cohort based learning in teacher education

1. Cohort Based Learning in Teacher Education Susan Barduhn Professor SIT Graduate Institute Brattleboro, Vermont

3. Definition A whole program Students move together through it Complete together Special administrative and instructional provisions Intense group identification The power of interpersonal relationships Cohort-based faculty

4. Other educational programming models that rely on the interaction of students Support groups Study groups Cooperative learning experiences Collaborative learning

5. Theory of Learning

6. Learning is in the relationships between people Learning traditionally gets measured as on the assumption that it is a possession of individuals that can be found inside their heads� [Here] learning is in the relationships between people. Learning is in the conditions that bring people together and organize a point of contact that allows for particular pieces of information to take on a relevance; without the points of contact, without the system of relevancies, there is not learning, and there is little memory. Learning does not belong to individual persons, but to the various conversations of which they are a part. Murphy, P. (Ed.) (1999) Learners, Learning and Assessment, London: Paul Chapman: 17.�

7. Communities of practice Situated learning Legitimate peripheral participation Experiential learning

8. The Experiential Learning Cycle

9. Program design Design and development Curriculum development Teaching-learning strategies The learners The parallel experience of a cohort of faculty

11. Why it works at SIT Coherence & cohesiveness Faculty commitment to teacher education and to the program Cohort structure Ongoing assessment of student progress and of the program itself Experiential learning Analysis and reflection on teaching and learning Commitment to teaching Commitment to life long learning The Rust Report, 2005

12. Other programs Adult Education Guided Independent Study (AEGIS), Ed.D. Columbia Teachers� College, New York City Temple University Japan Montana State University pre-med cohort

13. Concluding remarks Cohort-based programs should be viewed within the context of other program models. They will not supplant traditional programs in institutions but will instead complement them by bringing in students and resources that probably would not have come to a traditional program. These students expand the networks of administration and faculty. The specificity of cohort-based programs are, by design, limited to a precisely defined student with distinct and clear goals that cannot be met by the traditional academic program model. It is this basic tenet of the cohort-based program that will expand your organization. If you build a cohort-based program, they will come. (Saltiel & Russo, 2001: 112).