The Candle
The candle in the center of the image represents the
motto "Fides Lumen Praebeat": May Faith Grant Light. It is
through enlightenment that teacher candidates will learn to enlighten
their future students. The candle sends rays through the rainbow to
link each facet of the enlightenment process together. The rays
represent the reflective understanding gained through practice which
will guide the teacher candidate to become a light to his/her
classroom.
The Seal
The Coat of Arms of St. Gregory's University represents
the setting in which teacher candidates prepare for a career in
teaching. This setting promotes the development of teachers who are
immersed in and dedicated to the liberal arts education of the whole
person in the context of the Benedictine tradition. St. Gregory's
University is a Roman Catholic University, offering through the
bachelor's degree level a liberal arts education that has been
cherished and handed down in the educational institutions of the
Benedictine Order. St. Gregory's University promotes the education of
the whole person in the context of a Christian community in which
students are encouraged to develop a love of learning and to live
lives of balance, generosity and integrity.
The modality of education at St. Gregory's University
is interactive and cooperative. According to Mortimer Adler, "If we
recognize, as we should, that genuine learning cannot occur without
activity on the part of the learner . . ., then we must also recognize
that all learning is a process of discovery on the part of the
learner" (Adler 168). Adler's "process of discovery" is consistent
with the Reflective Practitioner vision of the St. Gregory's
University Teacher Education Program. St. Gregory's University
promotes a life of balance that emphasizes reflection and fosters
community living, individual freedom, responsibility and
self-discipline.
The Rainbow
The full circle rainbow indicates the reoccurring
assessment through reflection that is central to the St. Gregory's
University conceptual framework. The continuous circle of this rainbow
visually represents the continuous cycle of planning and reflecting.
The rainbow also represents the overlapping of the elements of
becoming a teacher: knowledge and experience encompassed by
reflection. Just as a rainbow blends colors, so a teacher candidate
blends knowledge and experience as she/he becomes a Reflective
Practitioner.
Establishing goals, planning strategies for
achievement, acting upon the strategies, assessing progress, analyzing
the completed task, and beginning the process again all require an
ability to reflect. Opportunities to reflect on and refine
instructional practice - during class and outside class, alone and
with others - are crucial. These principles are consistent with the
position statements and publications of the National Council for the
Social Studies, the National Council of Teacher of English, the
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the National Science
Teachers Association. As discussed in Principles and Standards of
Mathematics (published by NCTM), "reflection and analysis are
often individual activities, but they can be greatly enhanced by
teaming with an experienced and respected colleague, a new teacher, or
a community of teachers" (19). Jacqueline Grennon Brooks and Martin G.
Brooks, authors of The Case For Constructivist Classrooms
(1993) note that become an effective teacher "requires continual
analysis of both curriculum planning and instructional methodologies
during the process of learning to be a teacher, reflective practices
for which most teachers have not been prepared" (13). The outcome of
a reflective practice approach to teacher education, according to
Brooks and Brooks are teacher who "want students to take
responsibility for their own learning, to be autonomous thinkers, to
develop integrated understandings of concepts, and to pose - and seek
to answer - important questions" (13).
Thus, the St. Gregory's University Teacher Education
program uses a never-ending cycle of study, practice, reflection and
refinement.
First Circle: Knowledge of Self
At the core of all knowledge is knowledge of self,
hence it is the first of the knowledge circles. Upon conclusion of a
ten year study, the Conference on English Education (CEE) Commission
on the Preparation of English Teacher Educators listed twelve
principles for teacher educator preparers, the first four related to
self-awareness. These principles declare a need for models who see
themselves as life-long learners who seek understanding through
on-going inquiry; models who exhibit a spirit of inquiry and
reflection into their own and others' pedagogical practice; and models
who imaginatively generate alternative possible solutions to specific
problems in teaching and learning. These principles apply equally to
teacher candidates and to those who prepare them.
Beginning in the Foundations course at St. Gregory's
University, students begin a reflective approach to self awareness.
In Foundations, students explore their learning styles using Kolb's
learning style inventory, their personality profiles using Full
Spectrum Development and Keirsey's temperament sorter, and their
various skills, aptitudes, goals and values. This self-awareness is
the foundation for understanding of self and, by extension, others.
The Writing Portfolio, the Life Development (Sophomore)
Portfolio, and the Senior (Professional) Portfolio are all a part of
the University requirements that encourage students to set goals,
analyze progress, and reflect upon personal growth.
The Writing Portfolio is required of all students as
they exit English Composition I. In the Writing Portfolio, students
reflect upon themselves as writers. They choose writing samples to
prove competency in designated skills and then reflect on their
choices, their growth and their future plans as writers. Thus,
already in their freshman year, students (including teacher
candidates) are asked in a concrete manner to self assess their skills
and to take responsibility for future development.
In a similar manner, near the end of their sophomore
year, students submit their Life Development Portfolio. In this
presentation, students assess their growth in five areas. In
reflections for the artifacts they include, students explain their
relation to their growth, assess their changes, and plan for the
future.
In the Senior Portfolio, (developed throughout the
college career as part of on-going personal assessment), students
direct their focus on development of their professional competencies.
For teacher candidates, this means a professional portfolio that
addresses the competencies described in the St. Gregory's University
Teacher Education Portfolio Handbook, (developed in alignment with the
competencies described by OCTP in partnership with NCATE). This is
the culminating portfolio work for the graduating teacher candidate.
Another critical component of the Teacher Education
program is the Professional Mentoring Team, a seminar experience in
nurturing personal development throughout the education degree
program. In Professional Mentoring Team, teacher candidates build
awareness of self and their relationship with others as they focus on
their growth as professionals. It is through reflection and
discussion that the teacher candidate comes to better understand
him/herself as a developing teacher: as a Reflective Practitioner.
Second Circle: Knowledge of Learners
Through mentoring, discussion and academic study, the
teacher candidate moves from self-knowledge to a knowledge of similar
and dissimilar learners. Thus, the next circle is knowledge of
learners.
The St. Gregory's University Teacher Education program
strives to help teacher candidates understand learners, including
discovering the diversity within learners. Study of individual
development is balanced with awareness of diversity in development.
The three distinct roles for learners identified by
philosopher D. C. Phillips in 1995, (the active learner - active
acquisition of knowledge and understanding; the social learner -
social construction of knowledge and understanding; and the creative
learner - creation or recreation of knowledge and understanding)
supports the St. Gregory's University approach to learning as a
diverse activity. The St. Gregory's University academic community
uses these roles in providing course work and experiences to challenge
the active learner, cooperative learning methods to support the social
learner, and opportunities for application and reflection to engage
the creative learner. In so doing, we model for our teacher
candidates what we want them to become: effective teachers who
establish an environment to support all three learning roles for
optimum cognitive growth.
Teacher candidates gather knowledge about learners in
identifiable courses at St. Gregory's University. The role of
Foundations has already been mentioned. In PY 3113 Development
Psychology, PY 4113 Cognitive Psychology, ED 4132 Psychology of
Students with Exceptions and ED 3011 Educational Technology teacher
candidates study learners in a holistic approach, using Howard
Gardner's research on multiple intelligences, Erik Erikson's stages
of psychological development, Loevinger's stages of ego development,
David Kolb's learning styles, Lawrence Kohlberg's work on moral
development, and the work of Jerome Bruner, Jean Piaget, Carl Rogers,
Lev Vygotsky, Abraham Maslow, Robert Ornstein, Paul Ehrlish, Robert
Rosenthal, and Paulo Fiere.
Third Circle: Knowledge of Subject Matter
Effective teacher education requires a serious
commitment to the development of teacher candidate's understanding of
subject matter. Using the guidelines provided by the learned
societies, St. Gregory's University has developed programs of study to
foster solid knowledge acquisition in each subject matter area. But
beyond mere knowledge, St. Gregory's University promotes depth of
material, including principles and theories of the subject matter. In
addition, students develop association with professional
organizations.
The content areas of secondary English, Mathematics,
Science and Social Studies require 36 credit hours of carefully
sequenced content courses and experiences to develop competencies
indicated by the Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Preparation and the
learned societies, as well as values held by St. Gregory's
University. An additional area of Catholic Education certification is
available in a ten credit hour program.
Fourth Circle: Knowledge of Pedagogy
Key to the profession of education is understanding
pedagogy; thus, pedagogy is the next circle of knowledge. Effective
teachers learn the methods of teaching and learning that underlie
activities in the classroom or learning setting, such as how to ask
questions and plan lessons that reveal students' prior knowledge.
They can then design experiences and lessons that respond to, and
build on, this knowledge.
At the same time, effective teachers synthesize current
research to address the changing nature of teaching and learning and
analyze the complex interplay among pedagogical processes, curriculum
and sociocultural context. The effective teacher uses feedback from
assessment tasks to help students in setting goals, assuming
responsibility for their own learning, and becoming independent
learners. Teachers must decide what aspects of a task to highlight,
how to organize and orchestrate the work of the students, what
questions to ask to challenge those with varied levels of expertise,
and how to support students without taking over the process of
thinking for them and thus eliminate the challenge.
The St. Gregory's University Teacher Education program
of study includes courses that focus on the preparation of
professionals to teach in the United States with consideration of the
Benedictine traditions, historical and sociological considerations of
teaching and contemporary practices and issues in education.
Modeling, course content, discussion, reflection and "real world"
observation and field experiences are used to produce teachers who
have the skills and qualities listed above. Learning styles and
developmental states form the foundation of knowledge of the
teaching/learning processes. Information and teaching tools include
access to information regarding the teaching profession, technological
and information tools, and pedagogical skill and curriculum resources.
For example, teachers have different styles and
strategies for helping students learn particular mathematical ideas,
and there is no one "right way" to teach. However, effective teachers
recognize that the decisions they make shape students' mathematical
dispositions and can create rich settings for learning. Selecting and
using suitable curricular materials, using appropriate instructional
tools and techniques, and engaging in reflective practice and
continuous self-improvement are actions good teacher take every day (Principles
and Standards in School Mathematics 18). As similar statements
can be made in each subject area, the St. Gregory's University teacher
education program is designed to provide teacher candidates with
course work and experiences to understand knowledge (of self, of other
learners, of subject matter and of pedagogy), to apply that knowledge
through observation and experience; and to reflect upon both the
knowledge and the application. Thus teacher candidates learn
pragmatic constructivism: they do what works and have a variety of
techniques to modify or adapt in order to create the best opportunity
for learning. They develop flexibility, understanding that different
classes and teachers use different methods. For example, technology
is an essential tool for teaching and learning. When technological
tools are available, students can focus on decision making,
reflection, reasoning and problem solving. St. Gregory's University
teacher candidates begin their knowledge of computer technology as
freshmen in Foundations. This is followed by the specific course
designed to investigate technology and its uses - ED301 Educational
Technology. In this course, use of technology is modeled and teacher
candidates practice with it. Use of technology at St. Gregory's
University, a laptop university, is not, however, limited to education
courses, as technology is used across the curriculum by faculty and
students alike.
In order to emphasize the link between contemporary
research and best practices, all Education courses are taught by a
mixture of University professors with school experience and
professional teachers or administrators who hold graduate degrees and
who work in local partnering school districts. This affords the
teacher candidates the opportunity to study education topics in depth
and to associate with current practitioners, so as to strengthen the
awareness that theory and methods must be practiced and examined.
The Professional Education course sequence is designed
to move teacher candidates into a professional role in teaching
beginning with an introduction to the teaching profession and its
tools in ED3013 Introduction to Teaching, TH3201 Perspectives on
Catholic Education, and PY4113 Cognitive Psychology. Knowledge of
educational practices is refined in the courses ED4512 Group Process
and Classroom Management, Ed4132 Educational Evaluation, ED 4122
Educational Policies, Law and Issues, ED4513 Educational Methods and
Content Methods, Methods course in the subject areas, and hours of
field experiences. This program design provides the teacher
candidates opportunity to learn and examine best practices and begin
to refine their professional approach to and philosophy of teaching.
Fifth Circle: Field Experiences
The fifth circle, labeled "Field Experience," reflects
the necessary association of knowledge and understanding with
practical application. The St. Gregory's University Teacher Education
program uses a multi-level approach to field experiences. Students
complete at least 100 hours of field experience before the student
teaching experience. During these field experiences the teacher
candidate observes the actions of others and his/her own actions in
the classroom and then reflects upon those observations to grow in
professional confidence and expertise. This model of study, practice,
and reflection is supported in the writings of Donald Schön, who
points out:
Designing [learning experiences] must be learned by
doing. However much students may learn about designing from lectures
or readings, there is a substantial component of educational design
competence - indeed - the heart of it - that they cannot learn in this
way. A quality educational practice is learnable but is not teachable
by classroom methods. And when students are helped to learn this
quality, the interventions most useful to them are more like coaching
than teaching - as in reflective practice.
Thus, the St. Gregory's University Teacher Education
program designs field experiences for teacher candidates and then
provides the occasion for discussion of the teaching actions in
Professional Mentoring Team (discussed later under reflection).
The Teacher Education program of study is designed and
sequenced to provide field experience at multiple levels of competency
development in order to provide a thorough practice-base for
reflection. Students are required to complete field experiences each
semester while in the program, beginning with the freshman or
sophomore year. The experiences are designed in six categories: (1)
observations, (2) directed assistance, (3) supervised assistance, (4)
supervised unit instruction, (5) supervised full responsibility, and
(6) professional development. Each teacher candidate is directed
through each level and area to experience general and specific
activities in order to achieve as thorough and sequentially
appropriate a set of experiences as possible before entering student
teaching. Each teacher candidate keeps a journal record of
experiences to be used for personal notes and reflection as well as
for topics of discussion with peers and mentors.
During the field experience semesters, the teacher
candidates are challenged to match their experiences with course
theories and discussions in order to enhance their abilities to
reflect and implement best practices. This is accomplished in the
relevant education, psychology or subject matter courses in which they
are enrolled, and is the focus of the Mentoring Team.
The Reflective Practitioner Teacher Education program
at St. Gregory's University reflects a high value on early systematic
field experiences in a range of school setting and with a variety of
students of varying cultural, socioeconomic, racial and ethnic
backgrounds, including students with special needs. Field experiences
include the following:
-
At least one experience in an urban school and one in
a small rural school
-
At least one experience in a school with a high
multicultural population
-
At least one experience in a school with a varied
socioeconomic population
-
At least one experience in a Catholic school
-
At least one experience with students with special
needs
-
At least one experience in a school setting focusing
on use of educational technology
-
At least one experience in a non-school educational
program
-
At least one experience in a middle school
As part of their experience in becoming practitioners,
each Education major at St. Gregory's University participates in ten
hours of Read Aloud Seminar. Teacher candidates read aloud from
self-selected material to self-selected audiences. Often this occurs
in short fifteen to twenty minutes segments. The teacher candidate
keeps a log of read aloud experiences.
Teacher candidates are also given the opportunity to
develop leadership, organizational and instructional skills though
Campus Seminars. High school and/or middle school students are
invited to attend a seminar designed by a teacher candidate or a team
of teacher candidates. The teacher candidate(s) organize, advertise,
lead, and instruct the visiting students in order to practice their
leadership and content competencies. As the Seminar develops, the
teacher candidate(s) involved keep a journal record and write a
reflective report at the conclusion of the seminar.
Sixth Circle: Student Teaching
Student teaching is the culminating experience for the
teacher candidate. In this experience, the teacher candidate
applies knowledge of self, knowledge of learners, knowledge of subject
matter, knowledge of pedagogy, and knowledge gained from field
experiences, to a practical application of that knowledge.
Mentored by a faculty supervisor and a cooperating teacher, the
teacher candidate reflects as he/she practices, learning to affirm or
modify teaching practices.
Student teaching will be twelve weeks in length.
The teacher candidate may be in one setting for twelve weeks or in two
school settings each for six weeks in length, depending on the
individual teacher candidate's program plan. Mentor teachers
will be master teachers with at least three years' experience,
selected for their excellence in teaching. University
supervisors will have common school teaching experience in the area of
certification.
Seventh Circle: Reflection
Reflection, the outside circle, encompasses all aspects
of knowledge, understanding and application. Socrates said "The
unexamined life is no life for a human being." It is through
becoming a reflective practitioner that the St. Gregory's University
teacher candidate examines his/her professional life. It is
reflection which is pivotal in growing from student to teacher
candidate to professional teacher.
Reflective practitioners, as Donald Schön points out,
will often depend on the capacity to reflect on experiences and
options, both before taking action and after that action has taken
place. The reflective principle, at the core of Schön's The
Reflective Practitioner (1987), is key to the Teacher Education
program at St. Gregory's University. Teachers will learn while doing
and develop a priority for continued learning and problem solving
throughout their teaching careers. Vinz (1997) advises that teacher
educators need to "design occasions and interrogate critical incidents
that will help all of us learn how to examine and confront our
teaching acts." It is such practice and reflection advice that
prompts the requirement of numerous field experiences and required
participation in the Professional Mentoring Team. The research of
Zeichner is consistent with the need for reflective teaching, and Gere
and Posner as well use the terminology of reflection in their
educational discourse. So it is the combination of study and practice
and reflection that describe the Teacher Education Program at St.
Gregory's University.
This context of reflection based on experience is
suggested in the writings of John Dewey:
In between [pre-reflection on a problem and reflection
for the answer] are states of thinking, (1) suggestions, in which the
mind leaps forward to a possible solution; (2) an intellectualization
of the difficulty or perplexity that has been directly experienced
into a problem to be solved, a question for which the answer must be
sought; (3) the use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea,
or hypothesis, to initiate and guide observation and other operations
in collection of factual material; (4) the mental elaboration of the
idea or supposition as an idea or supposition (reasoning, in the sense
in which reasoning is a part of inference), and (5) testing the
hypothesis by action (How We Think, 1933, 107).
Mentoring provides an opportunity to experience the
thinking reflection Dewey describes.
Central to the development of Reflective Practitioners
is the Professional Mentoring Team, a seminar experience in nurturing
competency development. Each mentoring team is composed of fifteen or
fewer students who meet weekly with a pair of faculty facilitators.
The purpose of the Mentoring Team is to be a community of faculty and
students whose affiliation with each other at a variety of levels will
enhance the students' progression through the Professional Education
program of study, focusing on educational experiences, demonstration
of educational competencies, portfolio development, and school
analysis. In their weekly meeting, Professional Mentoring Team
members present their experiences and academic challenges to reflect
upon them. Since the Team members come from freshman through senior
level students, each member can listen and respond to the material
presented from his/her own developmental perspective. Faculty
facilitators serve an added perspective and resource for the Team
members.
TOP
