Disenthralled MATters
Abstract
Lincoln’s call to action in 1862 was a plea for a young nation to become disenthralled from established norms. He encouraged imaginative ways to create environments capable of producing new levels of achievement. That call to do better rings as true today for teacher preparation programs as it did in the era of Horace Mann’s educational reform. Mann’s revolution spawned the creation of Normal Schools to answer the nation’s call for better trained teachers. These schools became the pathway for aspiring teachers to formally study pedagogy in its infancy~ the art and science of teaching. Today MAT programs serve as an alternative bridge to certification. These certification programs find that they too must respond to a nation’s demands to elevate the level of teachers trained to meet the ever demanding needs of an increasingly diverse citizenry in an era of ever-expanding standardization. The purpose of this session is to share one college’s pathway to disenthrallment and program reconceptualization. We seek to report upon the reconfiguration of our MAT program through shared scholarship, a dismantling of content silos, a renewed commitment to teaching as community and an emphasis on pedagogical practices rooted in real-world instruction designed to increase student learning.
Keywords
certification, reconfiguration, standardization
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Scott-Simmons, Wynnetta; Bush, Lucy; Carr, Sherah; and Hall, Jeffrey, "Disenthralled MATters" (2018). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 3.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2018/2018/3
Disenthralled MATters
Lincoln’s call to action in 1862 was a plea for a young nation to become disenthralled from established norms. He encouraged imaginative ways to create environments capable of producing new levels of achievement. That call to do better rings as true today for teacher preparation programs as it did in the era of Horace Mann’s educational reform. Mann’s revolution spawned the creation of Normal Schools to answer the nation’s call for better trained teachers. These schools became the pathway for aspiring teachers to formally study pedagogy in its infancy~ the art and science of teaching. Today MAT programs serve as an alternative bridge to certification. These certification programs find that they too must respond to a nation’s demands to elevate the level of teachers trained to meet the ever demanding needs of an increasingly diverse citizenry in an era of ever-expanding standardization. The purpose of this session is to share one college’s pathway to disenthrallment and program reconceptualization. We seek to report upon the reconfiguration of our MAT program through shared scholarship, a dismantling of content silos, a renewed commitment to teaching as community and an emphasis on pedagogical practices rooted in real-world instruction designed to increase student learning.
