Many M.Ed. programs claim to incorporate signature pedagogies in their programs, which often include approaches such as inquiry-based, case-based and problem-based learning, communities of learners, and more.
Teacher education is unique among disciplines in that we are doing what we are teaching. Metateaching has been defined as thinking about teaching (Timpson 1999), but if metacognition is thinking about thinking, and a meta-language is a language about languages, then metateaching is in fact teaching about teaching. If we combine this with notions of signature pedagogies and the idea that we should be modeling what we are teaching, then what does this mean at the graduate level?
It means that graduate instructors should themselves be modeling what they are teaching. Wouldn’t signature pedagogy in education be one that actually implements the theories and models being studied in order to teach those same theories and models? Shouldn’t it be one that employs experimental designs and invites the students (most of whom are teachers) to examine the course design as it is being taught? Wouldn’t it make sense to have the students have input into the design and/or teaching?
This presentation will examine the common approach to teaching graduate-level education courses—the seminar—and suggest an alternate approach that uses the theories and models being taught and where the teaching methodology matches the kind of work the participants will do when they graduate.
Of Interest to: Online and distance education, Post-secondary education, Instructional designers, Researchers
