Faculty Living Their Beliefs

Abstract

A major influence on our vision of teaching is our view of learning. Constructivist theory and research during the past decades suggest we consider changing our practice in teacher education. One current focus of change in teacher education involves developing constructivist teacher education programs to prepare teachers who base their teaching on constructivist principles and theories. Constructivism assumes that people create knowledge from the interaction between their existing knowledge or beliefs and the new ideas or situations they encounter (Airasian & Walsh, 1997, p. 445). Three years ago, nine faculty joined together to implement a master's degree program based on constructivist principles. This new program was the culmination of a collaborative process and the beginning of a lifelong process of teaching, learning, and program development. It began as the work of an early childhood department interested in examining their practice, specifically, the master's degree program. It resulted in the Collaborative Masters Program (CMP). The CMP faculty has now expanded their collaboration to include faculty from three departments: Educational Policy Studies (EPS), Educational Psychology and Special Education (EPSE), and Early Childhood Education (ECE). In this article, I address how faculty in a large urban university have responded to reform in graduate education. What is the nature of the change? Have faculty changed as a consequence of programmatic reform? If so, how? In this article, I briefly describe the programmatic reform, identify how it changed faculty practice, and articulate faculty's reflections on personal and professional change. Programmatic Change Constructivism is a difficult concept to define and represent in the world of a large urban university. Richardson (1997) suggests the difficulty in translating a descriptive theory of learning into the practice of teaching occurs because teaching takes place in contexts and is not a direct translation of a psychological process (p. 3). The creation of the Collaborative Masters Program (CMP) involved interpreting constructivist theory for teacher education and developing methods to foster participants' construction of knowledge and application of that knowledge to the context of schools. It developed from a strong belief that teachers need the kind of active learning experiences constructivist theory advocates and supports. (See Guyton, Rainer, & Wright (1997) for a more detailed description of the rationale and development of the program.) The principles of social constructivist learning that Lambert et al. (1995) define provide a foundation for our programmatic work: * Knowledge and beliefs are formed within the learner; * Learners personally imbue experiences with meaning; * Learning activities should cause learners to gain access to their experiences, knowledge, and beliefs; * Learning is a social activity that is enhanced by shared inquiry; * Reflection and metacognition are essential aspects of constructing knowledge; * Learners play a critical role in assessing their own learning; and * The outcomes of the learning process are varied and often unpredictable. To bring these principles to life, the CMP moves beyond the bounds of traditional teacher education by forging a partnership between school-based teachers and university-based faculty--a learning community where each individual's impact is an integral feature of the whole. The Collaborative Master's Program The Members of the Learning Community. Participants in this program are elementary teachers (preschool to Grade 5) enrolled in the program and 10 faculty members. Entry into the program requires a 2.5 GPA, 800 GRE or 44 MAT, a writing sample and a formal interview, and full-time employment in schools. Two cohort faculty members coordinate the program and provide consistent guidance for the cohort group. …