Each State Approved Teacher Education Program must ensure it meets HTSB's SATE Unit Standards and that its teacher candidates meet the HTSB Teacher Performance Standards and/or the standards of the specialty professional association for each program. Institutions may elect to seek national accreditation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. For more information, visit the NCATE website. SATE Unit Standards are listed below.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK STANDARD
A conceptual framework establishes the shared vision for a unit's efforts to prepare educators to work in P-12 schools. It provides direction for programs, courses, teaching, candidate performance, scholarship, service, and unit accountability. The conceptual framework provides the bases that describe the unit's intellectual philosophy, which distinguishes program completers of one unit from those of another. The conceptual framework also provides a context for aligning professional and state standards with candidate proficiencies expected by the unit and programs for the preparation of educators.
UNIT CANDIDATE PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
UNIT STANDARD 1.
CANDIDATE KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND DISPOSITIONS
Candidates preparing to work in schools as teachers or other professional school personnel know and demonstrate content, pedagogical and professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to help all students learn. Assessments show that candidates meet professional, state, and unit standards.
The public expects that their children's teachers have sufficient knowledge of content to help all students meet standards for P-12 education. The guiding principle of the teaching profession is that student learning is the goal of teaching. Standard 1 reinforces the importance of this goal by requiring that teacher candidates know their content or subject matter, can teach, and can help all students learn. All professional school personnel are expected to carry out their work in ways that are supportive of student learning.
UNIT STANDARD 2.
ASSESSMENT SYSTEM AND UNIT EVALUATION
The unit has an assessment system that collects and analyzes data about applicant qualifications, candidate and program completer performance, and unit operations to evaluate and improve the unit and its programs. The unit has a professional responsibility to ensure that its programs and program completers are of the highest quality. Meeting this responsibility requires using information technologies in the systematic gathering and evaluation of data and making use of that data to strengthen the unit and its programs.
UNIT STANDARD 3.
FIELD EXPERIENCES AND CLINICAL PRACTICE
The unit and its school partners design, implement, and evaluate field experiences and clinical practice so that teacher candidates and other school personnel develop and demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to help all students learn.
Field experiences and clinical practice are integral program components for the initial preparation of teacher candidates and candidates for other school personnel roles. They provide the opportunity for candidates to apply their knowledge, skills, and dispositions in a variety of settings appropriate to the content and level of their program. Designed and sequenced well, they help candidates develop the competence necessary to begin or continue careers as teachers or other school professionals. Student teaching or an internship is the required culminating experience for teacher candidates at the baccalaureate, post baccalaureate, or master's level.
Field experiences and clinical practice are characterized by collaboration, accountability, and an environment and practices associated with professional learning. Field experiences represent a variety of early and ongoing school-based opportunities in which candidates may observe, assist, tutor, instruct, or conduct applied research. Clinical practice includes student teaching and internships that provide candidates with experiences that allow for full immersion in the learning community so that candidates are able to demonstrate competence in the professional roles for which they are preparing. A minimum of ten weeks, full-time, is required for the student teaching or clinical practice component. Clinical practice also provides for candidates' use of information technology to support teaching, learning, and other professional responsibilities.
The unit and school partners collaboratively design and implement field experiences and clinical practice, including the assessment of candidate performance. P-12 school and unit faculty share the responsibility for candidate learning. The partners share and integrate resources and expertise to create roles and structures that support and create opportunities for candidates to learn. The partners select and prepare clinical faculty to mentor and supervise teacher candidates.
Candidates are expected to study and practice in a variety of settings that include diverse populations, students with exceptionalities, and students of different ages. They are placed in clinical settings at grade levels and in the subjects or school roles (e.g., school counselor, school librarian) for which they are seeking a license. Candidate learning is integrated into the clinical setting. Scheduling, use of time, and resources support clinical faculty and allow candidates to participate as teachers, professional educators, and learners in the school setting.
UNIT STANDARD 4.
DIVERSITY
The unit designs, implements, and evaluates curriculum and experiences for candidates to acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to help all students learn. These experiences include working with diverse unit and school faculty, diverse candidates, and diverse students in P-12 schools.
One of the goals of this standard is the development of educators who can help all students learn and who can teach from multicultural and global perspectives that draw on the histories, experiences, and representations of students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Therefore, the unit provides opportunities for candidates to understand the role of diversity and equity in the teaching and learning process. Coursework, field experiences, and clinical practice are designed to help candidates understand the influence of culture on education and acquire the ability to develop meaningful learning experiences for all students. Candidates learn about exceptionalities and inclusion as well as gender differences and their impact on learning. Proficiencies, including those related to dispositions and diversity, are drawn from the standards of the profession, state, and unit; they are clear to candidates and are assessed as part of the unit's performance assessment system.
UNIT STANDARD 5.
FACULTY QUALIFICATIONS, PERFORMANCE, AND DEVELOPMENT
Faculty are qualified and model best professional practices in scholarship, service and teaching, including the assessment of their own effectiveness as related to candidate performance; they also collaborate with colleagues in the disciplines and schools. The unit systematically evaluates faculty performance and facilitates professional development.
Faculty in higher education and partner schools are critical to the development of high quality professional educators to staff Hawaii's and the nation's schools. They can introduce candidates to research and good practice that counter myths and misperceptions about teaching and learning. Through modeling of good teaching, they help candidates develop multiple teaching strategies to help all students learn. The intellectual vitality exhibited by faculty who are engaged in their work and student learning is important in setting the stage for continuous professional development by the candidates under their supervision.
UNIT STANDARD 6.
UNIT GOVERNANCE AND RESOURCES
The unit has the leadership, authority, budget, personnel, facilities, and resources, including information technology resources, for the preparation of candidates to meet professional, state, and unit standards.
The unit performs the key leadership role in governance and management of curriculum, instruction, and resources for the preparation of professional educators. The unit is responsible for the quality of all school personnel prepared at the institution regardless of where the program is administratively located within the institution. Thus, units are expected to directly manage or coordinate all programs offered at the institution for the initial and continuing preparation of teachers and other professional school personnel. In this regard, they work with colleagues in arts and sciences and other units across campus as well as educators in P-12 schools.
The unit has designed, established, and maintained a structural and governance system for planning, delivering, and evaluating programs that includes school practitioners as well as faculty and administrators in other units of the institution. A key element of that system is the development and implementation of an assessment system that includes the gathering and use of candidate performance data, as described under Standard 2, to ensure that candidates meet standards.