Education Conceptual Framework

Conceptual Framework

Central Methodist University Mission

Central Methodist University fosters a diverse and caring community, empowering students to become lifelong learners, committed to academic excellence, prepared to engage in a complex world.

Central Methodist University Creed

The Central Methodist University community believes in:

  • Seeking knowledge, truth, and wisdom;
  • Valuing freedom, honesty, civility, and diversity;
  • Living lives of service and leadership; and
  • Taking responsibility for ourselves and the communities in which we live.

Education Division Mission Statement

Central Methodist University commits itself to preparing teachers who create learner-centered communities that provide for the development of mind and spirit for all learners through leadership and service within a community of practice.

Education Division Goals and Purposes

The Division of Professional Education closely aligns its goals and purposes with the goals expressed in the mission statement of Central Methodist University. The Division believes that it is also our mission to foster a diverse and caring community. Teachers touch the lives of their students in many different ways. Teacher education must take into account the impact that teachers have on individual students and also on local, state, national and global communities. For this reason we are committed to promoting both the mission and creed of Central Methodist University. The Division aligns their professional commitments, dispositions, and values with the mission of the University in the following manner:

  • Lifelong learners: Through coursework and modeling, our educator preparation program emphasizes the importance of continuing to learn through one's teaching career and life.
  • Committed to academic excellence: All domains needed in the teaching profession are addressed through coursework as well as practicum experiences.
  • Prepared to engage in a complex world: Teachers play an important role in both modeling citizenship to and developing citizenship in the students they teach. Through presentation of content and through interaction with the faculty, these skills are developed in our students.
  • Seeking knowledge, truth, and wisdom: Development of knowledge is, of course, a key
    part of teacher education, but we feel that teaching and modeling critical thinking are also an important part of teacher education. Our program is designed to insure that all of the pre-service teachers who graduate have the skills to operate as true professionals. To do this, they must learn to evaluate information that is presented to them and develop the ability to make informed decisions.
  • Valuing freedom, honesty, civility, and diversity: Teaching is a profession that requires teachers to interact with the entire spectrum of the communities where they work. Dealing effectively with a diverse population is a fundamental aspect of teaching. Pre-service teachers need to know how to understand and value that diversity and know how to teach all students, regardless of their backgrounds.
  • Living lives of service and leadership: We demonstrate for our students, through our own teaching and through class work and practicum experiences, that teaching is a service profession with its own unique responsibilities. Teachers have to provide support for students; teachers have to adapt methods and materials to the needs of their students; teachers have to take into account the emotional needs of their students. Teachers, as professionals, also have to take leadership roles. They need to maintain association in professional organizations and participate in professional development.
  • Taking responsibility for ourselves and the communities in which we live: Our program encourages students to take responsibility for themselves and their communities. This challenge begins as freshmen with a service project connected to their field and continues with coursework in which they have to read, write, think, and apply the information they are learning.

Philosophy

Creating Learner-Centered Communities - The emergence of constructivism marked a unifying theory toward which the educational theorists of the twentieth and twenty-first century had worked (Piaget, 1952; Dewey, 1966; Bruner, 1961, 2004; Vygotsky, 1978). The Central Methodist University Division of Professional Education prides itself in developing teachers who are prepared to work in and teach the skills necessary for success in the twenty-first century. While researchers involved in the study of the brain caution against overgeneralization, clearly the brain continually scans the world to make sense of the constant bombardment of stimuli (Wolfe, 2001). Thus, learning occurs as the brain fits or adds information to existing knowledge and experiences. The teacher using the constructivist approach explores with the students the connections between prior knowledge/experience and new knowledge, and then helps students develop the skills and knowledge that will enable achievement of the learning objectives. Such exploration enables learners to hook the unfamiliar onto something familiar. Based on the research of cognitive psychologist teachers model and develop techniques and active learning strategies such as cooperative learning, discovery learning, and problem-based education (Slavin, 1990; Good & Brophy, 2007; Problem based initiative, 2008; Michael, 2006; Prince & Felder, 2006).

Magnifying Mind and Spirit - Experts in any field have a holistic vision of that field, but they must also have a good understanding of the fundamentals of the discipline. The faculty at CMU delivers instruction designed to teach fundamentals without losing sight of the larger whole of the individual. This includes a commitment to acquire and use professional knowledge. As a faculty committed to an ever-deepening understanding of what it means to construct meaning, we know that pre-service teachers must understand how to teach content in ways that address the whole learner. Pre-service teachers, throughout the undergraduate experience, must gain information and skills, but they must also understand how to express in a variety of ways what they know for themselves and the learners with whom they will work. In addition, ethical teaching requires that teachers value both learning and learners themselves. Plato tells us that education must contain a moral component. He believed that each person had a capacity in his or her "soul" to be ethical and that education was the means to turn the soul from darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge and justice. The values, commitments and professional ethics that influence behaviors toward students, families, colleagues, and communities and affect student learning, motivation, and development, as well as the educator's own professional growth, are fostered throughout the program. Dispositions are guided by beliefs and attitudes related to values such as caring, diversity, equity, fairness, honesty, responsibility, and social justice (NCATE, 2007).

Uniting through Leadership and Service - Central Methodist University Professional Dducation division conducts learning within communities of practice. These communities focus on people where the social structure within the community enables the members to learn with and from each other (Wenger, 2008). Effective teachers know what and how to teach. Perhaps as important, they know why they teach. Teaching is an act of both service and leadership. Teaching involves knowledge, but teachers also must have the disposition to serve the best interest of the learners. Faculty serve as experts modeling teaching and learning for the novices in their classrooms. There is a continual exchange of understanding as the novice and expert work together in the Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978). Only as novices become knowledgeable about subject area content, pedagogy, and the nature of learners and reflect on that knowledge can they begin to facilitate effective learning for students.