Conceptual Framework Salisbury University working draft 8/15/05

What Is the Conceptual Framework Our Mission Guides our Program Development Informs our Assessment System Informs our Course Content Frames Experiences of Teacher Candidates Statement of what it means to be a professional educator from the perspective of university faculty, teacher candidates, mentor teachers and all P-12 personnel. Provides the Foundation for ‘What We Do” and ‘Who We Are.”

A Tradition of Caring (1999) to Caring Competent and Committed (2005) 1999 A Focus on Student Learning Scholarship Informed and Reflective Practice Professional Collaboration and Development 2005 (Revised) Informed and Reflective Pedagogy Enhanced Student Learning Scholarship Collaboration

Who Should Know the Conceptual Framework? Teacher Candidates (from multiple sources) Faculty, including Intern Supervisors; staff Mentor Teachers P-12 Personnel in PDS Schools, including Building Principal, SIT, etc. All Professional Ed Unit faculty and Deans of other Professional Schools at SU as well as Provost and SU President

Conceptual Framework draws from: Linda Darling- Hammond (21 st Century Edu.) Bransford (learning theory: 3 basic principles) Shulman (nature of profession) Noddings (caring and learners)) Boyer (Definition of scholarship) DuFour & Eaker (learning communities) Brophy & Good (teacher-student relationships) Gollnick (diversity)

Bransford,(2000) How People Learn Teachers must draw out and work with the preexisting understandings that their students bring with them. Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth, providing many examples in which the same concept is at work… The teaching of metacognitive skills must be integrated into the curriculum in a variety of subject areas.

Shulman: What is a profession? Service to society Body of scholarly knowledge Engagement in practical action Uncertainty caused by the different needs of clients and the non-routine nature of issues. Importance of experience Development of a professional community

Informed and Reflective Pedagogy Informed by: research theory assessments best practices of mentors and master teachers previous experiences Professional Standards

Reflective pedagogy(examples) How effective is my instruction? What am I doing well? What is it about my pedagogy that I need to strengthen? How am I adjusting this pedagogy for diverse learners? What do my learners already know before I initiate instruction? How do I think my learners will respond to my instruction? What did the learners learn because of my instruction? What pedagogy best aligns with my learners in this learning situation? What have I learned about myself and my individual learners in this instructional intervention? How am I thinking about my own thinking and teaching?

Enhanced Student Learning Understanding of how learning occurs (Bransford) Specifically what do I want my students to know and be able to do? What did students know before my intervention/instruction? What do they now know and what are they now able to do because of my instruction? What conceptual change occurred because of my instruction? How am I assessing this new learning?

Scholarship Accumulated knowledge from study and research Content knowledge grounded in Arts & Sciences Pedagogical knowledge(methodology) Boyer, the scholarship of: discovery integration application teaching

Collaboration Within classrooms With colleagues and within schools (Professional Learning Communities) Among schools and districts With multiple institutions(p-12 schools & universities) With parents With communities (civic, business and political) With professional organizations

The Conceptual Framework is: A helpful document Provides common ground and focus A document any SU stakeholder may be asked about A document we don’t need to memorize, but to internalize-at least the Conceptual Themes of Caring Competent and Committed as well as the performance themes of: Informed and Reflective Pedagogy, Enhanced Student Learning, Scholarship and Collaboration Aligned with multiple Standards, INTASC, PDS, MTTS Based on solid research and theory of our profession