Poster - #VH-33510 - Keywords: music education generative AI teacher assessment

Assessments and Incantations: The Use of Generative AI to Support Preservice Teachers in their Understanding of TPA Requirements

Dr. Susan A. Davis, PhD
Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College, CUNY

ABSTRACT:
As school of education faculty find increasing administrative responsibilities and workload demands, the likelihood of burnout in the field of teacher education rises (Coyle et al., 2020). With the introduction of a newly embedded teacher portfolio assessment (TPA) in a preservice teacher clinical experience course, there was a need to implement the new requirement without detracting from the substantive curriculum already in place. It was also important to identify a manageable solution that would mitigate the propensity of faculty burnout. Inspired by recent innovations with large language models, the researcher decided to utilize a generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to support the preservice teachers in creating and complying with TPA requirements. The goal was to delegate the task of personalized instruction to the chatbot and reimagine the faculty support role for the TPA, both recommended strategies for remediating burnout (Nápoles, 2022).

One of the most time-consuming aspects of implementing a new curricular requirement is the process of informing and training stakeholders about the new responsibility. There are multiple artifacts to review and internalize. In this case, the high stakes nature of this TPA meant that there were numerous questions from the preservice teachers about how they would be assessed and evaluated. In order to balance the student concerns with a need for efficient communication of information, I developed a plan to provide the following tools as a support to the implementation of the new TPA: (1) a TPA handbook developed by the School of Education; (2) an in-class presentation about the requirements of the TPA; (3) a shared slide deck with step-by-step guidance for requirements; (4) the use of personal email communication (Q&A); and (5) a Mizou Chatbot called the QCTPA Wizard.

Preservice teachers enrolled in their clinical experience course for student teaching were provided all of these supports as they completed the QCTPA. Upon completion of the course, the preservice teachers were invited to participate in a study about the efficacy of each of these supports in preparing them to complete the QCTPA.
Utilizing an action research framework, with the hopes of continuing to innovate and adapt our preservice teacher clinical experiences, I developed a plan to gather data about the efficacy of administered supports for completion of our college TPA. The survey instrument utilized multiple-choice, Likert-style, and open-ended prompts. Responses were anonymized, participation was voluntary, and students were informed that their participation had no bearing on their course grade or TPA ratings. A preliminary analysis of the data is presented here.