What areas do the Faculty think need to Improve?

Although the faculty members believe they are doing very well in many of the

competency areas of teaching “Best Practices” to their student-teachers, they would still

like to improve further in some of the areas. As one of the faculty noted:

“I think we are making good efforts but we could always do more. We could do more probably in everything.”

Some of the competency areas where the faculty seek to improve are student

assessment techniques, special education, issues of disabilities, inclusion, incorporation

of technology, differentiation strategies, community engagement, integration and

accommodating ELL students in the learning process.

Student assessment: The faculty participants responded they would like to work more on assessment strategies so that they are more effective helping their student-

teachers in terms of assessing where the learners are in their skills and how the

assessment could create a self-awareness of their progress. Some of the faculty

responded as follows:

“I think we made some good progress on student assessment especially how to integrate awareness about assessment, how to use it, and how assessment

impacts students but there is definitely areas where we could do more work on

it.”

“They are still not getting on it [student assessment]. They are still reverting to sort of stable of quizzes and exams, so somewhere along the line we are not

102

“I try and I am pretty good in small classes, but I am not very good for large classes.”

“I believe that teachers should be able to adapt student-centered assessment techniques”

The faculty felt that they definitely need to work on this subject. They discuss

this matter with their student-teachers, but in the end, they think they are not successful.

Faculty members have also expressed interest to learn more about assessment techniques,

especially for large classes. Some of the faculty interviewed think they are making a good

progress but they still would like to do more work. The faculty think that the assessment

should provide feedback to the learners. At the same time, the assessed should be able to

feel ownership over the assessment.

Special education: The faculty responded that they would like to do more work on special education. They have expressed that NEU may have been forefront on this

regard originally, but they are not sure any more. As some of the faculty stated:

“I think this is the result of the community becoming more diverse and teachers having challenges to manage that.”

“We have not done as good job with looking at how to support students with disabilities.”

“I think for me personally, I don’t know much about supporting students with disabilities. I think that if I knew more, I could do more.”

The faculty have stressed that it is important for them to prepare student-

103

accommodate students with special needs in the regular classroom environment and

create an IEP (individual educational plan) designed for each student.

Several faculty expressed an interest in doing more work on how to deal the

issues of individual with disabilities. The faculty responded they have done some of the

work in this field, but they are not happy with the progress they have made so far. The

faculty have stressed that students with disabilities have very specific needs, so how to

meet the needs of such students and the needs of all other students in a class at the same

time is a challenge.

The faculty interviewed have explained that they would like to do more work on

inclusion. They felt they are not doing adequate work as needed. These NEU faculty

members believe that a classroom setting should be inclusive regardless of the students’

sexual orientation, race, culture and ethnicity, status, abilities, and their economic

backgrounds. When a teacher is not able to create a welcoming environment, then the

students may feel stressed and may not be able to focus in the class.

Technology: The faculty participants have expressed that they would like to work more on adapting technology in the teaching process. Some of the faculty said:

“I need to improve my use of technology. I need to figure out how to get the materials in videos and use that effectively.”

“When I think about what my strengths are, what I really need to work on, technology would be one of those pieces. Right now, I am actually thinking

myself that I want to take some courses and really get my professional

104

The faculty members feel they are “getting better” but there are still areas to be

advanced. Although they are giving high importance to adapting technology in teaching

and learning process, several acknowledged that they are just “trying to keep up with

that.” The faculty would also like to integrate technology more effectively in their teacher

preparation process so that it would be meaningful and supportive to the students with

different learning styles. The faculty members are eager to expand to use technology

more effectively in their teaching and, at the same time, transfer that skill to their student-

teachers.

Differentiation strategies: The faculty participants felt that they apply various differentiation strategies in their teaching process. However, when it comes to very

specific needs of particular group of students in a classroom setting, then it sometimes

becomes a challenge. One of the faculty said:

“We talk a lot about differentiation in instructions but we may need to work more.”

The faculty members are looking at differentiation from a boarder perspective,

not only for instruction, but also differentiation for curriculum and differentiation for

student assessment. So they feel that they would like to develop more differentiation

strategies for themselves and so that they can educate their student-teachers. The faculty

members believe this way their student-teachers learn to differentiate curriculum,

teaching and assessment strategies, and offer appropriate supports for each student so that

105

Accommodating ELL students: The faculty believe they need to become more competent at preparing their teachers to accommodate ELL students in their teaching.

Some of the faculty revealed their opinion as follows:

“I have limited skills in terms of fulfilling the needs of students with limited English, so I definitely need to work on that.”

“There is lots of curriculum to fit into one pie and you have limited amount of space to fit to do that.”

During the interview the faculty complained about too much to do within the

program. They felt they did not have adequate resources available to them to improve

their teaching in this area.

Overall, these faculty members are proud of their accomplishments and

capabilities in preparing secondary teachers to work with low achieving students.

Nevertheless, they are aware of their professional shortcomings.

Research Question 3: The third research question was designed to learn what do the NEU teacher-educators believe they and their secondary education program must do

to improve the preparation of their student-teachers in “Best Practices” of teaching, with

specific reference to effectively teaching low achieving students.

4.3.1 What must be done to Improve in “Best Practices” of Teaching?