Clifford E. Tyler,* School of Education, National University, USA

Abstract

Institutes of Higher Education (IHE) Schools of Education in California are faced not only with the challenge of closing the gap between student expectations on the one hand and the realities of university instruction and the workplace on the other, but three additional new challenges. These are (1) meeting the diverse and rapidly changing needs of students; (2) adequately preparing them to successfully transition from course theory to competent practices to meet the demands school administration; and (3) assuring their success in passing the California state-mandated administrative performance assessment.

This paper will describe these challenges and what can be done to meet them.  Students’ changing needs will be described related to the skills they must acquire to successfully complete their theoretical course content and apply it to their fieldwork/intern experiences.  The paper will also describe the challenges that higher education faces to provide them quality courses and a fieldwork and intern course experience, preparing them to pass all three cycles of the state-mandated California Administrative Performance Assessment (CalAPA), or to remediate failing students at IHE expense.

Keywords:  fieldwork, performance assessment, school administration

*Corresponding author. Email: ctyler@nu.edu