New year begins with a new Dean at Penn GSE
January 5, 2015 — With a focus on continuing her career-long commitment to teacher education, Pam Grossman has joined the faculty of Penn GSE as its 11th dean. Grossman, an internationally renowned scholar, arrived at Penn on January 1 from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, where she helped found the Center to Support Excellence in Teaching.
Grossman launched her education career as a basic skills teacher in New Haven, Connecticut, after she graduated from Yale. She has also been an English teacher in California and an Upward Bound instructor in Fairbanks, Alaska. She earned her master’s at the University of California, Berkeley, and her doctorate at Stanford, after which she joined the faculty at the University of Washington. In 2000, she returned to Stanford, where she was the Nomellini-Olivier Professor of Education.
Grossman’s research delves into topics at the forefront of the current education policy discourse, including the changing landscape of teacher education and the use of observation protocols for teacher professional development. Some of 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. 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.
“I look forward to working with faculty, students and staff in the Graduate School of Education to continue making a positive difference in education here in Philadelphia and around the nation and the world," Grossman said.
"Penn is a great research university located in the heart of Philadelphia. This gives GSE unparalleled opportunities to work closely with local schools and educators. It also allows GSE to bring together talent and knowledge from the liberal arts and from Penn's other professional schools to engage in research and development around the kinds of support educators, families, schools and communities need to help children thrive in school."