Graduate School of Education: 0606crede.html

The Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence (CREDE) hosted a two-day seminar for 30 researchers and teacher educators from as far away as Greenland and Hawaii in early April. The seminar entitled "Transforming Pedagogy at the Tertiary Level: Sharing and Planning," was facilitated by CREDE founder and director Roland Tharp, and focused on improving teacher preparation using the Standards for Effective Pedagogy, that CREDE developed.

Day 1 included an overview of the successes, challenges and central issues rooted in the Standards as well as presentations on three research projects that explored pedagogical reform as practiced by professors in a variety of teacher preparation programs. The participants also reflected on adopting different ways of preparing teachers for their university setting and posed questions, offered suggestions, expressed concerns and outlined potential pitfalls for each project.

On the second day, attendees learned about three programmatic projects based on the Standards at UC Berkeley/CSU-Stanislaus, University of Memphis and in Greenland. They also discussed how the seminar could develop into a multi-university collaborative.

Participants agreed that the successful seminar had stimulated discussion with a group of diverse scholars, which helped them refine their individual teaching methods, theoretical models and project plans. Since this initial meeting, they have begun to generate material for collective use as well as established an ongoing working group that is sponsored by CREDE.