Accreditation aims to help produce “exceptional” teachers
The University of Rhode Island’s School of Education has earned national accreditation for their high-quality preparation of teacher candidates.
URI was engaged in a multi-year process with the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP) to earn this prestigious licensure.
According to Diane Kern, interim director of the School of Education, URI has been nationally accredited for decades, yet they undertook a two-year study to further their innovative strategies in the classroom and change accreditation agencies.
AAQEP analyzed the school’s strengths and weaknesses through data analysis for one year. Then, a self-study was conducted at URI which was shared with national peers for evaluation.
While typical program approval is required for all state universities by the Rhode Island Department of Education, Kern said that this specialized accreditation is an “add on” for students and faculty alike.
“The commissioners have a set of standards that we had to align our program to as part of this innovation,” Kern said. “Those include making sure that our teacher candidates have global and international competence, as well as classroom management and teaching practices.”
Peer review and reports from AAQEP noted URI’s School of Education as advanced in their ability to drive teacher improvement and generate students who can contribute positively as head of a classroom environment.
This accreditation from AAQEP will last for seven years and has impacted 11 initial programs which lead to the first teaching license for students in areas such as special education, reading specialization or middle school certification.
Josh Smith, outcomes and assessment coordinator for the School of Education, said that this new agency promotes collegiality and gradual growth rather than compliance to rules and regulations.
“It’s definitely helped us find our direction as far as continuous improvements and where we need to go, whereas the other [agency] was more like a fire drill approach,” Smith said. “This accreditation pushes a model more about output and not input.”
100 percent of faculty in the School of Education voted to continue engaging with AAQEP for accreditation in the future, according to Smith. Kern said that she is grateful for this unanimous decision.
The School of Education is facing growth in and of itself: compared to last academic year’s 629 undergraduate students, there are now 744 URI students enrolled towards teacher licensure across all levels.
“Students who graduate from URI have a degree that makes them eligible for teacher certification,” Kern said. “This is awarded by states, and every state has different requirements, so we coach our students to not only pass this test but to be successful teachers afterwards.”
According to Kern, students have a number of benefits when graduating from a nationally accredited university, compared to colleges with only state-level recognition.
With the current teacher shortage in the United States, Kern said that now more than ever is the time to make sure URI’s School of Education is qualified to produce “exceptional” teachers.
Both Kern and Smith agreed that this achievement could not have been possible without the support of local K-12 school partners and URI’s President’s Leadership Council.
“It really has been a concerted effort to make sure that people are graduating from a high quality program, and that we are part of the solution to this national problem,” Kern said.