Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate

The EdD in Leadership and Innovation is a consortium member of the Carnegie Project on the Educational Doctorate (CPED). CPED is committed to collaboratively redesign the Ed.D. and to make it a stronger and more relevant degree for the advanced preparation of school practitioners and clinical faculty, academic leaders and professional staff for the nation’s schools and colleges and the learning organizations that support them. More information can be found at: http://cpedinitiative.org/

Given this, The EdD in Leadership and Innovation has its own mission, goals, and strategies but these align with the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate and the design aspirations of Arizona State University .

As members of CPED we believe:

“The professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession.”

With this understanding, we have identified the following statements that will focus a research and development agendas to test, refine, and validate principles for the professional doctorate in education.

The Professional doctorate in education:

• 1. Is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice.

  2. Prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities.

  3. Provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships.

  4. Provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions.

  5. Is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry.

  6. Emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice.

As we developed our program we relied on CPED’s design concepts and our own concepts and needs.

Scholarly Practitioner: Scholarly Practitioners blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice. They use practical research and applied theories as tools for change because they understand the importance of equity and social justice. They disseminate their work in multiple ways, and they have an obligation to resolve problems of practice by collaborating with key stakeholders, including the university, the educational institution, the community, and individuals.

Signature Pedagogy: Signature Pedagogy is the pervasive set of practices used to prepare scholarly practitioners for all aspects of their professional work: "to think, to perform, and to act with integrity" (Shulman, 2005, p.52). Signature pedagogy includes three dimensions, as articulated by Lee Shulman (2005):

Teaching is deliberate, pervasive and persistent. It challenges assumptions, engages in action, and requires ongoing assessment and accountability.

Teaching and learning are grounded in theory, research, and in problems of practice. It leads to habits of mind, hand, and heart that can and will be applied to authentic professional settings.

Teaching helps students develop a critical and professional stance with a moral and ethical imperative for equity and social justice.

Inquiry as Practice: Inquiry as Practice is the process of posing significant questions that focus on complex problems of practice. By using various research, theories, and professional wisdom, scholarly practitioners design innovative solutions to address the problems of practice. At the center of Inquiry of Practice is the ability to use data to understand the effects of innovation. As such, Inquiry of Practice requires the ability to gather, organize, judge, aggregate, and analyze situations, literature, and data with a critical lens.

Laboratories of Practice: Laboratories of Practice are settings where theory and practice inform and enrich each other. They address complex problems of practice where ideas—formed by the intersection of theory, inquiry, and practice—can be implemented, measured, and analyzed for the impact made. Laboratories of Practice facilitate transformative and generative learning that is measured by the development of scholarly expertise and implementation of practice.

Dissertation in Practice: As the culminating experience that demonstrates the scholarly practitioner's ability to solve problems of practice, the Dissertation in Practice exhibits the doctoral candidate's ability "to think, to perform, and to act with integrity" (Shulman, 2005).