The presentation will trace the experiences of two program directors from Walden University and their examination of issues involved with faculty assessment.  Their experiences were used to create a simple but effective and workable model for faculty assessment and development.  Once a presentation of how data were obtained, and analyzed, to create an effective communication process, the specifics of how faculty members were engaged in the collegial methods to ensure a workable professional development process will be described.  The experiences of the directors in working with assessment will be utilized as they demonstrate how they regularly conduct an interactive evaluation process, involving the audience in using the model created at Walden in the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership.  This model was developed using various metrics, such as student course evaluations, faculty self-assessments, checklists of activity, adherence to rubrics, etc.  The entire process begins with the premise that collegial interactions will provide the most sustainable changes.  The process concludes with the implementation of online professional development in response to the collected data.

This study presents findings from an investigation of the impact of teachers who graduated from a fully online master’s degree program with training in pedagogy and a content-specialization in elementary reading and literacy (oERL) on reading achievement in a large urban public school system in the northwestern United States. The research team used a non-equivalent group design and matched pairs of teachers based on degree, grade-level taught, and teaching experience to construct the study on three years of student and teacher data. The study consisted of 70 teachers and 3,828 student observations. Hierarchical linear modeling was employed to understand the teachers’ effects on student learning over time. Results indicate there was a significant positive effect of the oERL on student achievement. Broadly, this study is an example of a serious attempt to ascertain the impact of a high demand and fully online program on the community where graduates are employed. More narrowly, these results support the view that a fully online program aimed at training teachers, a rarity in graduate education, can provide opportunities for those teachers to obtain the pedagogical content knowledge that can positively influence instructional effectiveness.