Helga Eng-lecture series
Each year the Faculty of Educational Sciences invites a well-known academic in our field to give this yearly honorary lecture.
The Helga Eng lecture gives the Faculty the opportunity to invite central academics that through their research and work have attributed to bring important research questions and theories within the educational sciences forward. The lecture is intended to serve as inspiration for students and researchers alike.
Professor Pam Grossman held the 2018 Helga Eng Lecture with her presentation "A Language for Teaching. A Framework for Improvement". Professor Grossman is among international theme participants in QUINT – Quality in Nordic Teaching. Nordic Centre of Excellence at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Oslo.
About Professor Pam Grossman
Professor Pam Grossman is the Dean of the Graduate School of Education at the George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Grossman’s research focuses on the preparation of teachers and other professionals and issues of instructional quality, particularly in English Language Arts. Her most recent work focuses on practice-based teacher education and the role of core practices of teaching in teacher preparation and professional development. She co-directs the Core Practice Consortium, a consortium of faculty from 11 different institutions that has been investigating pedagogies useful for helping novices learn to teach. She was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2009 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017. In addition to chairing the Board for the Spencer Foundation, she currently serves on the Board of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Research Interests
Dr. Grossman studies teacher and professional education, teacher knowledge, and the teaching of English in secondary schools. Her widely cited articles have appeared in Teachers College Record, American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, among others.
In one highly regarded study, she investigated how clergy, teachers, and clinical psychologists are prepared for the demands of professions that require establishing quality relationships with the people they serve. She also served as co-principal investigator of a five-year study of pathways into teaching in New York City schools, focusing on the features of preparation that affect student achievement.
Her more recent work considers the classroom practices of middle school English teachers that are associated with student achievement. As part of this research, she helped develop the Protocol for English Language Arts Teaching Observation (PLATO) instrument, which has been used in the Measures of Effective Teaching project. Her latest study, funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, examines a professional development model that uses PLATO as a tool for instructional improvement.
Dr. Grossman’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation.
In addition to her research on teacher education, Dr. Grossman is a committed teacher educator and, across her career, has prepared prospective teachers for the many demands of their profession.