Learning Goals In Education

In following the liberal arts tradition, the Education Department at Connecticut College approaches the study of teaching and education as an intellectual pursuit and not a practitioner model that stresses “techniques.” The aim is to prepare students to not only assume roles as classroom teachers but also as active citizens and public intellectuals. The following goals and competencies are a sample of how student learning is assessed throughout the program.

Goals

To educate teachers and public intellectuals who understand that excellence in teaching begins with deep knowledge and a critical understanding of their subject matter as a means of developing high standards of achievement and excellence for K-12 students.
To educate teachers and public intellectuals who understand that education and schooling are shaped by larger socio-historical, political, economic, and geographic contexts.
To educate teachers and public intellectuals who construct critical pedagogies that are situated in and shaped by students’ prior knowledge, local contexts and community knowledge.
To educate teachers and public intellectuals who understand the relationship between power and knowledge and who create classrooms and many other learning spaces as critical sites of action where essential questions related to educational access, opportunity, conditions and outcomes.
To educate teachers and public intellectuals who understand literacy as having multiple dimensions, forms and functions that develop both inside and outside of schools. Literacies are meaning making processes in which dynamics of power, voice, access, subjectivity, and representation are operating.
To educate teachers and public intellectuals who understand assessment and evaluation as contextual, as forms of inquiry and ongoing processes of reflection and praxis.