The College’s Philosophy and its Values
The Philosophy
The professional education conviction of the College is centered on the fact that learning is a form of worship and draws one closer to Allah, based on the revered divine commandments that emphasize seeking education where ever it can be found, disseminating knowledge, and benefiting from it as much as possible. Moreover, this conviction is centered on a well-established Islamic principle that emphasizes that seeking education is an obligation of every Muslim, which implies that all individuals are able to learn and are obliged to continue learning.
Learning in its broad sense is not only expected from the College’s staff members, its candidates, and school students, but the term is extended to include the whole College as a learning organization, one that learns from its own practices and from evaluating these practices. It also includes the University community (departments, colleges, and units), and the professional community.
Therefore, the professional practices in the learning community inside the College and outside in the knowledge society that it aims to build at the national level is centered on making all involved parties – individuals, groups, and institutions- work to positively pursue learning within the framework of active authentic learning, one that operationalizes the learners role in their learning process, and encourages each party to seek to improve their experiences and their practices.
Core Values:
According to the above described conviction, the field of education derives its values from the Islamic education principles that emphasize the educator’s integrity and that highlights the ethics of the teaching and learning process and the importance of making use of what has been achieved by the best educational experiences and practices. These core values are represented in:
1. Life-long learning: God has urged man to seek knowledge, acquire it, and disseminate it in order to fulfill an act of worship to God and to inhabit the earth and be His agent on earth. Thus, the educator’s concern with acquiring knowledge and facilitating the search for it is considered an act of seeking to please God.
2. Fairness and integrity: This is represented in the educator’s concern to teach and learn as an act of worship by which he seeks to please God, whom he covertly and overtly minds in his professional and lifestyle practices, and whose purposes he seeks to accomplish with intrinsic, sincere motives. Also, the educator is careful to respect individual privacy and the confidentiality of data and information, while maintaining high standards of integrity and self-accountability.
3. Perfection: Educators are determined to accomplish their mission of teaching their students and educating them well and serving their country and society. To fulfill that, they try all methods, strategies, and techniques, and they follow closely excellence criteria in all their practices.
4. Professionalism: Teaching is a specialized profession that requires study, knowledge, education, and continuous growth. It is also governed by rules and traditions by which educators, and the society at large, need to abide.
5. Freedom: The teaching profession grants every educator and every learner the freedom to question, research and change, believing that this freedom is the path that leads to prominence, creativity, and novel discoveries, as long as it functions within the boundaries of religious laws and societal values. Also, freedom helps in the building of the knowledge society that the College seeks to achieve through its vision and mission.
The Proficiencies of the College’s Graduates
After reviewing models from other universities that have been granted academic accreditation, the following qualifications were extracted in light of the College's vision, mission, philosophy and values and in accordance with criteria specified by NCATE, INTASC, and the criteria specified by the National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment in addition to the knowledge basis on which it relies.
Professional educators who are graduates of the College of Education at King Saud University have the following proficiencies:
First, they abide by Islamic values including work ethics.
Second, they possess skills and deep understanding of content knowledge, structure, basic concepts, and inquiry methods in their specialization, and contribute to make relevant experiences available and meaningful to the students.
Third, they possess research skills and understand the content of research and recent studies about students’ growth and development and their role in students’ development and in their learning. They also contribute to making available suitable experiences that will lead to students’ mental, social, physical, and emotional growth.
Fourth, they plan and use different methods of teaching and learning in their specialization, including developing critical thinking skills and problem solving.
Fifth, they possess verbal and non-verbal communication skills, and use several forms of media to communicate with their students, colleagues, administration, parents, and the local community.
Sixth, they understand motives, and individual and group behavior, and apply this understanding while creating a learning/ work environment that encourages personal growth, intrinsic motivation, and positive social interaction, that will lead to students’ engagement in active learning.
Seventh, they use strategies for formal and informal assessment to evaluate every aspect of students’ growth and achievement, and are able to analyze data for different purposes.
Eighth, they seek opportunities for personal and professional growth.
Ninth, they possess the flexibility to modify their professional attitude to reflect what is expected of them as educators.
Tenth, they use technology and integrate it in their professional practices.
Eleventh, they understand individual differences among students in all physical, mental, and emotional aspects, and appreciates their socioeconomic and cultural diversity.