backgrounds
• Requiring reflections on all planned lessons
• Requiring reflections on the teacher work sample
• Requiring reflections in portfolios including Domain 2 (of the Georgia Framework) which contains artifacts related to student diversity

1. What does your unit do particularly well related to Standard 4?

Faculty and administration in the unit overtly embrace issues related to diversity, poverty and the needs of students and families in our region. The ubiquitous presence of faculty in schools immerses them in addressing the challenges schools face in meeting the needs of these populations on a personal level.  The unit supports strong commitment to internationalization through professional development, travel, exchanges and field experiences for candidates that results in an evolution of positive perspectives on diversity that becomes infused in the work and thinking of faculty and candidates.

2. What research related to Standard 4 is being conducted by the unit or its faculty?

As the RT3 funded systems for assessment are developed state-wide the examination of the effects of instructional supports provided by NGCSU teacher candidates to at risk populations of students will provide valuable data to inform the preparation of teachers.