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CREDE 2006 Seminar

Thirty researchers and teacher educators convened in Berkeley, California to attend a two day seminar entitled "Transforming Pedagogy at the Tertiary Level: Sharing and Planning" hosted by the Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence of the Graduate School of Education (CREDE) at the University of California, Berkeley April 5-6, 2006. The Seminar's purpose was to bring together teacher educators from many universities that are interested in improving their own teaching and using the Standards for Effective Pedagogy (developed by CREDE) as their guiding pedagogical system.

The Seminar was facilitated by Roland Tharp, founder and director of CREDE. The first day provided participants with an overview of the successes, challenges and central issues pertaining to use of the Standards as well as presentations on three programmatic projects based on the Standards and views on the directions related work is taking. The presentations explored pedagogical reform as practiced by a variety of individual professors in all kinds of teacher preparation settings. After lunch, the participants were given an opportunity to reflect on the adventure of adopting a different way of teaching pre-service teachers in higher education. In these sessions, participants posed questions, offered suggestions, expressed concerns, and outlined potential pitfalls for each project.

On the second day participants learned about the current state of three programmatic projects based on the Standards for Effective Pedagogy – at the University of California, Berkeley/California State University, Stanislaus; the University of Memphis; and the nation of Greenland.  Participants also discussed how the ‘seminar’ could continue and grow into a multi-university collaborative.

At the end of the two days, all attendees agreed that the Seminar had been a huge success. The opportunity to engage in stimulating discussion with scholars of diverse expertise and locals helped participants refine their individual methods, theoretical models, and project plans. Perhaps the greatest measure of the Seminar's success can be seen in its continuing importance for the participants involved: the group has since begun to generate material for collective use, and has established an ongoing working group with the sponsorship of CREDE.