Preparing Scholarly Practitioners: Redesigning the EdD to Reflect CPED Principles

Abstract

CPED presents guiding principles, rather than a prescriptive program model, for the EdD, requiring each CPEDinfluenced institution to engage in a program design process specific to its context. Over 80 CPED schools and colleges of education offer an EdD program that endorses the CPED framework which "blend[s] practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice…"(CPED, 2010). As with any design process in a complex organization, faculty members may wonder where to begin. This article describes the context, guiding values, characteristics of our redesigned EdD, lessons learned, and implementation challenges of the education administration faculty in the Graduate School of Education at Portland State University as we increased our focus on CPED principle #1, a focus on "equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice" (CPED, 2009).

An Emerging Framework for the EdD Activist

“…programs (e.g. Buss, 2018;Creighton, 2008;Mertler & Henriksen, 2018;Normore & Issa Lahera, 2019;Peterson, 2017), scholarly practice will ultimately permeate the teaching profession. Such permeation is necessary to raise the profile of educators among the general public and, more importantly, among the policymakers who influence the working conditions that give rise to teachers' problems of practice-as well as to their activism.…”

Launching an EdD in Community College Leadership Program with Activism in Mind

“…Well-established programs can find it difficult to shift long-established expectations related to the dissertation. For example, Peterson (2017) noted that it can be challenging to incorporate practitioner-focused methods such as improvement science into traditional research sequences. As a new program, faculty were able to shift from traditional quantitative and qualitative courses to Educational Research I and Educational Research II.…”

“…As another example, the research course sequence now begins with a course titled The Scholarly Practitioner, changed from An Introduction to Inquiry. As Peterson (2017) notes, a tight timeline creates a sense of urgency that often leads to desired program changes.…”

Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership Redesign: Utilizing a Multicriteria Framework

“…The CPED Principles served as the underpinnings of the EDLE Program redesign and the conduit toward fulfilling the 11 UCEA criterion and gaining full membership. Components of the redesign include: the cohort model (Barnett, Basom, Yerkes, & Norris, 2000;Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, Meyerson, Orr, & Cohen, 2007;Davis & Darling-Hammond, 2013), degree plans which distinguish between the Education Doctorate (EdD) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Educational Leadership (Shulman, Golde, Bueschel, & Garabedian, 2006), blended delivery model, course development and redesign, course sequence, which allows for a scaffolded approach to the dissertation writing process (CPED, 2017;Peterson, 2017). In conjunction with the planning of the redesign was the creation of a Superintendent Advisory Council (one of the UCEA criterion), comprised of 20 superintendents from nearby districts, who served as partners and collaborators in the redesign process and continue to provide feedback on program design, implementation, and evaluation of outcomes (e.g.…”