Creating Electronic Evidence Rooms for NCATE Accreditation: Using College LiveText Solutions

Introduction

In this chapter, student learning, as demonstrated by teacher candidates’ is documented in the electronic evidence rooms for The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accreditation. With the ubiquity of technologies electronic evidence rooms are created using a variety of media. The medium of focus for creating such electronic evidence room, for this chapter, is College LiveText Education Solutions™ (CLT™) (www.livetext.com). CLT™ features a repository of state standards and benchmarks to help educational institutions assess, measure, and report standards usages linked with student competencies outlined by NCATE. Part of the vision of any College of Education is the recognition that high-quality student learning is correlated with high-quality preparation that are attuned to simultaneous renewal strategies (Goodlad, 1994).

This renewal is akin to changes in knowledge and skills being made at all levels impacting the education of children, pre-service and in-service teachers. One critical aspect of the knowledge and skills teacher candidates are expected to leave college with include but is not limited to the; use, integration, and application of computer technology. Both faculty and students are expected to use technology inclusive of CLT™ to archive evidence for NCATE. Instructors use CLT™ to develop and assess student learning outcomes. Simultaneously, students use CLT™ to create artifacts including; projects, lesson plans, and their electronic portfolio sample. The administrators then collate reports that account for the overall evidence of teacher candidates’ performance outlined in the teaching and learning standards guiding the curricular (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

The electronic evidence room web of activities for NCATE accreditation

Adapted from Chuang (2007)

Figure 1 shows the web of activities that are carried out by the various stakeholders involved with the accreditation process. Specifically, the four primary objectives of this chapter are: evaluating how electronic evidence rooms are created and utilized; establishing a historical contextualization of accreditation in the USA; outlining the general principles and policies of accreditation; and addressing the issues, problems, and current trends in creating electronic evidence room for NCATE accreditation by using CLT™ to support technology leadership in teacher education.