Development of the Conceptual Framework

The Conceptual Framework of the School of Education has been in development since preparations began for the NCATE visit of 1993. At the time of the NCATE review in 1993, the goal of the undergraduate and graduate programs was to prepare effective liberally educated school professionals. While maintaining its commitment to the liberal education tradition at William and Mary and after reviewing its programs in 1995-96, the faculty agreed to incorporate into its program the theme of teacher as Reflective Practitioner. The School of Education underwent a considerable strategic planning process that culminated in the adoption of new programs and degrees in the spring of 1997. These new programs and degrees were initially implemented in the fall of 1998 and fully implemented in the spring of 2000. In the fall of 2000, following the completion of program implementation, the faculty began to assess how well the new programs were meeting the goals set forth in Focus for the Future. Part of that process included an analysis of the Mission, Goals, and Conceptual Framework. The faculty concluded that the Conceptual Framework based on Reflective Practice was too narrow for the programs as currently designed. A Conceptual Framework Committee consisting of two members from each of the areas and the two associate deans was formed in the spring of 2001 to propose modifications to the Conceptual Framework. The committee met into the summer of 2001 and decided that because each area had different emphasis points, separate Conceptual Framework documents should be created by each area.

The Areas of the School of Education prepared their Conceptual Frameworks and shared them with the Conceptual Framework Committee in the fall of 2001 (see Area Conceptual Frameworks in the Evidence Room). An analysis by the Conceptual Framework Committee indicated that there were several themes in common to the separate frameworks (see Comparison of Conceptual Frameworks by Associate Deans in the Evidence Room). The associate deans agreed to create a synthesis Conceptual Framework that was built on the commonalities in the separate frameworks. The Conceptual Framework Committee reviewed the framework generated by the associate deans, and one member of the Committee modified the framework to accommodate the discussed changes. This version was adopted by the Conceptual Framework Committee as the final draft to be circulated to the faculty (see Conceptual Framework of the School of Education - KW's revision in the Evidence Room). This version of the Conceptual Framework expands the Conceptual Framework of 1996 to include the three central elements of Reflective Practice, Leadership, and Collaboration.

The Conceptual Framework draft was circulated to the faculty in the spring of 2002. Revisions were made based on the feedback from the faculty, and three open forums were held to discuss the Conceptual Framework draft. These forums invited feedback from faculty, students, and colleagues in the schools. The feedback obtained from the open forums led to the inclusion of a fourth strand, Content Expertise, and a shortening of the Conceptual Framework to include the key elements. This final document (see below) was formally approved by the faculty in the fall of 2003. Since its adoption, the document has been broadly shared with students, Arts and Science faculty, and school personnel.

The Conceptual Framework

The Conceptual Framework of the School of Education at the College of William and Mary incorporates a shared view of how to best prepare our graduates to deliver services to children, schools, families, and communities in a manner that will promote educationally and psychologically healthy environments in a pluralistic society. This framework embodies the essential elements for our programs, courses, teaching, student and faculty scholarship, and student performance. As an integrative whole, the framework is comprised of the four main strands of the Content Expert, the Reflective Practitioner, the Educational Leader, and the Effective Collaborator, which we believe constitute a highly qualified professional who will positively and productively contribute to the lives of students, clients, community, and the profession.

Content Expert.  The basis of the first strand is our belief that professionals must have specific knowledge to be able to learn in context and problem solve throughout a career. We understand that a deep and confident understanding of disciplinary subject matter is vital.  We also understand that subject matter knowledge must be accompanied by pedagogical content knowledge so that individuals will have an understanding of how to interpret, communicate, and construct such knowledge so as to promote learning (Shulman, 1987; and Cohen, McLaughlin, and Talbert, 1993).  The value of this long-standing commitment to intellectualism by our faculty is confirmed by recent research conducted by Monk (1994), Fetler (1999), Goldhaber and Brewer (1999), and Wenglinsky (2000) that validated the need for intellectual rigor in subject matter.  Thus, the role of the program is to provide opportunities and a context for students to build and evaluate knowledge. A primary way to accomplish this goal is to help students study selected content appropriate to disciplinary foci, reflect on their actions, consider multiple perspectives, and generate various possible responses based on research and best practice. The organization and transfer of skills and knowledge across these experiences results in deeper meaning for the learner.

Reflective Practitioner.  The second strand emanates from our belief in the position of Schon (1987) that the ideal preparation is one that produces a professional who is able to “reflect-in-action.” According to research-based principles of reflective practice, learning does not occur through direct transmission of knowledge from instructor to student. Instead, the learners are provided with opportunities to articulate their own ideas, experiment with the ideas, and make connections between their studies and the world in which they live. To this end, a style of reflective practice is cultivated that embraces the role of data, active inquiry, careful analysis, and a thoughtful process for decision-making. Although students in our programs may develop specializations, the broader focus is on the development of analytical and creative practices that allow them to approach new issues and problems in a proactive way.  We believe that such multivariate patterns of thinking within role-specific contexts are necessary for dealing with the current and future level of complexity that working as a leader among professionals requires. We believe that teaching is a cognitive process involving decision making (Sergiovanni & Starratt, 1993). We hold that our responsibility is, in large part, to educate our students to reason soundly and to perform skillfully.

Educational Leader.  The third strand highlights the notion that we expect our graduates to be prepared and willing to assume leadership roles that allow them to effectively impact educational and societal change.  Today, educators not only are providing school-based leadership, but increasingly they are working as mentors to new teachers, undertaking professional development activities, and carrying out educational research (Dimock and McGree, 1995; Livingston, 1992). We believe that preparing students to be leaders must be proactive rather than reactive, helping students focus on how to improve educational contexts through the application of sound theory and ethical principles. Special attention is given to developing specific competencies required in each area of certification along with developing the affective side of students in respect to their personal sense of competence and confidence in leadership roles and their resilience in coping with change. We hope to prepare our students to understand human problems from a developmental and systemic perspective that allows them to formulate and implement individual and systemic plans of action for prevention, remediation, and growth. We are sensitive to the myriad of educational contexts that students will encounter in their careers.  Thus preparation promotes the qualities of flexibility, interpersonal skills, and ethical behaviors that reach across such contexts and are essential to Educational Leadership.

Effective Collaborator.  Finally, we promote and develop the use of collaborative styles in recognition of the need to work effectively and cooperatively in the professional community, no matter how broadly or narrowly defined. We agree with Bredson (1995) that the behaviors and skills related to collaborative work should be integral parts of the curriculum and not considered an add-on element.  Evidence indicates that professionals grow through an interactive process of learning from each other (Ponticell, Olsen, & Charlier; 1995), and collaboration has been strongly supported by research in family-professional relations (Corrigan & Bishop, 1997). We believe that training in collaboration is an obligation of programs that are preparing individuals who will assume roles of teaching, service, and leadership.

A Dynamic and Core Framework

We believe that the Conceptual Framework of the School of Education must be adaptable to the experience and background of the candidates within programs, the relative importance of the four strands within program areas, and to the external forces of our society. The dynamic nature of the framework is most clearly demonstrated by the relative emphasis placed on the four strands by each program. While all of our graduates embody the core qualities of the Content Expert, Reflective Practitioner, Educational Leader, and Effective Collaborator, we recognize and account for the valid and important degrees of emphasis, distinction, and definition that these core concepts take not only in a program area, but also with regard to the unique strengths and weaknesses of each student and over the duration of the professional life of a graduate and beyond.

Ultimately, the Conceptual Framework reflects the core elements of a graduate of the School of Education and, as such, it provides a structure for our programs and a process for generating and responding to new knowledge. The framework guides the experiences we require of students in their programs. The framework also provides the basis for the expectations and the evaluation of candidates and their programs. Through the process of candidate and program evaluation, we expect that our programs will produce highly qualified professionals and continuously evolve in response to our students’ experiences within the program and our graduates’ contributions to the profession as practitioners.

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