Graduate School of Education: 0606sem2.html

Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond made a strong case for teacher education and quality as GSE’s new Excellence in Educational Research Seminar Series continued in January.

Her seminar, entitled "Informing Policy on Teacher Quality: The Use (and Non-Use) of ‘Scientifically Valid’ Research," examined recent policy debates about teacher quality and preparation and the research that has informed those debates. Arguing that methodologically strong research finds substantial influences of teacher preparation on student learning, Darling-Hammond discussed recent work establishing the effects of well-qualified teachers. She reported that teachers who have received teacher education are twice as likely as untrained teachers to stay on the job after their first year. She also probed the nature of their preparation.

"Teaching looks simple except when you’re in it," she observed.

Frederick Erickson, George F. Kneller Professor of Anthropology of Education at UCLA, presented two seminars in April. The first, entitled, "To Be or Not to Be Hard-Nosed: Issues and Procedures in Doing Educational Qualitative Research," examined criteria for the conduct of ‘evidence-careful’ qualitative research.

"The whole enterprise of trying to be hard-nosed in qualitative inquiry — if a blessing at all (and not a curse) is certainly a mixed blessing," Erickson writes. "Hard-nosed is not simply good, and it is but one point on a spectrum of potentially fruitful approaches. But hard-nosed is possible in qualitative research."

During his second seminar on April 27, Erickson discussed his recent research in a talk entitled, "Exploring Classrooms on the World-wide Web: Difficulties and Possibilities in Digital Multimedia Representation of Teaching and Learning Practice." For the past five years, Erickson has been working with early grades teachers at UCLA’s elementary laboratory school to prepare web-based multimedia resources that show and explain teaching best practices. The resources are illustrated with video of K–1 science teaching.

University of Pittsburg Education professor James Greeno, who was forced to miss his April appearance, will return in October to launch next year’s Seminar Series. The series has two strands: Policy and Quality Research and Methodologies for Scientific Accountability.