FAQ

Minnesota Educator Dispositions System™ (MnEDS)

Pilot Year 2 FAQ

What is the focus of Year 2 Pilot of MnEDS?

The focus the Year 2 Pilot is on coaching and developing teacher candidate dispositions in formative ways within a dynamic learning community. A formative approach to disposition development serves the candidates in their development of equity-based teaching approaches toward social justice. In keeping with the conceptual underpinning of creating an assessment model based on distributed knowledge, the MnEDS Research and Development Team (R&D team) will work with faculty on how to create opportunities to make candidates’ performance visible across a variety of tasks and performances within a teacher education program.

How is the MnEDS R&D team supporting program areas in the piloting of a new approach to developing teaching dispositions?

During Year 1 of the MnEDS pilot (2015-2016), many colleagues in CEHD indicated interest in learning more about dispositions for teaching. A knowledge community format will provide opportunities for faculty and staff across the college to engage in collaborative learning around the construct dispositions. The underlying philosophy is that people can learn more together, as a group, than they would individually. The R&D team will do this by supporting a Dispositions Knowledge Community for teacher preparation faculty and staff, inviting program faculty and supervisors to be part of the development process, and hosting support meetings and brown bag sessions to share curriculum and assessment ideas across programs.

Do program areas have to document evidence this year for MnEDS?

MnEDS will not be administered through the ShowEvidence platform this year so there is no formal expectation of documenting evidence for the CEHD assessment system specifically. Together, the R&D team would like to explore what is feasible to consider as evidence of disposition development, such as curriculum-embedded assignments, for the purposes of learning together and performance-based assessment development.  

Will supervisors get any special training?

The R&D team is working on offering sessions for supervisors around coaching dispositions within the context of existing professional development opportunities (e.g. SuperShops), and as standalone professional development sessions. Additional information regarding these opportunities will be available soon. Supervisors are also welcome and and encouraged to join the Dispositions Knowledge Community. Information about meeting dates, times, and locations can be found on the MnEDS website (use the internet search term “MnEDS” for quick access to the site).

What will Cooperating Teachers’ involvement be?

At CEHD partner schools with liaisons, Cooperating Teachers will get some face-to-face professional development around the MnEDS framework. The R&D team seeks deeper participation in 1-2 schools that will help develop a model for how to engage with Cooperating Teachers moving into the future. MnEDS team members will be developing online modules to introduce Cooperating Teachers to the framework. Additionally, OTE and the MnEDS team will  collaborate to update introductory activities pertaining to the MnEDS framework in the OTE’s online and face-to-face Co-Teaching Pairs trainings.

Is this a research project and, if so, how can the university community participate?

MnEDS is both a research project and an assessment development project of the college. TERI funds have supported the development of the assessment framework and processes. But there is so little that the field knows about how dispositions are developed for teaching, especially with an equity-based approach, that it is important to study the process as a research effort.

The R&D team will engage in knowledge community meetings for both purposes—to develop the framework and support materials that make up the assessment system and to study the processes by which teacher preparation faculty and staff develop understandings and practices of dispositions for teaching. All members of the knowledge community will be asked to sign research consent forms (of course, this will be the individual’s choice) and those meetings will be documented as data.

Teacher candidates have signed consent forms to participate in surveys and interviews about their dispositions development this year.

If faculty and staff would like to conduct research on these processes, the R&D team welcomes the collaboration of anyone into the ongoing research work in this area and is hopeful that the knowledge community will support more inquiry.

Will MnEDS be the new dispositions assessment for the college in the future?

The MnEDS R&D teams is still in pilot phases of the development of this assessment system. It is encouraging that EPPC has made several moves in the last year to focus more on equity-based teacher education and MnEDS is aligned with that focus. Faculty and staff across the college have indicated that the current dispositions assessment has several shortcomings in its design and implementation. So, if the pilot work continues to help teacher educators see how candidates are performing and developing through the lens of dispositions, there is a strong possibility that it will be adopted. This will be determined through a collaborative process between faculty and the Associate Dean for Graduate and Professional Programs, with eventual recommendations to EPPC for policy decisions.

What are some immediate next-steps involvement and/or to learn more about MnEDS?

There are many ways to become more actively involved with the R&D of MnEDS in Pilot Year 2.

One way is by joining the dispositions knowledge community, or, making sure someone from your course/program area can participate and share their learning.

Second, there is a wealth of resources to support the implementation of MnEDS with teacher candidates and for the professional development of teacher educators. These resources can be found on the MnEDS website at:

https://sites.google.com/a/umn.edu/umn-dispositions-assessment-framework/home/resources-file-cabinet-1

Due to the unusually long URL, a more efficient way to access the site is to conduct an internet search with the term “MnEDS.”

Third, faculty and staff are encouraged to contact Miranda Schornack, MnEDS Project Coordinator at degro078@umn.edu to arrange a meeting between their course/program area and MnEDS team members.

Who is on the MnEDS R&D team this year?

The following team members are funded by the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative grant and the Campbell Endowed Chair funds.

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