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Brief Overview of Our College Foundational Commitments

The Penn State College of Education is committed to reimagining education to improve the lives of learners, educators, and community members at the regional, state, national, and global levels. Through our work, we will contribute to the creation of more equitable educational opportunities and outcomes for learners across their lifespan, ensuring all learners acquire essential literacies, and supporting the mental health and well-being of all learners and educators. Our commitment to these areas will be supported by our actions in four areas: 1) Community Enhancement and Development; 2) Transforming Educational Professionals; 3) Research Addressing Social Issues; and, 4) Outreach, Dissemination, and Partnerships. Ultimately, we endeavor to change our education systems to educate for change to create a more equitable society for all.

Our Mission

We reimagine the existing EC-12 and adult education systems, including the College of Education, by identifying and addressing the systemic inequities that impede many individuals from realizing their full potential.  We improve student outcomes, conduct research, develop effective policies and strategies, create new experiences for existing educators and students that are community-based and globally minded preparing the next generation of educators, integrate innovative technologies that contribute to our mission, and actively engage with families and in communities within and beyond our borders. We are deeply committed to progressive social change by bridging research to practice and developing partnerships with a wide array of individuals and organizations. We focus on equity and access, anti-racism orientations and practices, essential literacies, and the mental health and well-being of all individuals across the lifespan. We embrace the challenge of preparing a new generation of education professionals with the skills and dispositions needed to create powerful learning experiences for all learners, across the lifespan. Our mission is nothing less than being a leader in the creation of a more equitable and just education system for the people of Pennsylvania, the nation, and the world.

Our Vision

The Penn State College of Education will work collaboratively to transform education systems to promote progressive social change that leads to an equitable society and world, in which all learners, families, schools, workplaces and communities thrive.

Values

The College of Education shares the University's values of Integrity, Respect, Responsibility, Discovery, Excellence, and Community.  In addition to those values, the College of Education strongly identifies with these values:

ANTI-RACISM/RACIAL JUSTICE - We strive to actively identify, describe, counter, and dismantle individual, interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism in all components of our work.

TRANSFORMING EDUCATION – We are committed to changing education to promote and practice equity in collaboration with international, national, and community-based partners to ensure an equitable and just world.

LEARNING ACROSS THE LIFESPAN – We are committed to cultivating purposeful learning for individuals and communities throughout development, transitions, and contexts.

SYSTEMIC UNDERSTANDING AND AWARENESS We embrace the synergy among efforts to mitigate climate change, and to promote social justice, essential literacies grounded in deep and integrated disciplinary knowledge, mental health and well-being in changing education for healthy communities and the world.

GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING AND INCLUSIVITY—We are committed to supporting the exchange of knowledge and furthering research that includes perspectives from, and addresses issues pertinent to, the attainment of education for all around the globe.

Definitions of Key Terms

As you read through our strategic plan you will come across certain key terms.  Below are those terms and how we are defining them in the context of this plan.

DIVERSITY: The College of Education advocates for the inclusion of and support for individuals from underrepresented backgrounds, including, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, ability, religious affiliation, veteran status, socio-economic status, nationality, and geography.

SOCIAL JUSTICE: The College of Education believes in creating a fair and equal society centered on improving the lives of groups historically marginalized based on race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, age, religion, and disability.

ESSENTIAL LITERACIES: The College of Education views a wide array of knowledge and skills as important. However, the College views some specific literacies as critical. These include the traditional subject matter areas as well as global citizenship, climate change, social justice, understanding of systemic racism, democratic participation, civics education, mental health and well-being, and inclusivity.

EDUCATORS/EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS: The College of Education represents and includes anyone who positively impacts the human condition through teaching, assessment, research, clinical practice, or professional development.

Strategic Plan Goals

We will engage in intentional practices to develop an inclusive college of education that derives strength from multiple identities and lived experiences and mirrors the representation of individuals in our society.

OBJECTIVE - SOCIETAL REPRESENTATION

Increase the diversity of the students, faculty, and staff of the College of Education to reflect our national and global society more fully.

 

ACTION ITEM

Recruit, support, and retain faculty and staff from historically underrepresented groups, particularly people of color.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Collaborate with the Office of Education and Social Equity to review existing College of Education policies and strategies for recruitment, support, and retention.
  • Develop and implement an improvement plan for faculty and staff candidate pool identification and hiring processes to increase the number and percentage of faculty and staff of color as well as individuals from other historically underrepresented groups.
  • Identify and develop partnerships with higher education institutions and organizations to enhance recruitment efforts (e.g., Historically Black and Latinx Institutions, UCEA’s Barbara Jackson Scholars).
  • Build upon current mechanisms, groups, and initiatives to provide infrastructure that supports faculty and staff of color and other members from historically underrepresented groups.
  • Explore the possibility of remote work to expand the geographic radius from which staff are recruited.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2023

ACTION ITEM

Recruit, support, and retain students from historically underrepresented groups, including students of color, students from families living in poverty, rural students, students with disabilities, male students in elementary teaching areas, and other identified students at all levels.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • In collaboration with the Office of Education and Social Equity and the Associate Dean for Undergraduate and Graduate Student Studies, review existing strategies, and based on the findings, develop and implement an improvement plan for graduate student recruiting efforts, particularly with respect to students of color.
  • Review and enhance the College of Education’s student engagement opportunities to better align with needs and interest of students of color and other historically marginalized students.
  • Administer surveys that collect the perceptions of undergraduate and graduate students (both graduates and non-completers) about their experiences and capture suggested areas or ideas for improvement, particularly with respect to equity, diversity, inclusivity, and support.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2022

 

OBJECTIVE - INCLUSIVITY, BELONGINGNESS, AND PARTICIPATION

Increase the sense of inclusion, belonging, and participation for all members of the College of Education with a particular focus on individuals from historically underrepresented populations.

ACTION ITEM

Develop an inclusive culture that focuses on creating a sense of belonging and participation for all members of the College of Education community.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Establish a Faculty Fellows Program in the College that will provide leadership opportunities for faculty members in the areas of teaching, engagement, diversity, and other areas as needed.
  • Develop opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to connect to important professional practices such as teaching and learning, mental and physical wellness, ethics, bias, advocacy, service, democratic participation, public pedagogy, stewardship of the environment, and global citizenship.
  •  Provide professional learning activities to promote self-awareness, inclusive teaching, listening, managing difficult conversations, and expressive communication skills to support meaningful discussion.
  • Invest in and enhance opportunities to engage with colleagues across the College, University, and Community, especially regarding teaching, learning, and curricular issues.
  • Develop an organizational structure that promotes collaboration across college organizations focused on diversity, equity, justice, inclusion, and anti-racist teaching and curricula.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2024

 

We will develop educational professionals who are active change agents and ensure they have the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions for improving and transforming education for all learners with respect to essential literacies, inclusive instruction, social justice, anti-racism, inclusivity, as well as mental health and well-being.

 

OBJECTIVE - CURRICULAR AND INSTRUCTIONAL ASSESSMENT

Assess how well our programs prepare educational professionals through instruction, curriculum, and experiential participation to act as change agents focused on a more just and equitable future of the educational system while being mindful of the past.

 

ACTION ITEM

Conduct a thorough set of formative reviews on existing program curricula and instruction.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Assemble a diverse team of faculty, students, and community members to facilitate the review of curricula and instruction across the College of Education and Commonwealth Campuses to ensure courses and programs include and address effective and inclusive instruction, appropriate learning objectives, essential literacies, as well as mental health and well-being.
  • Establish a stakeholder group to understand how our programs address education’s role in developing an equitable society, including the curriculum and instruction employed by programs
  • Conduct an equity audit of each program to ascertain how we may be implicitly complicit in perpetuating cycles of systemic inequities through the design and implementation of our curricula and instruction.
  • Conduct gap and market analyses between our programs and the demands of the education labor market as well as societal needs.
  • Develop tools to support continuous revision and development of college programs, including the curricula and instructional approaches employed by programs
  • Identify facilitator(s) to work within departments to develop and enact continuous cycles of review of program curricula and instruction.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2025

 

OBJECTIVE - STRATEGICALLY BALANCE CURRICULAR OFFERINGS

Engage in the process of revising and developing our curricular offerings to prepare our students to understand and serve the needs of all learners including: a) those residing in urban and rural settings and poverty contexts; b) those with disabilities; c) English language learners; d) multilingual students; e) people of color; f) LGBTQ+ individuals; and, g) linguistically and culturally diverse populations with specific attention on addressing systemic inequities, essential literacies, mental health and well-being.

 

ACTION ITEM

Focus work across the college in ways to enable student enrollment growth.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Employ strategies such as reducing the number of sections and consider a rotating schedule for some courses, where possible, to create bandwidth for curricular work.
  • Identify curricular synergies, within and across departments, to reduce redundancies and create bandwidth for curricular work.
  • Identify programs within the College that would benefit from additional support and resources to better align course and program offerings with a student demand, the needs of the field, and society.
  • Hire a marketing professional to develop an overall brand for College of Education programs, develop a marketing plan, and assist in undergraduate and graduate student recruitment.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2022 through 12/31/2024

 

ACTION ITEM

Incorporate essential literacies, inclusive instruction, social justice, anti-racism, inclusivity, as well as mental health and well-being across all programs with attention to the intersection of these areas.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Identify the knowledge, skills, and dispositions we expect our students to acquire through our teaching, curricula, and experiential opportunities related to essential literacies, social justice, anti-racism, inclusivity, as well as mental health and well-being.
  • Conduct a needs assessment of instructors regarding the adoption and implementation of essential literacies, social justice, anti-racism, inclusivity, as well as mental health and well-being in our curricula and instructional practices.
  • Based on the results of the needs assessment, provide resources and support (e.g., professional development and course materials) to instructors to implement anti-racist, equity-based curricula and instruction that also reinforce the essential literacies needed by education professionals to transform the education landscape.
  • Identify and integrate curricular and instructional mechanisms that enliven the mental health and well-being of all students.
  • Develop structures to implement, evaluate, and study innovative approaches to educator preparation—including curricula and instruction--that develop change agents in respective fields who are well-prepared to address known and new systemic inequities.
  • Develop materials, resources, and learning opportunities, to train faculty and graduate students in the self-awareness, listening, and expressive communication skills that are needed to support meaningful discussion as one component of effective and inclusive instruction.
  • Train and support professionals to disrupt instances in which marginalization occurs.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2022 through 12/31/2025

 

ACTION ITEM

Expand the contexts within which our curricular offerings are implemented to better afford a diverse set of experiences from which students can build.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Identify and support the development and implementation of internship experiences that include diverse student populations and a variety of educational experiences threaded across the curriculum with a specific focus on systemic inequities and injustices.
  • Develop new school district partnerships to expand contexts where curriculum and instructional activities and internships can take place.
  • Increase remote opportunities for students to engage virtually with diverse students (e.g., on-line tutoring for EC-12 students who are struggling academically or are in need of English as second language skills, support for schools in need of counseling services).
  • Provide instructional and practical experiences that empower students to effectively advocate for and enact change.
  • Create support networks for current students and graduates engaged in efforts to address systemic inequities, mental health and well-being,
  • Enable students to provide educational solutions using technology to the community and community partners. 

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2025

 

OBJECTIVE - INNOVATIVE PATHWAYS AND PROGRAMS

Transform existing and create new programs to capture the interest of students seeking to engage as meaningful agents of change through education with a particular focus on high need areas.

 

ACTION ITEM

Develop innovative new courses and programs that broaden the reach and impact of education beyond our traditional student population.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Based on the gap and market analyses (objective 2.1.1, Task 4), transform existing programs as well as explore and innovate new programs to address known needs in the development of an anti-racist and equity-focused educational workforce  (e.g., online D.Ed., dual credit, alternative certification and new undergraduate programs).
  • Develop new general education courses that facilitate the development of anti-racist and equity-focused skills and the enactment of those skills in a variety of disciplines and contexts.
  • Explore creative new technologies and other means to provide programming across a variety of modalities, including new modes of instruction.
  • Explore the development of a Teaching Scholars program for high needs areas (e.g., Special Education, STEAM, ESL).
  • Plan for new faculty hires where current capacities and skills are insufficient to support program transformation and growth.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2022 through 12/31/2024

We will prioritize and support research that addresses global issues relevant to reshaping equitable communities across our nation and globe. Through our research, we will address issues that are global in scope and local in focus, including cultural, linguistic, and racial equities, mental health across ages and locations, technology in schools and workplaces, and disability to better the lives of those in the Commonwealth and beyond its borders.

 

OBJECTIVE - INNOVATIVE RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS

Build on existing areas of high-quality scholarship and expand our research portfolio to include a research agenda on education for societal change.

 

ACTION ITEM

Establish our College as a leader in the field of education for the study of our own efforts to prepare educators for societal change.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Conduct a self-study on leadership in transformative education for social justice.
  • Leverage the newly established Faculty Fellows program (a task from the Inclusivity, Belongingness, and Participation Objective in the Community Enhancement and Development Goal) as a space for conducting research on leadership in the areas of teaching, curricular development, engagement, diversity, and other areas as needed.
  • Identify new hires that can expand capacity in this area.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2025

 

ACTION ITEM

Build research programs focused on teaching, learning, and policy, with a focus on essential literacies, social justice, anti-racism efforts, inclusivity, as well as mental health and well-being.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Design, develop, and study instructional interventions for teaching and learning that target systemic inequities.
  • Explore innovative uses of technology to advance the study of essential literacies beyond the medium of print and with use of other representations.
  • Infuse existing research goals on science, technology, art, engineering, and mathematics (STEAM) in the study of essential literacies and to promote social justice.
  • Promote mixed-methods research as a primary mechanism to facilitate systemic research initiatives addressing inequities and academic and professional development in research areas, including essential literacies, STEAM, mental health and well-being, policy development and implementation, English Language Learner instruction, and other areas
  • Study and develop interventions examining the role of mental health and well-being on the lives and outcomes of educators and students.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2025

 

OBJECTIVE - PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN RESEARCH

The College will build on current efforts to provide opportunities and experiences that enhance the research capacities of students and faculty.

 

ACTION ITEM

Enhance the research experience and expertise of all students.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Expand programs supporting the academic training, individualized mentorship, and placement of historically underrepresented students with interest in graduate study.
  • Establish internal resources for student-initiated research and innovation projects that will aid access of media technologies, software, and hardware for qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research.
  • Maintain and increase the number of dissertation research initiation grants to support student research initiatives.
  • Engage undergraduate researchers in projects to promote transformative education for social justice, including innovative approaches to teaching and curricula.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2023

 

ACTION ITEM

Enhance the research experience and expertise of all faculty.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Provide research methodology workshops on qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods to support research goals.
  • Schedule seminars to feature innovative uses of technology (e.g., data visualization, game-based learning environments, simulations) to support research on social justice, essential literacies, curricula, instruction, and mental health and well-being.
  • Continue the invited speaker series focused on research that addresses issues of essential literacies, inclusive instruction, anti0-racist curricula, equity, diversity, inclusivity, anti-racism, as well as mental health and well-being.
  • Host a workshop series for faculty and their collaborators, postdoctoral research scholars, and undergraduate and graduate students that features socioecological systems and research methodologies that are directed toward the empirical study of the intersections among essential literacies, instruction, social justice, and mental health and well-being.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2022

 

OBJECTIVE - RESEARCH, CULTURE, AND PARTNERSHIPS

Coordinate fiscal and other supports to enhance a culture of research by providing professional learning opportunities, improving the recruitment of faculty and students, recognizing outstanding research, and developing and sustaining impactful collaborations, particularly research-practitioner partnerships.

 

ACTION ITEM

Continue to enhance the local culture of research and scholarship that reflects the College’s values.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Recruit additional top scholars whose research focuses on issues of diversity, inclusion, social justice, and anti-racism.
  • Recruit scholars with expertise in socioecological systems research and methodologies to foster study of the intersections among essential literacies, social justice, and mental health and well-being.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2022

 

ACTION ITEM

Value and support new pathways for research and creative accomplishments in annual evaluations as well as promotion and tenure.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Recognize and reward initiation of collaborative partnerships within the University and beyond.
  • Recognize and reward engagement in equity, inclusion, and anti-racism outreach work, particularly those that address leadership, instruction, and curricula
  • Recognize, incentivize, and reward the use of diverse publication venues and research dissemination strategies (e.g., open access journals, policy briefs, amicus briefs, books).

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2023

 

ACTION ITEM

Develop and support research-practitioner partnerships (e.g., museums, non-governmental organizations, school districts).

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Work collaboratively with Pennsylvania and other school districts to identify and select projects for research-practice partnerships, particularly projects related to essential literacies, inclusive instruction, equity, mental health and well-being, social justice, and anti-racism.
  • Establish field-based and on-site research training opportunities to facilitate the professional development of faculty, students, and partners as research-practitioner community members.
  • Identify and develop innovative uses of technology (e.g., data collection methods, database management, communication networks) to support the short- and long-term goals of research-practitioner partnerships and its members.
  • Conduct systemic, developmental, and ethnographic case studies on research-practitioner partnerships to inform adoption of future research goals and practices in changing education to educate for change.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2025

 

ACTION ITEM

Support collaborative, multidisciplinary research projects with a wide array of organizations within the College, University, Commonwealth, Nation, and across the World.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Develop mechanisms by which the College of Education captures the perceptions, concerns, and needs of education stakeholders at all levels of the education system, especially from those who historically have had less voice in decision making.
  • Coordinate efforts across the College and University, especially with respect to the Centers in the College of Education, to enhance collaboration and effort regarding research.
  • Work with Penn State Institutes (e.g., Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Social Science Research Institute, Sustainability Institute) to advance research initiatives pertaining to the synergy of essential literacies, social justice, and mental health and well-being.
  • Cultivate research opportunities with other Universities, Organizations, Research Centers, and Institutes in the US and across the world (e.g., American Educational Research Association, National Center for Educational Statistics, national and international governmental and non-governmental organizations, international higher education institutions)

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2025

 

OBJECTIVE - SUPPORTING RESEARCH FOR CHANGE

Coordinate existing resources and enhance current mechanisms to increase our capacity to procure external funding for research activities.

 

ACTION ITEM

Leverage internal resources to increase strength of external funding proposals.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Provide grant writing workshops that focus on identifying appropriate funding, writing effective proposals, and managing grants.
  • Develop a grant-mentoring program that pairs experienced grant writers with less experienced grant writers.
  • Create internal research grants for projects that are intended to improve the well-being of under-resourced and underrepresented communities.
  • Provide research funds to support mentorships and research collaborations across disciplines.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2023

 

ACTION ITEM

Enhance support for the submission of external grant proposals.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Develop mechanisms to assist in identifying priorities of funding agencies, revising proposals based on panel review.
  • Facilitate partnerships with other Colleges and Universities to identify key personnel in needed areas of expertise (e.g., research methods, technology)
  • Cultivate and coordinate clusters of proposals to support research for systemic change around themes of essential literacies, social justice, and mental health and well-being.
  • Hire a grant editor to organize, to help edit proposals, and to check for required sections of proposals in research funding announcements.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2023

 

ACTION ITEM

Improve the functionality of College and University spaces to support research.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Leverage existing College of Education spaces (e.g., Krause Center, mathematics lab, science wing) to increase the likelihood of securing funded research grants.
  • Establish the Herr clinic as a research space in the study of educational, assessment and counseling practices that promote mental health and well-being.
  • Identify other University spaces at University Park (e.g., Knowledge Commons, Millennium Science Complex) and across Commonwealth Campuses (e.g., Hershey Medical Center, Plastics Processing Laboratory at Penn State Behrend, Pullo Family Performing Arts Center at Penn State York) to support research projects.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2025

The College of Education will strengthen its leadership roles as a change agent for education systems and societies locally and globally. We will widely share our research, programs, materials, and interventions by means that are easily accessible by the public, adopt new strategies for outreach to individuals and communities, create more effective strategies to disseminate our work, and expand our partnerships.

 

OBJECTIVE - PARTNERSHIPS

We will engage collaboratively with families, community members, educators, and policymakers within the state, nation, and around the world. We will foster and develop mutual partnerships with families, schools, and community organizations to address pressing social issues, including poverty, essential literacies, racism, inclusion, mental health and well-being, and climate change, among others. 

 

ACTION ITEM

Make essential literacies, equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and mental health and well-being the foci of the College of Education’s partnership work such that the College is seen as a leader within the state and nation as well as around the world in these areas.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Conduct a review of current partnerships, including the organizations, individuals, and goals of the partnership.
  • Conduct a needs assessment of the current infrastructure and supports to determine what is needed to sustain effective partnerships.
  • Cultivate new collaborations with community members, nonprofit educational organizations, and schools/districts, particularly those serving high-need populations, to provide mental and behavioral supports to students in need of such services.
  • Enhance international collaboration with the world’s leading institutions of higher education to expand the student experience, faculty development, and the impact of research. 
  • Leverage technology both as a tool for connecting to these partners and as an innovative means to support their growth.
  • Assess the impact of community-based participatory research to continuously improve partnership work.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2025

 

ACTION ITEM

Create new internal structures to facilitate connections with educator preparation program graduates and their employers to better support career transition, help ensure our programs are aligned with the needs of communities with educational disparities and inform programmatic priorities.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Create a process that digitally records and stores graduates’ and employers’ information for ease of contact beyond the Graduate School and maps the placements of employment of our graduates.
  • Capture the perceptions of graduates and non-completers on the strengths and weaknesses of our educator preparation programs to inform program improvement efforts.
  • Capture principals’ and superintendents’ perceptions of the quality of our educator preparation programs to inform program improvement efforts.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2021

 

ACTION ITEM

Expand collaborations and develop synergistic relationships across Penn State units.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Engage with Commonwealth Campuses to develop better articulations and leverage 2+2 options.
  • Increase affiliate and dual appointments between departments, research units, outreach units, and colleges. 
  • Increase cross-listed courses between departments and colleges.
  • Encourage co-advising between departments and colleges.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2023 through 12/31/2024

 

OBJECTIVE - OUTREACH AND DISSEMINATION

The College of Education will develop and implement effective outreach and dissemination strategies that ensure we are recognized widely as a leader by the general public, educators, and policymakers across all levels of education at the regional, state, national, and international levels.

 

ACTION ITEM

Improve access to and visibility of work in the College of Education.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Assess the use and effectiveness of current outreach and dissemination strategies.
  • Collaborate with stakeholders to identify effective outreach and dissemination strategies such as videos, webinars, practitioner briefs, policy briefs, research summaries, and mini conferences.
  • Based on results from Tasks 1 and 2 above, develop a college-wide outreach and dissemination strategy that widely disseminates the variety of initiatives in the College.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2021 through 12/31/2021

 

ACTION ITEM

Facilitate the publication of practitioner and policy briefs, particularly those focused on essential literacies, social justice, essential literacies, and mental health and well-being, by members of the College of Education.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Hire an expert in digital publication design and layout.
  • Develop the capacity of students and faculty to write for non-academic audiences by creating a course, holding workshops, and providing individual support.
  • Streamline the process by which policy and practitioner briefs are reviewed and approved for dissemination.
  • Publish policy and practitioner briefs that address important topics identified by practitioners around the Commonwealth and distribute digitally to educational organizations, especially policies regarding equity, systemic racism, social justice, mental health and well-being, and essential literacies.
  • Collect data on the reach of these briefs and use it to refine the mechanisms for dissemination to targeted audiences.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2022 through 12/31/2023

 

ACTION ITEM

Provide consultation, mentoring, and/or professional development to recent College of Education graduates employed as EC-12 educators on how to address issues of equity and diversity, mental health and well-being, and essential literacies in the classrooms and in our schools.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Offer professional development seminar series, including those that provide Act 45 and Act 48 hours, that address: equity and diversity in classrooms and schools; mental health and well-being; essential literacies; and the effective selection and use of technologies in content delivery and pedagogy.
  • Create supports for faculty to engage in helping school district personnel develop their professional skills to address essential literacies as well as issues of equity, diversity, systemic racism.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2023 through 12/31/2025

 

ACTION ITEM

Disseminate findings of research partnerships through various means.

 

IMPLEMENTATION TASKS

  • Create and maintain a web space dedicated to dissemination of College of Education research for practitioners and other interested constituents including Penn State students.
  • Create an in-house, free access, web-based research publication administered by College of Education faculty and graduate students that is devoted to all forms of educational research addressing social justice, essential literacies, and mental health and well-being.
  • Hold an annual College of Education conference that rotates themes of essential literacies, social justice, and mental health and well-being.
  • Work with the communications team and marketing specialist to showcase research addressing social issues to help establish the College of Education’s leadership with a local, state, national, and global presence.

TARGET DATES:  1/1/2024 through 12/31/2025