“Knowledge Brings Us Together”
Building Community
While
Constructing Knowledge to Serve a Pluralistic Society
Heritage College, according to its mission statement, strives to provide a quality education for multicultural populations who have not traditionally had access to higher education. It was the need for such access and the desire to create an environment in which individuals could develop their human potential and a sense of empowerment that brought people together to create the institution. The goal is personal transformation within a supportive, pluralistic community of learners, which will result in improvement in the community at large. Implied within its mission statement and the College’s motto, “Knowledge Brings Us Together,” are the valuing of a richly diverse learning community, active engagement in the learning process, and the continuing development of a just and pluralistic society through service.
The Division of Education and Psychology, including the certification programs for teachers, educational administrators, and school counselors, has devised a conceptual framework to guide the development and ongoing improvement of its programs. Following from the mission statement and motto of the College, as well as a knowledge base reflecting research-based models of best practice, faculty of the Division have expressed the heart of the conceptual framework in the following statement: “Knowledge Brings Us Together: Building Community while Constructing Knowledge to Serve a Pluralistic Society.”
The faculty’s conception of what is important to the preparation of educators, and the relationships between the key elements, is depicted in Figure 1. According to this conception, a safe, caring, and diverse community in which each is respected allows people to collaborate in the socially mediated process of constructing knowledge. This leads to a sense of individual and collective empowerment allowing one the confidence, courage, and desire to reflect on one’s aims and practices, as well as the context in which these occur. This process of critical reflection is essential if one is to improve the quality and appropriateness of one’s future actions or the context in which those actions will occur. Educators serve the needs of a pluralistic society by working to meet the needs of all students; they serve the needs of a just society by challenging the inequities of the status quo.
This conceptual framework must not only define what is expected of the Division’s students and graduates, but also what is expected of the faculty. This is reflected in the statement of philosophy for the Division. The statement reads, “The Division of Education and Psychology is a community of learners – faculty, staff, and students – committed to encouraging dialogue and cooperation, to facilitating a process by which learners actively construct meaning, and to continuing improvement through critical reflection and action.”
The conceptual framework for the programs in the Division of Education and Psychology at Heritage College is consistent with research and related models of best practice.
Graves (1992) defines a community of learners as a place where (1) all students are respected and feel they belong; (2) we find ongoing interaction based on common goals; and (3) both social and individual needs are honored. Brietborde (1996) and Kohn (1996) tell us a sense of community does not develop automatically; it must be built.
Building community begins with an ethic of caring (Noddings, 1992). Creating a caring and supportive classroom and school environment is essential if academic objectives are to be met (Noddings, 1992). Noddings discusses the importance of inclusion and dialogue in creating and nurturing a caring community of learners. Wentzel (1997) reports significant results from a longitudinal study of “perceived pedagogical caring.” She found that middle school students’ perceptions that their teachers cared led to greater efforts to achieve positive social and academic outcomes. Students in the study characterized caring teachers as those “demonstrating democratic interaction styles, developing expectations in light of individual differences, modeling a ‘caring’ attitude toward their own work, and providing constructive feedback” (Wentzel, 1997).
Collaborative learning (sometimes called cooperative learning) (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1994; Bruffee, 1993; Cohen, 1994; Slavin, 1995) supports the process of constructing meaning as multiple experiences and perspectives provide opportunities for individuals to question and adapt their private knowledge and interpretations. Bruffee’s (1993) proposal that knowledge is “constructed through negotiation with others in a community of peers” highlights the critical relationship between a community of learners and the constructivist view of learning (p. 63).
The constructivist view of learning is based on the work of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, and Howard Gardner among others. According to Piaget (1954), individuals do not passively receive knowledge as presented, but instead actively transform information into personal constructs of understanding which are related to prior knowledge, values, and beliefs. Vygotsky (1978) and Bruner (1986) have helped us understand the critical role of social mediation in facilitating this process. Furthermore, Vygotsky and Bruner, along with Kuhn, have helped us understand that an individual’s experience and the subsequent adaptation of one’s understanding always occur within and are influenced by a sociocultural and historical context. Linda Lambert (1995) has developed a constructivist theory of leading which extends theories of adult learning to the work of school administrators.
Brain research and work in brain compatible learning is also consistent with the constructivist approach. Jensen (1998, 1995), Sylwester (1995), and Caine and Caine (1997), leading researchers and conceptualizers in brain compatible teaching and learning, emphasize the importance of active engagement, emotion, context, and relevance to the meaning-making process. Gardner’s research serves as another bridge between brain research and principles of classroom teaching and learning. His theory of multiple intelligences presents a pluralistic and multifaceted view of intelligence which acknowledges that people come to learning experiences with “different cognitive strengths and contrasting styles”(1993, p.6).
Shor and Freire (1987) provide a model of teaching and learning that leads to empowerment. They define empowerment socially, as well as individually. According to Shor and Freire (1987), “Even when you individually feel yourself most free, if this feeling is not a social feeling, if you are not able to use your recent freedom to help others to be free by transforming the totality of society, then you are exercising only an individualistic attitude towards empowerment or freedom” (p. 109). Teachers do not bestow empowerment upon students; students discover empowerment through learning, and through effecting change in their environment through applying their learning. Empowerment helps provide a desire to improve and the courage to work toward change.
The body of literature demonstrating the importance of reflection and self-assessment in learning to teach, lead, and counsel grows daily (Moallem 1997; Gipe and Richards 1991; Rovegno 1992; Zeichner, 1987). Reflective teaching implies a willingness on the part of the educator to critically examine her or his own assumptions, aims, and practices (Schon, 1987 & Zeichner, 1987). Reflection takes place before, during, and after teaching (Schon 1987). According to Mezirow (1990), transformative reflection leads to emancipatory learning.
As valuable a practice as reflection is, it is without legitimate purpose if it does not lead to action. Professionals must be willing and prepared to make changes in their own practice as well as in those elements of the larger context that may frustrate learners’ efforts (Zeichner, 1987). This process of working as a reflective professional to resolve context-bound problems requires an educator to reflect “in action,” as well as “on action” (Schon 1987), and to be always aware of the impact of their choices on students of different social, economic, and cultural communities.
Since 1970, there has been a growing body of research supporting the effectiveness of service learning for K-12 students and preservice teachers (Conrad & Hedin, 1991; Root, 1997). Rooted conceptually in the work of John Dewey, and closely related to experiential learning, service learning blends service activities with academic curriculum in order to meet real community needs. Root and Batchelder (1994) concluded that preservice teachers who completed a service learning project made significant gains in the complexity of their thinking about social problems and critical incidents in their teaching. Wade (1995) found that preservice teachers who participated in service learning developed more positive attitudes toward parent and community involvement in their classrooms and schools. LaCompete (1996) found that preservice teachers engaged in service learning showed an increased commitment to social justice and a reduction in teacher biases. In service learning one can see the expression of all four of the Washington State Learning Goals.
Research references for this document are on file with OSPI, but in the interest of brevity, are not listed here.