University of Wisconsin - Stout

The following are the responses from the program director, chair, and dean for the Planning and Review Committee’s (PRC) consultant report for the B.S. in Technology Education program.

Response from the Program Director

Recommendation

Create a new advisory committee with on-campus technical faculty and good representation of high school teachers.  This committee must meet every semester and be charged with setting goals and achieving results.

Response

A new advisory committee was formed during the summer of 2003 and 7 meetings were conducted.  This committee will be reduced in size and few meetings will be held in an attempt of bringing more formality to the advisory committee process.  Once again, these meetings will be held in conjunction with state conference (October and March) to ensure the participation of public school teachers.  The program director will invest more time and effort in formalizing the agenda and documenting proceedings.

Recommendation

Prompt the advisory committee to initiate dialogue that addresses uncertainties/conflicts regarding content priorities, high school based delivery methodologies and the philosophy of the field.

Response

The program director will continue to update the on-campus advisory committee members on the national standards for the study of technology, DPI regulations for teacher licensure and program approval, and NCATE accreditation requirements be continued into the 2004-05 school year.  The program director will also begin to share information about current research on effective instruction on current practices in technology education at the middle and high school levels.  The dissemination process will make greater use of e-mail to ensure everyone receives this kind of information in small and more frequent intervals.  In addition to discussing these issues during advisory committee meetings, the committee members will be informed about other forums where these topics are discussed in depth.

Recommendation

Address advisement concerns by raising the number of program advisors and/or increasing the availability of current advisors.  One option of addressing this issue would be to extend advisement roles to faculty who are teaching technology-based courses.

Response

The program director invested at least 93.5 hours during more than 187 one-on-one advisement meetings with technology education majors during the 2003-04 academic year.  This figure is down from last year due to the introduction of a Freshman advisor in the fall of 2003.  A new technology education faculty member was hired in the spring of 2004 and he will be assigned approximately 60 advisees.  Both the Dean and the Coordinating Chair will solicit additional advisors from the pool of education faculty that teach foundations courses and have few, if any, undergraduate advisees.  Furthermore, with Dr. Carol Mooney’s help, a second attempt will be made to solicit additional advisors from technical faculty.  Lastly, Mr. Byron Anderson’s need to be off campus supervising student teachers has been reduced for the fall of 2004.  Therefore, he should be able to advise students on-campus.  Once these new assignments have been made, a member of the clerical staff in the School of Education will update the student advisors on e-scholar.

Recommendation

Continuously maintain open lines of communication with key internal instructors as well as those who are outside of the department.  The program director should consider actively soliciting feedback on stakeholder concerns and respond to such concerns in a timely manner through public meetings and/or correspondence.

Response

The program director invested 15.5 hours in face-to-face communication with technical faculty regarding the goals and objectives of the program in light of new expectations from the Department of Public Instruction during the 2003-04 school year.  This effort will be continued with during the 2004-05 school year.  Furthermore, the program director will make much greater use of e-mail to keep advisory committee members, lead instructors, and program stakeholders informed.

Recommendation

Identify the basis of and subsequently address concerns about the overlap both internal to the program and in relation to the courses from the School of Education.

Response

The technical education program, along with all of the other teacher education programs on campus, is preparing for an evaluation by the Department of Public Instruction in the fall of 2004.  This effort involves defining and sequencing all of the outcomes that are addressed in all professional and technical courses in the program.  This on-going process will uncover any redundancies across classes.  The results of this articulation process will be shared with the members of the advisory committee for review.

Recommendation

Address stakeholder concerns regarding the minimal rigor of the program, particularly as it relates to the need for core-skill lab competencies (e.g., equipment operations and maintenance, welding, fluid power, and wood skills, electronics, safety) and math/physics abilities.

Response

The program director will ask the advisory committee to review the standards for technology education, technology teacher certification, and program accreditation in relation to the topics listed above.  This discussion will also include data gathered from student assessments (e.g., student teacher evaluations by cooperating teachers, Praxis II scores).  The advisory committee will be asked to inform, evaluate, and ultimately, approve a revision of the technology education program that they believe best addresses these issues within the context of certification regulations, accreditation standards, university policies, and resource constraints.

Recommendation

Follow up with program web-master to ensure that the Technology Education program plan sheet listed on the Stout website is current.

Response

The web site for the Technology Education program was reviewed at the time of this report.  The program plan sheet in question is the official program plan sheet for the program and it is current.  When the program revision that is scheduled for this fall is completed, a new program plan sheet and eight-semester sequence will be posted.

Recommendation

Consider reducing the number of students enrolled in the program to minimize advisement-related stress as well as competition for available core education/technology courses.

Response

According to the Registration and Records Office, enrollment in the program is down to 358 students as of February 25, 2004.  Furthermore, due to additional prerequisite requirements imposed on students by the School of Education, competition for core classes has been dramatically reduced.  There are still open seats in all the professional courses for those students who fulfill their prerequisite requirements for the summer (e.g., pass all three sections of the Pre Professional Skills Test, establish 2.75 minimum grade point average).  The backlog in technical courses was reduced this year due to additional sections being added to the Fall 2004 schedule (e.g., AEC-172, RD-205, INMGT-314).  The advisory committee will be asked to review the enrollment in the program relative to school and university resources (e.g., advisors, supply and demand of required classes).

Recommendation

Continue dialog with the CET Department Chair/faculty to resolve course updating-based issues specific to TEC-103.

Response

The course in question, TCS-103 Communication and Information Technology, is not currently required in the program.  However, CET has revised the course with input from the program director for Technology Education. The next step will be to discuss the status of TCS-304 Communication and Information Systems, its relationship with TCS-103, and the potential of these courses to address both certification and accreditation requirements.  Either one or both of these classes will be included in the program revision schedule for Fall 2004.  The revision of these courses, along with the program revision, should bring closure to this issue.

Response from the Chair

Recommendation

Assess the need for increased clerical support for Technology Education program faculty.

Response

There is a shortage of clerical support for all instructional faculty and staff in the School of Education and for program directors, due both to the fact that there is one person serving over thirty instructional faculty/staff, five graduate program directors, and seven undergraduate program directors and SOE faculty and staff being housed in four different buildings.  We did restructure that position to be a PA 3 position/person.  Additionally SOE will be supporting a part-time LTE to provide additional support.  Hopefully, the need for additional classified support will be identified through the review of classified support in the academic division that is being conducted by the provost.

Recommendation

Prompt involvement by all faculty within the Technology Education discipline as well as the SOE to address scheduling concerns.

Response

There is no known backlog of TECED students unable to get into courses this next year due to insufficient offerings.  An analysis of enrollment was done this past year to plan the number of courses needed each term.  There are students unable to proceed in the program due to courses restricted to students admitted to education programs.  Beginning freshman year, students are advised about the education benchmarks that they must meet to continue in education.

Response from the Dean

Recommendation

Hold the program director accountable for performing administrative responsibilities, including securing adequate student advisement and holding advisory committee meetings.

Response

The program director will be requested to submit advisory committee member names by October 1st of each year with established dates of meetings and tentative agenda items for discussion/action.  The SOE Coordinating Chair will work with the dean and the program director in distributing advisees among the Technology Education faculty (a new faculty member was hired in Spring 2004) and professional education faculty.  This past year, freshman advising was done by the Advisement Office, consequently reducing the number of students needing faculty advisement.  In addition, and if needed, technology education content faculty will be asked if they would assist in advising technology education students.  The dean will hold regular meetings with the program director to be certain administrative responsibilities are being performed.

Recommendation

Prompt the department chair/faculty to continue the search and screen process for qualified staff, and as needed, provide resource support for staffing needs.

Response

The numbers of students enrolled in the program appears to have stabilized.  Requirements of new licensing rules have affected the number of students being admitted into teacher education.  A new staff member was hired and the chair/faculty have the go ahead to hire another in 2004-05 if needed.

Recommendation

Prompt the department chair/technology education faculty to specifically identify SOE facility deficiencies and, as needed, provide resource support to improve such physical areas.

Response

Facility and space needs are being worked on by the dean, chair, and technology education faculty.  An SOE Access to Learning Laboratory/E-Portfolio Coordinator position for the Technology Education laboratory is under consideration by the provost and SSA Chair.  If possible, LTE support for faculty/staff in this area will be in place for next year. The Chair will work with Technology Education faculty to continually monitor space and equipment needs to bring forth to the dean.

Recommendation

Work with the CTEM Dean to identify strategies that promote effective inter-college faculty involvement as well as curriculum refinement.

Response

Meetings with the CTEM Dean to identify strategies that promote effective inter-college faculty involvement and curriculum refinement will be held.

Recommendation

Work with the program director and chair(s) to ensure that stakeholders continue dialog addressing the uncertainties/conflicts regarding content priorities, high school-based delivery methodologies, and the philosophy of the field.

Response

The program director will be asked to have technical faculty, public school teachers and administrators, and business and industry personnel on the program committee.  These meetings must have a time for discussion of current needs, trends, philosophies, and content priorities of the field to keep our program current and on target with the technology education field.  Meetings will be a means of keeping all informed and of seeking input from committee members.