NCATE/BOT Institutional Report

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II. Conceptual Framework

The college conceptual framework was revised since the last NCATE/BOT review. During the summer of 2003, the Council on Teacher Education steering committee, made up of departmental representatives of the CTE, set forth a plan to revisit the mission and conceptual framework. The goal was to put forth a conceptual framework: (1) based in current research and scholarship in teacher education; and (2) reflective of the collective knowledge, beliefs, and values of a wide range of stakeholders. The previous conceptual framework focused on inquiry, reflection, and observation for the initial programs and inquiry, research, and leadership for the advanced programs. While these elements remain a part of the professional programs, the revised conceptual framework better addresses the changing knowledge base on teacher education. The steering committee appointed a conceptual framework sub-committee to complete this work over a two-year period.

After extended study and conversation with faculty, program areas, and key stakeholders, the following three themes emerged as key elements of the unit’s programs:

• promoting inquiry, research, and reflection;
• honoring the diversity of our communities and learners; and
• fostering a commitment to lifelong learning and professional development.

Inquiry, research and reflection: Scientific inquiry describes the method of identifying a question, formulating hypotheses, collecting and analyzing data, and deriving tentative conclusions. The unit also views reflection as a type of inquiry, a type of research. We engage in reflection when we perceive the difficulty, complexity, or problematic nature of experiences, and seek to develop a holistic understanding of experiences. Reflection requires us to draw upon our emotion, intuition, and passion as well as our reservoir of logic and rationality. Perhaps more than inquiry or research, reflection entails a “way of being.”

Each of these three concepts—inquiry, research, and reflection—is central to our mission in preparing and working with P-12 educators. As an academic community, we embrace the “spirit of inquiry,” of seeking truth, knowledge, and information. We engage in formal “scientific inquiry” or research as a way of systematically exploring significant issues. And we constantly reflect on our experiences and our role in creating and ascribing meaning to those experiences.

The idea of "doing" inquiry, research, and reflection is built into the fabric of the college. It is demonstrated through the University mission, faculty roles, curriculum content, goals, and pedagogy. The college belongs to a "Research One" university, in which each faculty member is expected to develop a line of inquiry related to significant educational issues. Many faculty and staff are involved in research on the college’s professional education programs.

Diversity: The theme of diversity runs throughout programs. The traditional role of a university is to expose candidates to a diversity of ideas and viewpoints. Diversity of ideas is the foundation and sustenance of a democratic society. But honoring diversity also involves respect for the diversity of race/ethnicity, nationality, culture, language, religion, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, disability status, and human potential. This second aspect of diversity supports and is integral to the first; for example, a classroom with students from diverse cultural backgrounds is likely to reflect a greater diversity of ideas and perspectives. Faculty have a responsibility to honor and integrate the diversity of experiences candidates bring to the classroom, particularly through the lenses of race/ethnicity, nationality, culture, language, religion, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, disability status, and human potential. Since diversity is a theme that runs throughout the programs, issues of diversity must be a conscious part of the dialogue.

Lifelong learning and professional development: The CEHD fosters a commitment to lifelong learning and professional development in three different but connected approaches: 1) promoting inquiry, research and reflection in the course work of licensure, advanced programs, and special topics; 2) supporting an organizational structure which provides choices for educators who are at different developmental levels in their life cycle; and 3) engaging schools in ways that promote and sustain continuous improvement for both the individual and the organization.

Becoming a licensed educator is just the first step in a lifelong process of education if an educator chooses to pursue additional educational and research opportunities such as: becoming licensed in additional content areas, completing graduate degrees, earning certificates in new areas, pursuing administrative licensure, doing comparative studies through international travel, and working toward National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification. The advanced programs combine research with real-world experiences and offer several approaches for educators to pursue lifelong learning opportunities.

The CEHD’s relationship with professional educators goes beyond licensure. The college’s varied programs are instrumental in impacting knowledge production and use in the schools and in working with experienced teachers and schools. The college is cognizant of the need to develop a reciprocal relationship between experienced teachers and college faculty as the means toward school improvement. To engage schools means to work in partnership. The conceptual framework is illustrative of our recognition that research, inquiry, and reflection are lifelong learning tools embedded in our programs from pre-service to professional development for experienced professional educators.

It is the expectation of the college faculty that candidates at all levels will demonstrate the dispositions associated with these themes. The initial licensure program faculty have articulated these dispositions and related them to the standards for licensure. The advanced teacher program areas use these themes as a core part of the dispositions; and the other professional school personnel align these dispositional expectations with the dispositions in the particular professional standards.

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