With the goal of improving student learning, TPI-US reviews teacher preparation programs to determine how the programs can expand their promising practices and address areas of improvement.
This is
What We Do.
How We Do It
Each inspection includes a team trained by TPI-US. Teams observe program coursework, review data, and interview a broad cross-section of stakeholders including faculty, recent graduates, teacher candidates, school principals and district officials, and classroom mentor teachers. Inspection teams also observe candidates teaching to understand how well they are able to apply what they’ve learned in the program. A key feature of all observations is the impact of teaching on student learning during the observed lesson.
Transparency is a hallmark of the inspection process: program faculty and staff sit in on every inspection team discussion of evidence, with the chance to clarify or add to initial findings. On the final day onsite, the team lead summarizes findings about program strengths and areas for improvement, and discusses evidence behind each judgment. A written report to the program mirrors this discussion.
Leaders report benefitting from TPI-US’s objective feedback and actionable recommendations, leveraging the feedback as a catalyst for change that ushers in the next stage of continuous improvement and ongoing program self-assessment.
Judgment Areas
Teams collect evidence to come to judgments in four areas:
Quality of Selection
The quality of a program's selection addresses its responsibility to select candidates that show potential to become successful teachers.
Quality of Clinical Placement, Feedback, and Candidate Performance
A program's quality of clinical placement, feedback, and candidate performance concerns the key elements of the final clinical experience in which candidates must apply the knowledge acquired through the program.
Quality of Content Knowledge & Teaching Methods
This judgment area focuses on how well a program ensures teacher candidates acquire content knowledge and key teaching methods and skills needed to be an effective educator.
Quality of Program Performance Management
This examines whether and how program leadership—at all levels—utilize data to continually improve the quality of teacher preparation and outcomes for all teacher candidates.
Quality of Program Partnerships
The quality of a program's partnerships addresses the community and K-12 partnerships that enable program candidates to enjoy authentic experiences.
Where We've Worked
Since 2013, TPI-US Inspections have impacted:
+28,000 new teachers
+575,000 students
+250 reviews
+22 states
including residency and other alternative
certification programs
Impact estimates are VERY conservative based on: 1) Only includes teacher candidates graduating the first year after inspection, 2) Only includes students taught in teachers’ first year - the ripple effect on succeeding groups of students would take this to well over one million students.
We have state-level partnerships in Louisiana, Florida, and Massachusetts and have been a part of the Teacher Preparation Transformation Center initiative.
For more information on our initiatives,
please see here.