Defining Outcomes: A primary task for CPED aims to identify outcomes in three foci groups intended to lead to a proposal for a "low stakes-high yield" assessment system for Ed.D. candidates in school leadership, clinical practice in teacher education, and organizational leadership. We collectively seek to identify what candidates from Ed.D. programs should know, believe and be able to do in each of these three areas, with an eventual attempt to describe levels of proficiency.

The October 2009 Convening pre-work was intended to move us forward to reach the goal of identifying outcomes for our professional doctorate programs. The information that teams provided was both a center for discussion as well as a foundation for developing a common assessment system predicated on the following structural foundation:

1. Core/foundation courses
2. Inquiry courses
3. Capstone experiences
4. Internship experiences (or laboratories of practice)

Key Convening Proceedings:

Member institutions have been called on to provide a content analysis of their existing programs with regard to the aforementioned criteria, as well as a map of the revisions these programs have undergone to date.

1. What are the contextual backgrounds for these programs?
2. What have been the tough decisions made to date?
3. Paint a picture of the governance structure, organization, and student support services that contextualize these programs.
4. Think about the question: Can K-12, Higher Ed, and Teacher Ed all be part of and stem from a single core sequence?

What instructional delivery model(s) is/are utilized within your programs?

1. What components signify problem-based inquiry?
2. How are practitioner competencies built-in/embedded within the coursework?
3. What aspects of teaming are utilized within instruction?
4. What aspects of co-production of knowledge are apparent?
5. What type of evaluation model(s) is/are utilized to assess student outcomes?

To what extent is our curricular content based on perspectives from the field?

1. What does the field want from the leaders we produce?
2. What do we expect our graduates to know/be able to do?
3. How does your program teach students to think in a "larger" way?
4. Did you begin program development with a set of graduate outcomes and then utilize backward design to define program parameters?
5. What aspects of your program promote socialization into the field?

How is inquiry taught within the scope of your program?

1. Has a distinction been made/seen as necessary between the research methods content intended for Ph.D. students being trained for scholarship and Ed.D. students being trained for practice in the field?
2. How can we teach inquiry as a problem-solving skill set?
3. Is inquiry taught as a systematic concept throughout all the coursework?
4. How can we teach our students to deconstruct problems in-field?
5. Is inquiry discussed as a leadership skill?
6. Is communicating data taught as a primary skill-set?
7. Do we teach the utilization of data as a means to promote organizational learning?

Perhaps rather than being taught to conduct research, practitioner may best be served by being taught to:

1. Become good consumers of research.
2. Interpret and present data.
3. Assess intervention outcomes.
4. Utilize GAP analysis: Where are we? <- -> Where do we want to be?
5. Think about inquiry as a problem-solving skill and not as a discrete set of techniques.

What evidence do we have that students actually utilize the skills we teach in their practice? Past graduates are often called upon to mentor current students.

Student inquiry should be guided by how they frame their practice. Inquiry has to be a stance:

1. Adaptive vs. routine expertise.
2. Leaders should be able to teach teachers/staff how to conduct inquiry.

The Thematic Dissertation (Capstone):

1. Utilized to identify, frame, and resolve problems of practice.
2. Not intended to broaden the literature base, but to enhance the discipline of professional leadership.
3. Faculty invite students to join in the consideration of problems of practice.
4. Collaboration of tenure track and clinical faculty.
5. Faculty role as coach; student as worker.
6. Building group dynamics among students eases the load for faculty regarding student accountability and mentorship - instead, a peer-based model is implemented.
7. Every student that goes out into the field is asking the same question regarding problems in practice.
8. Faculty work with students to develop their research/inquiry outlines.
9. Peer review: every student receives the benefit of input from all the others in the group. This strengthens cohort grouping and the professional learning community structure.
10. Students work with system leaders to discover their practice and processes.
11. Students conduct independent research in their own districts, but their literature reviews and methods sections are common - there is variation in the discussion of findings.
12. Thematic grouping requires advance planning, developing questions together, and knowing utilization goals.
13. Students are not meant to look at gaps in the literature, but for help in understanding the context of a problem.
14. Students often provide executive summaries and recommendations to institutions at which research is conducted.
15. Team leaders are appointed within groups to ensure workflow and accountability - in order to maintain the balance between shared work and individual work.
16. Students have 3 member committees, with fourth member as a practitioner-leader.

Courses within this program should be tied to the college and not to the faculty. Courses should not be taught when faculty are available to do so - instead students should be able to expect a set course sequence and schedule.

Next Steps:

1. CPED seeks to provide recommendations for the development of standards for professional practice programs to:
   1. UCEA
   2. National Policy Board for Educational Administration
   3. National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
   4. NCATE
2. Timeline:
   1. 10/08 Identify outcomes for school leadership; clinical teacher education; and organizational development;
   2. 11/08-1/09 Review and analysis of outcomes finding commonalities and differences
   3. 2/09 Report out to our group for member check
   4. 6/09 and 10/09 Stanford Convening and Duquesne Convening.