School of Education and Movement Studies

For several years, the faculty and staff in the School of Education at Pacific Lutheran University have been involved in ongoing and intense conversations about core values and intellectual frameworks that should guide our work.  Accompanying these conversations has been a thoughtful consideration of the organizational structures within the SOE that can best support and honor our moral and intellectual commitments.   In the course of this reflective process, different units or programs within the School of Education identified the values and perspectives that best reflected their views.  These are reflected in documents developed prior to the fall of 1999.  In the fall of 1999, armed with a strong commitment to articulating a framework that was robust enough to reflect our shared beliefs, values, and perspectives, the faculty agreed upon the Conceptual Framework presented.

This Conceptual Framework presents a shared set of faculty beliefs and attitudes which serves as the foundation for the design, implementation and assessment of the School of Education's professional education programs.  The purpose for articulating the framework is to identify for faculty, staff, students and the community the School's sense of its own identity. This identity grows out of a commitment to certain core values and a belief that these values must influence our thinking about student learning outcomes and about the teaching, course work, field experiences, and assessments we provide to assist students in achieving these outcomes.  Although the expertise of individual faculty and the needs of individual programs may lead to different interpretations of the framework, the faculty is united in their commitment to its basic elements and their commitment to classroom instruction that reflects its intent and purposes.

The framework is an organic document that has grown and continues to grow as research on teaching and learning expands, the needs of society change, and the School of Education adjusts to fulfill its mission of preparing educators for tomorrow's classrooms.  Beginning in 1995, the faculty began a series of meetings to reflect on the existing beliefs and goals of individual programs within the School and began extended conversations on a set of core values and beliefs for a Conceptual Framework that would embrace and guide the School as a whole.  The current document is the result of the faculty's meetings and discussions.  To characterize the organic nature of the framework, the faculty adopted a tree as a graphic symbol.  The major limbs of the tree characterize the major elements of the framework and the branches symbolize the unique values and contributions of each of the faculty members and staff.  To make the faculty's commitment to a renewed School of Education even more realistic, a live evergreen Noble fir tree was planted on the campus adjacent to the School of Education in 1998.

Purposes: School of Education faculty members find purpose and meaning in the promotion of powerful learning in and for students in K-12 schools. There is a special concern for those students who – for various reasons – have not yet been well-served by our schools and a strong commitment to ensuring that these students have the opportunity to learn and grow and develop in safe, supportive, and engaging settings. We recognize that such learning can only occur when educators possess a wide array of knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will enable them to:

• Demonstrate a deep and robust understanding of content, learning and assessment, and pedagogy;
• Demonstrate deep and appropriate understanding of and respect for each learners and his/ her family, culture, and community
• Use their knowledge of learners and their families and communities to create supportive, democratic classroom and school communities
• Combine their knowledge of content, pedagogy, learning and assessment with their knowledge of individual learners and their families and communities to create opportunities for each person to learn in powerful ways;
• Commit to ongoing professional growth and leadership.

Thus, we define our ultimate purpose as the promotion of powerful learning in and for students and especially for students who have been marginalized in and by educational systems. Because we work to prepare and support the “front line” workers who work directly with students, we define our intermediate purpose as the development of educators who possess the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to promote powerful learning in and for them.  

Goals As we seek to fulfill our ultimate and intermediate purposes, we commit to the following goals,

We, as SOE faculty members, provide you with planned and coherent course and fieldwork, with clear and helpful assessments, and with support and supervision. We focus on:

Core Values: In order to accomplish our goals and purposes, we are committed to developing educators who are both competent and caring. Such educators will celebrate and honor differences and actively work to ensure that all learners – especially those who, for some reason, have been marginalized, learn and develop in powerful ways.  Such educators will be leaders within educational settings and communities, actively taking responsibility to address conditions that harm persons and inhibit their growth and learning, and working proactively to create healthy and respectful school and communities. Caring and competent educators will understand their work in terms of service. They will recognize that the well-being of others as their primary concern and actively work on behalf of others even if such work requires doing more than the ‘technical’ or ‘contractual’ demands of their roles.

Competence.  The competent educator is characterized by well-developed knowledge and skills in content areas and pedagogy. The competent educator understands how children learn at various developmental stages and provides learning opportunities that support their intellectual, social and emotional development. The competent educator understands the central concepts and tools of thoughtful and open inquiry and creates powerful learning experiences to make subject matter meaningful to students. The competent educator has an understanding of technology as an access to information and as a teaching tool for research and learning. The competent educator uses multiple forms of assessment to guide instruction and other interactions with students. The competent educator begins as an emerging professional and continues to grow professionally through the ability to reflect and analyze behaviors and outcomes while in action. The competent educator is a reflective practitioner and life long learner (Ball & McDiarmid, 1990; Shulman, 1987; Kennedy, 1989; Cushman, 1993; Schon, 1987, 1997; Skirtic, 1988; Zeichner & Liston, 1987).

Care. The caring educator values respect and trust, reflecting a humanistic orientation to students and other members of the school community. Therefore, the caring educator is child-centered, nurturing, and a facilitator of personal growth and self-esteem. Such an educator motivates students to excel and to be self-confident. The caring educator provides a caring environment for students, an environment in which risks can be taken and understandings explored openly. 

Leadership. The education leader pursues the goals of powerful learning and positive student achievement, using collaboration and supportive interaction within the classroom, the school and the community. This collaboration provides the support for continuous and consistent delivery of instruction to all students. The education leader knows about national and statewide educational reform and uses personal skills to restructure environments to improve practice. He or she holds a rich vision of settings that foster efficacy and excellence, communicates this vision to constituents, and leads them in the construction and implementation of a shared vision of good schools. This requires the education leader to promote effective practices and organizational structures in the schools in which he or she works (McLaren, 1989; Maeroff, 1988; Reisberg & Wolf, 1988).