UQUESNE Learning Venues Mentored Residency* Classrooms Departments Schools Professional Development Committees Central Office School Board Community Government Accounting, Assessment, & Evaluation We seek to account for the efficacy of our designs through high-yield assessments that inform principled evaluation. High-yield assessments are formative: they inform the learning plans of doctoral students and they inform the design cycles by which we continuously improve doctoral preparation. Principled evaluation means being explicit about what is assessed, why it is assessed, and how it is assessed. Evaluation is conceived as the process of placing value, allowing us to interrogate what, how, and why we place value. As we continue to argue and test proposals, we intend to use design-based research to frame our dialogue and to test the efficacy of our designs. The design-based research framework we have adopted requires that we account for our designs to prepare stewards for the profession of education. Therefore, the empirical and theoretical antecedents and consequences of designs must be interrogated so that we can improve continuously the learning environments that contribute to the formation of stewards of educational practice (and, with regard to a new CID-inspired Ph.D. program, the inter-discipline of learning science and policy). It is a matter of heeding the pedagogical imperative. According to the Council of Graduate Schools, in their Task Force Report of the Professional Doctorate (2007), “…a professional doctoral degree should represent preparation for the potential transformation of that field of professional practice, just as the Ph.D. represents preparation for the potential transformation of the basic knowledge in a discipline.” (p.6). Consequently, we are interrogating our design proposals and prototypes for the doctoral preparation of educational leaders against the criterion “the potential to transform the field of educational leadership”. And, as we do so, we are considering how such a criterion might contribute to a dialogic arguments regarding the standards that can be used to render accounts of both doctoral preparation for and the professional practice of educational leadership. Bibliography Barab, S. & Squire, K. (2004). Design-based research: Putting a stake in the ground. The Journal of the Learning Science, 13 (1), Bell, P. (2004). On the theoretical breadth of design-based research in education. Educational Psychologist, 39 (4), Brown, A. L. (1992). Design experiments: Theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex invitations in classroom settings. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2 (2), Cobb, P., Confrey, J., diSessa, A., Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2003). Design experiments in educational research. Educational Researcher, 32 (1), Council of Graduate Schools. (2007). Task force report on the professional doctorate. Washington, D.C.: Author. Design-Based Research Collective. (2003). Design-based research: An emerging paradigm for educational inquiry. Educational Researcher, 32 (1), diSessa, A.A. & Cobb, P. (2004). Ontological innovation and the role of theory in design experiments. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13, (1), McCown, R., Miller, J.A., Lamar, M. & Bleil, J. (2007). Considering the Need for a Signature Pedagogy. Working Paper (WP: ]. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University. McCown, R., Miller, J.A., Schreiber, J.B., & Welch, O.M. (2007). Scholarship for Schools and Design-Based Research: Framing the Argument for Working Paper (WP: ). Pittsburgh: Duquesne University. McCown, R., Miller, P., Moss, C.M., & Henderson, J.E., Hopson, R.K. (2007). Preparing Stewards of Educational Leadership: Capstone Assessments for the Ed.D. Versus the Ph.D. Working Paper (WP: ). Pittsburgh: Duquesne University. Golde, C.M. (2007). Signature pedagogies in doctoral education: Re they adaptable for the preparation of educational researchers? Educational Researcher, 36 (6), Shulman, L. S. (2005). Signature pedagogies in the disciplines. Daedalus, 134, 3, Shulman, L.S. (2007). Counting and recounting: Assessment and the quest for accountability. Change, January/February, Introduction Duquesne's engagement in CPED is framed by the School of Education's identity, particularly "Scholarship for Schools." Within that frame, the work of designing and testing learning environments for its doctoral programs is focused through the lens of design-based research. As a consequence of the design-based research approach, we are collecting data to track the development of a "culture of dialogic argument" as a way of building intellectual community. The design- based research approach and the culture of dialogic argument it supports have connected CPED pilot efforts in educational leadership to other design initiatives with partners from the University Council for Educational Administration and the Pittsburgh Emerging Leadership Academy, a program of the Pittsburgh Public Schools to develop urban principals. Design-Based Research The figure above represents the general framework with which we are attempting to account for our CPED design efforts. The theoretical and empirical antecedents of a design proposal are interrogated until, through dialogue, a consensus argument for the design emerges. The proposal then becomes a prototype that is tested; the data that inform theoretical and empirical consequences of the design are interrogated in order to improve the prototype for the next cycle of testing. In this way, we seek to operationalize continuous improvement of our doctoral program in educational leadership and, eventually, all doctoral programs in the School of Education. At present, proposals and prototypes are focused on our pilot initiative: the formation of stewards of educational leadership practice as well as those who would steward the interdisciplinary connection between learning science and policy. The following table represents some of the design proposals and prototypes that are, as of this writing, being argued and tested with regard to core, inquiry, laboratories of practice, and capstone learning opportunities. You will note that inquiry is included as a core learning opportunity and–because capstones will be successively approximated throughout the program–that examples of those successive approximations are included as “signature demonstrations of learning”. Theoretical Antecedents Theoretical Consequences Design Proposals & Prototypes Empirical Antecedents Empirical Consequences Proposals and Prototypes The proposals and prototypes represented below derive from design efforts focused by our pilot initiative: the redesign of our professional doctorate in educational leadership (see note immediately below), the design of a CID-inspired research doctorate, and the development of a design-based research protocol to document and account for the project. Note: Our current professional doctorate in educational leadership admits a cohort of students once every three years. We expect to admit students to the newly designed professional doctorate in educational leadership in the Summer or Fall of Core / Foundation / Inquiry Programmatic Goal To form, in a culture of dialogic argument, a community comprising stewards of education. Core Learning Experiences SoTL Leadership Imperative Social Justice Design Inquiry* Foundational Capacities Design Accountability Advocacy *Design Inquiry is proposed as one of the core learning experiences. Other inquiry learning experiences requiring the use of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods are presumed to build on the framework established by design inquiry. Internship / Laboratories of Practice *Mentored Residency is a prototype being tested in the context of the Pittsburgh Emerging Leadership Academy, a program to prepare urban principals in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Other venues might be subsumed within a residency. Capstone Our proposals and prototypes in this area assume that signature pedagogy starts with assessment. Additionally, signature demonstrations of learning are assumed to be successive approximations of capstone demonstrations of learning. Some signature demonstrations are assumed to contribute to other signature demonstrations. Finally, we do not assume a one-to-one correspondence between the signature and capstone demonstrations listed below. Signature Demonstrations of Learning Capstone Demonstrations of Learning equity audits stewardship formation journal biographical cases design inquiry log argument summaries group briefings presentations proposals Design-Based Research Report* Educational Platform Briefing(s) Grant Proposal Legislative Proposal/White Paper Professional Development Plan Community Development Plan Professional Articles Community Publications *Includes an accountability system and an advocacy agenda that will serve as the foundation for the other capstone demonstrations of learning addressed to a variety of audiences. It is likely that some capstones (e.g., a hosted briefing) will be collaborative demonstrations.