Information about Education Program

Today’s educators face rapidly evolving challenges in a complex, multicultural society. Goddard College’s Education Program offers you the tools and training to turn those challenges into empowering learning opportunities and a means for transformation of your students, the classroom, and community.

We are committed to social justice, diversity, anti-oppression, and anti-bias education – values critical to our changing society and a bright future.

Goddard-trained educators gain a strong grounding in pedagogy and curriculum development, but as importantly, they learn how to creatively adapt theory to meet the individualized needs of students in and outside the classroom.

At Goddard, you chart your own path via in-depth and interdisciplinary study; working with fellow students, advisors and mentors to shape, achieve, and exceed your educational and professional goals. No matter what your area of study, the skills, work habits, and ways of thinking that you acquire here will serve as a foundation for life-long learning, research, and scholarship.

Our educational approach is rigorous, holistic, flexible, and student-centered. Our methodology emphasizes personalized learning, collaboration, and self-reflection. It also places value on being an educator who takes responsible action in the world.

Peer-to peer-learning is at the heart of Goddard’s educational methodology. Each semester begins with a residency with on-site or virtual participation. There, your faculty advisors and fellow students share in your journey of discovery as you research and develop your senior study project or master’s thesis, putting into practice Goddard’s educational philosophy of knowing, being, and doing.

Education Degree Options

Bachelor of Arts in Education, including study options in these areas:

Master of Arts in Education, including study options in these areas:

The Faculty

The Education Program faculty are deeply committed to offering a holistic, interdisciplinary and student-centered approach to learning that is personally and socially relevant. Our faculty is comprised of national and international scholar practitioners with extensive experience supporting students taking charge of their learning.

Admissions Information

The Bachelor of Arts in Education program is open to students who wish to extend their knowledge in the field of education to meet personal and/or professional goals. Transfer credit and/or credit awarded for prior learning up to a total of 75 credits can be applied to the 120 semester hour credits required for the degree.

A minimum of three semesters of enrollment in the BA in Education program is required for graduation.

Low-Residency Model

At the start of the semester, students attend an intensive eight-day residency, participating on-site at our Plainfield, VT campus or virtually. Following the residency is 16 weeks of independent work and self-reflection in close collaboration with a faculty advisor. Goddard pioneered this format nearly a half century ago to meet the needs of adult students with professional, family, and other obligations seeking learning experiences grounded in the real-world.

Residencies are a time to explore, network, learn, witness, and share with peers, staff, and faculty. Students work with advisors and peers in close-knit advising groups to forge individualized study plans that describe their learning objectives for the semester. Working closely with their faculty advisors, and supported by fellow learners, students identify areas of study, personal goals, relevant resources, and avenues to achieve these goals. Students also attend and are invited to help organize workshops, keynote addresses, celebrations and other events intended to stimulate, inspire, and challenge.

This low-residency model combines the breadth of a collaborative community with the focus of personalized learning, enhanced by insightful exchanges with a faculty advisor.

Location

The Education Program is offered in Plainfield, Vermont, on Goddard’s historic campus, located just outside Montpelier, the state capital. It’s a former farm with a manor garden, surrounding forests, and period architecture.

Residency Week

Residencies are a rich time of exploration, connection, and planning. A residency is comprised of:

  • New-student orientation
  • Individual and group advising sessions
  • Workshops, presentations, mini-courses, and panels
  • Peer work groups
  • Planning sessions related to teacher licensure
  • Information sessions (assessment of prior learning; financial aid; how to do research; planning your final semester etc.)
  • Co-curricular activities (support groups, art shows, films, movement workshops, meditation space, etc.)
  • Commencement

Writing the semester study plan is an important focus of the residency. Working closely with your faculty advisor, and supported by fellow learners, you articulate your educational and personal goals for your studies within the context of degree criteria and program requirements. The study plan is your detailed and individualized map and will address the following:

  • The semester’s learning goals
  • The resources the student plans to draw on (e.g., books, journals, conferences)
  • The methodology the student plans to use (e.g., library or field research, interviews, creative production)
  • The specific learning activities the student will undertake (e.g., creative and critical reading and writing, observations, field work, keeping a journal)
  • The academic work the student will produce (e.g. essays, visual art work, workshop reports, poems, interview transcriptions, annotations)
  • A bibliography of reading the student plans to do during the semester

The Semester

Following the residency and over the course of 16 weeks of study and reflection, you will submit your work to your faculty advisor. Typically, there are 5 submissions for full-time students and 3 submissions for part-time students. Evidence of the work completed can include essays, critical and creative writing, sample curricula, classroom materials, documentation of art practice/works, book annotations, and a cover letter in which you reflect on the learning process.

Your advisor responds promptly in writing to your materials with a detailed letter addressing the various components of your work and containing appraisal, feedback, and suggestions.

Through the regular exchange of work and responses, a sustained, meaningful dialogue takes place centered on your learning and goals. Students often describe this dialogue as transformative and empowering.

At the end of the semester, in lieu of grades, students and advisors write comprehensive evaluations of the student’s learning.

Degree Requirements

Throughout your course of study, you are expected to deeply engage with the degree criteria, working toward a full and sustained demonstration of them by graduation. Students graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Education will have successfully completed the Goddard undergraduate degree criteria and will also successfully have accomplished the following:

  • Gained an understanding and actualized the essential concepts of progressive education; namely, inquiry-based learning, reflection and critical thinking, and student-focused curriculum;
  • Prepared themselves to work toward the creation of a more just, humane, democratic, and sustainable world;
  • Produced a culminating project in the form of a senior study in an area of interest; for example, curriculum development, multicultural education, alternative education, environmental education, critical pedagogy, democratic schooling, collaborative teaching, feminist theories of education, or authentic assessment.

Authorizations

Goddard’s Teacher Licensure Program is approved by the Vermont Agency of Education and the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators for preparing licensure-seeking students to receive a Vermont Initial License in one or more of six endorsement areas. Vermont participates with all other states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico in the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification’s Interstate Agreement, which governs licensure reciprocity.

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