The Conceptual Framework of the School of Education at the College of William and Mary incorporates a shared view of how to best prepare our graduates to deliver services to children, schools, families, and communities in a manner that will promote educationally and psychologically healthy environments in a pluralistic society. This framework embodies the essential elements for our programs, courses, teaching, student and faculty scholarship, and student performance. As an integrative whole, the framework is comprised of the four main strands of the Content Expert, the Reflective Practitioner, the Educational Leader, and the Effective Collaborator, which we believe constitute a highly qualified professional who will positively and productively contribute to the lives of students, clients, community, and the profession.

Content Expert. The basis of the first strand is our belief that professionals must have specific knowledge to be able to learn in context and problem solve throughout a career. We understand that a deep and confident understanding of disciplinary subject matter is vital. We also understand that subject matter knowledge must be accompanied by pedagogical content knowledge so that individuals will have an understanding of how to interpret, communicate, and construct such knowledge so as to promote learning ( Shulman , 1987; and Cohen, McLaughlin, and Talbert, 1993). The value of this long-standing commitment to intellectualism by our faculty is confirmed by recent research conducted by Monk (1994), Fetler (1999), Goldhaber and Brewer (1999), and Wenglinsky (2000) that validated the need for intellectual rigor in subject matter. Thus, the role of the program is to provide opportunities and a context for students to build and evaluate knowledge. A primary way to accomplish this goal is to help students study selected content appropriate to disciplinary foci, reflect on their actions, consider multiple perspectives, and generate various possible responses based on research and best practice. The organization and transfer of skills and knowledge across these experiences results in deeper meaning for the learner.

Reflective Practitioner. The second strand emanates from our belief in the position of Schon (1987) that the ideal preparation is one that produces a professional who is able to "reflect-in-action." According to research-based principles of reflective practice, learning does not occur through direct transmission of knowledge from instructor to student. Instead, the learners are provided with opportunities to articulate their own ideas, experiment with the ideas, and make connections between their studies and the world in which they live. To this end, a style of reflective practice is cultivated that embraces the role of data, active inquiry, careful analysis, and a thoughtful process for decision-making. Although students in our programs may develop specializations, the broader focus is on the development of analytical and creative practices that allow them to approach new issues and problems in a proactive way. We believe that such multivariate patterns of thinking within role-specific contexts are necessary for dealing with the current and future level of complexity that working as a leader among professionals requires. We believe that teaching is a cognitive process involving decision making ( Sergiovanni & Starratt , 1993). We hold that our responsibility is, in large part, to educate our students to reason soundly and to perform skillfully.

Educational Leader. The third strand highlights the notion that we expect our graduates to be prepared and willing to assume leadership roles that allow them to effectively impact educational and societal change. Today, educators not only are providing school-based leadership, but increasingly they are working as mentors to new teachers, undertaking professional development activities, and carrying out educational research ( Dimock and McGree , 1995; Livingston, 1992). We believe that preparing students to be leaders must be proactive rather than reactive, helping students focus on how to improve educational contexts through the application of sound theory and ethical principles. Special attention is given to developing specific competencies required in each area of certification along with developing the affective side of students in respect to their personal sense of competence and confidence in leadership roles and their resilience in coping with change. We hope to prepare our students to understand human problems from a developmental and systemic perspective that allows them to formulate and implement individual and systemic plans of action for prevention, remediation, and growth. We are sensitive to the myriad of educational contexts that students will encounter in their careers. Thus preparation promotes the qualities of flexibility, interpersonal skills, and ethical behaviors that reach across such contexts and are essential to Educational Leadership.

Effective Collaborator. Finally, we promote and develop the use of collaborative styles in recognition of the need to work effectively and cooperatively in the professional community, no matter how broadly or narrowly defined. We agree with Bredson (1995) that the behaviors and skills related to collaborative work should be integral parts of the curriculum and not considered an add-on element. Evidence indicates that professionals grow through an interactive process of learning from each other ( Ponticell , Olsen, & Charlier ; 1995), and collaboration has been strongly supported by research in family-professional relations (Corrigan & Bishop, 1997). We believe that training in collaboration is an obligation of programs that are preparing individuals who will assume roles of teaching, service, and leadership.

A Dynamic and Core Framework

We believe that the Conceptual Framework of the School of Education must be adaptable to the experience and background of the candidates within programs, the relative importance of the four strands within program areas, and to the external forces of our society. The dynamic nature of the framework is most clearly demonstrated by the relative emphasis placed on the four strands by each program. While all of our graduates embody the core qualities of the Content Expert, Reflective Practitioner, Educational Leader, and Effective Collaborator, we recognize and account for the valid and important degrees of emphasis, distinction, and definition that these core concepts take not only in a program area, but also with regard to the unique strengths and weaknesses of each student and over the duration of the professional life of a graduate and beyond.

Ultimately, the Conceptual Framework reflects the core elements of a graduate of the School of Education and, as such, it provides a structure for our programs and a process for generating and responding to new knowledge. The framework guides the experiences we require of students in their programs. The framework also provides the basis for the expectations and the evaluation of candidates and their programs. Through the process of candidate and program evaluation, we expect that our programs will produce highly qualified professionals and continuously evolve in response to our students' experiences within the program and our graduates' contributions to the profession as practitioners.