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EDE 6931 -- Teacher Learning and Professional Development Fall 2006

Instructors’ Espoused Platform

We believe that what you learn in this class depends more on what you do than what anyone else does, including me.

Our goal is to organize a course that creates open learning spaces within the assignments, activities, and instruction. I believe these spaces enhance dialogue, reflection, and knowledge construction.

Our role is to facilitate your learning by: designing opportunities for inquiry both inside and outside of the university classroom, establishing a supportive climate, selecting useful materials, and providing information.

We believe a classroom is a community and relationships are important to learning. Given this belief, each community member can and should facilitate the learning of others.

We believe that asking questions is as important as answering questions and we all are responsible for doing both.

We believe learning is enhanced by experiencing moderate levels of dissonance and discomfort within a supportive environment.

We believe there are multiple sources of knowledge and multiple ways of knowing.

We believe learning is enhanced by connecting real-world experience to applicable concepts, principles, models, and theories.

We believe that relying solely on standardized practice, as noted by Darling-Hammond (1987), is malpractice:

"The problem with this bureaucratic model is that effective teaching is not routine, students are not passive, and problems of practice are not simple, predictable or standardized." (p.2)

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