Chapter 7: The Scholarship of Practice: Intersections of Dialogue, Investigation, and Interactive Knowledge

In 2006 a small group of faculty members at Washington State University (WSU) began to design a professional practice doctorate in education, the Teacher Leadership EdD. Their goal in this redesign was to prepare educators to work in K-16 education, both individually and, more ideally, collectively, to engage in inquiry-driven leadership and change for the continuous improvement of education for all learners. This chapter presents an overview of the new doctoral program and explores the following questions: (a) Where does the program locate practitioner knowledge? (b) How does the program attempt to develop and promote such knowledge? (c) What are some ways that the program has proposed or made program changes in relation to the promotion of practitioner knowledge? Taken together, these questions also point to a fourth one—a theme of this volume—What, at the level of practice, does new graduate-level teacher education policy look like?