Poster Presentation

CPED teams were asked to create a poster that outlined their programs and their progress towards strengthening the professonal practice doctorates. Posters were on display outside the conference room. Below is a sample.

  
  

Envisioning Stewards, Lee Shulman and Chris Golde

Preparing stewards for the discipline is the touchstone of the doctoral process.

The organizing principle of the doctorate is to prepare stewards of the discipline to:

• Generation of new knowledge
• Conservation/preservation of previous intellectual content
• Teaching in the broadest sense: transformation of knowledge within the discipline

This concept has ecclesiastical overtones; however, do we simply preserve the past or do we overturn it?

Where do we want students to be when they are done with this process?

• We believe that we are trying to prepare "well-started novices..."

Given our responsibility toward stewardship as educators: how can we say with confidence that we have turned out a "well-started novice?"

BUT, professional practice doctorate (PPD) students are not really novices. They already have a strong knowledge base. How do we prepare individuals for the very specific domains of a profession? This is different than preparing stewards of the “discipline” (a more general concept).
Traditionally, PPD students are prepared in universities, but universities are places where knowledge is created – not where professional skills are communicated.

In the case of professional practice, stewardship can occur in 6 domains:

1. Service:
   
   1. What does responsible professional service look like?
2. Understanding:
   
   1. knowledge base of practice – habits of mind)
   2. But you have to be able to do the things you know
3. Technique:
   
   1. skills and practices, but these often seem merely technical at universities; they are made into technical rationalizations
   2. For example, no one makes fun of physicians when they learn to sew, though this can be perceived as lower-order cognitive task
4. Judgments (under inherent uncertainty):
   
   1. Monitor what happens when such judgments are made and how to acknowledge the errors that may consequently take place
   2. How is judgment taught and sharpened?
   3. Cases are superb pedagogical vehicles for engaging people in judgment
5. Transformational Evidence:
   
   1. Making judgments into actions – what have we learned through this process? How does it work?
   2. Transforming experience into evidence
   3. Transforming outcomes into opportunities for learning
   4. In order for our work will be evidence-based – we must create cultures and settings of evidence
   5. What do we know about the varieties of impacts any particular action may have? This is the type of inquiry that springs forth from an evidence-based culture.
   6. We must become comfortable with the constant gathering and evaluation of evidence about the consequences of our actions.
6. Community/Collaboration:
   
   1. No one goes it alone
   2. We must become members of and constantly create professional communities; this is how we can ensure constant reflection and accountability.
   3. Do you know how to become part of these communities?
   4. Do you know how to be responsible to and for these colleagues?

Community occurs in different dimensions:

• This cannot be among people in the same place/at the same point in the process
• We need variation in the participants in the process – from undergraduates through senior faculty
• Cohorts are usually one-dimensional; however, in PPD programs, they are not always together, they gather occasionally – we have to be responsive to this

How do you develop a sense of professional/practical ethics?

• Usually this is learned as a set of theoretical norms; we must create the vision of what this looks like in practice. What are the big questions that draw individuals into the doctoral process?
• There is a big concern that the doctoral process drains the passion from the individual
• Stakeholders have to be open with one another about this reality

New Apprenticeship model:

• The old way is comprised of a decomposition of work and the trial & error process
• This is usually a solo apprenticeship model
• The new way is to have multiple mentors and a variegated apprenticeship model
• Cases should emerge from within the professional community – this ensures follow-up;
• Everyone mentors everyone else; peer-apprenticeship model
  We must exploit the power of the fact that PPD students are already in-field – their domains of practice become their laboratories of practice:
• Perhaps we can establish networks of PPD-serving organizations?

Professional practitioners, such as exemplified by clergy, psychotherapists, and physicians – use professional knowledge and expertise to help human beings change, not simply to improve the conditions of their practice. This is somewhat akin to the process of teaching.

The professions are inherently uncertain and imprecise – they cannot be successfully engaged in without the active collaboration of human beings; without their participation, we cannot succeed. We need to maintain trust relationships.

Engaging in trust and collaboration; we must expect resistance – this is the natural response to being asked to pull back barriers and become vulnerable. We must teach, coach, mentor, and minister to our students and help them to be open to the transformation.

How can we, as stewards of the profession, create programs, cultures, and communities with the integrity to prepare other stewards to prepare professionals?

New label for our graduates: "Vulnerable master of situated thought and action." – their mastery is lightly/modestly held.

Sharing: Defining Three Levels of performance by focus group

Teacher Education Group

Complex, evidence-based identification and problem solving would drive curriculum and resources.

A qualified candidate needs to be able to:

• Master the essential skill-set
• Become an “activist scholar” which encompasses the following capacities to:
  • Identify and solve complex problems
  • Have human resource skills to facilitate action to solve problems
  • Need how to frame problems in different situations
  • Need to have relational skills to influence others in appropriate ways (e.g., power can be used in appropriate/inappropriate ways).
  • Need to be able to use assessment in a broad sense (from program evaluation to nitty-gritty staff) to inform future practices
  • Observe well and infer well

Educational Administration Group 1

What does it mean to be “qualified” in a professional doctorate?

Candidates should be able to do the following:

• Understand adult development beyond learning theories (how we learn, work together in this world, and be able to articulate that)
• Be sensitive to the culture of the setting, being aware of the ecology of the school/ college
• Be aware of systems management and how to organize it (What does it mean to be in a transformative setting?)
• Need to know how we know what the best practices are
• To know the impact of assessment
• To discover avenues of dissemination for students to learn together and share their knowledge
• Must work in ethical ways

Highly-qualified students should be able to know:

• Adult learning theory
• How to conduct inquiry and action research
• How to build an argument based on evidence
• Change and leadership theories
• How to create relationships
• Assessment and evaluation
• How to advocate for moral causes
• Instructional technology
• Teach well
• Must be part of the community and facilitate well

Educational Administration Group 2

A highly-qualified candidate should

• Think critically about the status quo
• Interrogate/articulate assumptions
• Develop self-regulation processes (e.g., how they learn about the knowledge they have and how they can demonstrate that knowledge)
• Write well and have the conceptual knowledge of the field

There is a difference between what a university thinks are relevant skills vs. what the field thinks are relevant skills. The field should dictate the relevant skills. Some people may be qualified for doctoral study but not for professional practice.

Basic tool-box model:

• Knowledge-based
• Process skills (ways to conduct inquiry, ability to inquire about data, frame problems)
• “reading the river” ( need to be able to be sensitive to the political, social, cultural context)
• Interpersonal skills (ability to form and energize communities)
  People need to come in with a “service” orientation.

Organizational Leadership Group

Qualified candidates are well-started stewards. Highly-qualified candidates are highly-developed experts. We must acknowledge who enters the program and how they range on that continuum.

Qualified candidates should be able to:

• Act, implement, make things happen
• Need to have skills, belief and knowledge to be successful
• Commitment to solving problems of practice
• Identify, frame problems and have belief you can do smth about it
• Draw on both professional experience and knowledge base to solve problems
• Assess tools to assess the consequences of the response
• Recursively continue an inquiry of a problem-solving cycle
• Ability to draw appropriate stakeholders to inform problems and position then to work together in a diverse group in constructive ways

Community colleges sub-group

Students need to:

• Be aware of the context in which community colleges are embedded
• Have to be responsive to workforce issues
• Communicate and write effectively
• Work cooperatively
• Have capacity to be self-reflective and creative
• Have a spirit of optimism

Indicators of success and who decides them:

• How we involve other practitioners in these sorts of judgments
• What are dispositions that show good judgment and ethical behavior

Defining a Common list of elements of performance

Due to lively and productive conversations this afternoon, we did not accomplish this final task of the day.

Summaries by Graduate Student Katya Narozhnaya, University of Maryland