Mission Statement

Through sponsoring research and public conversations, the Collaboratory for Teaching and Teacher Education aims to elevate the status of, respect for, and interest in the teaching profession.

The Penn GSE Collaboratory for Teaching and Teacher Education is a research center that brings together diverse thinkers to investigate and discuss complex questions relating to supporting the K–12 teacher workforce and cultivating the next generation of K–12 teachers. Understanding the teaching profession as essential to the functioning of a diverse and sustainable society and just democracy, Collaboratory researchers see teaching as complex and highly skilled relational, moral, and intellectual human work. Committed to this view of teaching and its essential role in society, the Collaboratory works to build knowledge, encourage discourse, develop leaders, and partner with educators and policymakers to elevate the teaching profession by conducting meaningful research and sparking public conversations. In addition, in partnership with Penn GSE’s Center for Professional Learning, the Collaboratory also sponsors professional learning experiences for educators and researchers doing work that aligns with the mission of the Collaboratory.

Goals

• Contribute to elevating the status of the K-12 teaching profession through research & discourse.
• Sponsor and disseminate research that explores the societal function or professional complexity or teaching or systems of teacher support
• Shift public conversations about the profession of teaching and efforts to cultivate the next generation of teachers towards topics that assume teacher professionalism and expertise
• Contribute to the development of a new generation of educational researchers who understand the teaching profession as essential to the functioning of a diverse and sustainable society and just democracy and who see teaching as complex, highly-skilled relational, moral, and intellectual human work.