TO:         Teaching Assistants in the School of Education

FROM:  Bob Tabachnick & Ken Zeichner (Interim Associate Dean and Associate Dean for Teacher Education)

RE:         Important Information about State Licensing Requirements

DATE:    August 10, 2007

This memo is directed to all teaching assistants in the School of Education who teach required courses and/or supervise field experiences that are taken by students in our pre-service teacher education programs. If you are teaching a course or supervising a field experience taken by students in one of our teacher education programs you need to be aware of some basic information about state licensing requirements in Wisconsin . Information about how the state licensing law (PI34) affects our teacher education programs can be found at http://education.wisc.edu/pi34. This site lists all of our teacher education programs and the specific standards, rules and state statutes that are addressed by required courses in each program. Beginning last year, we have also begun storing the syllabi from all of these courses on this website so that students and everyone teaching in the program can see the whole curriculum of a program. When the law went into effect in 2004 our faculty decided which standards, rules and statutes would be addressed by required courses in our programs, how these would be assessed, and which types of artifacts from these courses and field experiences students will place in their portfolios.

If the course that you are teaching or the field experience that you are supervising addresses any of the standards, rules and statutes in PI34 (the website listed above would indicate this), then you should make sure that the standards, rules, or statutes addressed by your course are listed on the course syllabus. You should also make sure that information about how the assessments are made in your course for these standards, rules and statutes is clearly stated to students on your syllabus. Many courses identify specific assignments that will be used to determine if students have met the standards, rules and statutes addressed in a course. Courses in the departments of Educational Psychology and Educational Policy Studies have specific grade requirements for making these decisions. In most cases the assessment of the standards, rules and statutes will comprise only a portion of what is assessed in a course, and at times, the assessment of the standards, rules and statutes may be done in course assignments that also assess other things.

If your course addresses any of the elements of PI34, you will be responsible at the end of the semester for recording whether students have or have not met the PI34 components addressed by the course Go to the Portfolio Project Website http://portfolios.education.wisc.edu and click on Faculty, TAs, and Instructional Staff at the top to get instructions on how to record this information on our electronic assessment system data base. If you do not already have an account in our portfolio system, it will tell you how to set one up. This site will also provide you with information about portfolio support for students and for integrating the portfolio process into your class.  This site and the teacher assessment system are managed by our Office of Educational Portfolios and Career Services (EPCS) and if you have difficulty in uploading the required information or in recording information about your students’ performance, the site listed above provides information about how to contact EPCS for assistance.

If a student has not met a specific standard, rule or statute by the end of a course, you are responsible for putting a written statement in the student’s program file indicating this  and for informing your faculty supervisor . The departments of Educational Psychology and Educational Policy Studies have developed policies for what students need to do to pass a standard if they do not achieve the required minimum grade in a course. It is important that your students who are enrolled in or plan to enroll in one of our teacher education programs be informed about what the minimum requirements are for meeting a standard in one of these foundations courses and what they need to do to address the problem if they fail to meet the minimum requirements.

In addition to recording information about your students’ performance in our electronic assessment system, you are also be required to upload your course syllabus to our internal and password protected PI34 website along with either uploading or updating your CV that provides information about your background and experience. PI34 requires that all supervisors of teacher education students have at least 3 years of P-12 teaching experience. It is not required that you be certified or that the teaching experience has been in public schools or in the U.S. This information will only be available internally to people with UW-Madison School of Education Portfolio accounts.

Although we are required by state law to provide information that all of our students have met the standards, rules and statutes specified in PI34 to receive an initial teaching license in Wisconsin , we have been working very hard to implement these requirements in a way where they are valuable to our students in their learning to be teachers. All of our work has focused on maximizing the impact on teacher learning of the assessment and e-portfolio systems.

We hope that you discuss the issues raised in this memo with your faculty supervisor. Your supervisor has also received a copy.