Conceptual Framework
Transforming and developing scholars, facilitators and reflective thinkers, and responsible professionals who will change and transform the Delta and society beyond.
The theme of the conceptual framework of the College of Education is captured in the phrase "Holistic Transformer", which refers to the professional educator as one who transforms individuals and society through the transmission of knowledge. To be an effective change agent for the transformation of individuals and society, educators who graduate fro the MVSU College of Education must be scholars, facilitators and reflective thinkers, and responsible professionals.
Considering the agrarian heritage of both the Mississippi Delta and Mississippi Valley State University, the philosophy behind the unit's conceptual framework is best expressed in an agricultural metaphor. In the College of Education, teaching and learning is like providing water and other nutrients to a plant. One does not make a plant grow by pasting on leaves. Like plants, teacher candidates grow and develop incrementally and in response to the meeting of their environmental needs. In order to grow to full capacity, plants must be nutured through watering, fertilizing, pruning, weeding, and so on. Likewise, in teaching and learning, teachers (faculty) must cultivate the minds of learners (teacher candidates), and provide candidates the rich intellectual, pedagogical, and dispositional soil to grow professionally and personally. The soil of learning must, therefore, be tilled with dispositions, moral sensibilities, and habits of mind usch as patience, love, sharing, and constructive criticism.
Producing teachers, therefore, is a continuous process of adapting to an ever changing environment, and meeting the unique growth needs of each potential teacher. In this context, the MVSU faculty, as gardener, must nurture the learner in an evnironment of respect, and caring, and with due diligence in meeting his or her academic and emotional needs.
To become holistic transformers for their students, teacher education candidates must develop the felxibility to identify needs and make the required adjustements in their learning and in their practices that will most effectively foster student achievement.