REINVENTING DEWEY,JOHN PEDAGOGY AS A UNIVERSITY DISCIPLINE

Just a century ago, John Dewey proposed that pedagogy be recognized as a university discipline. Significant progress is being made on 3 impo rtant fronts to promote pedagogy as a platform in higher education, th ough it is still not a distinct field of study. The first front is ped agogies of engagement-community-service learning, problem-based learni ng, and collaborative learning. The second is the assessment of studen t learning. And the third is the preparation of teachers for undergrad uate teaching. In combination, these trends show significant potential for enhancing undergraduate education. Their full promise will be rea lized, however, only if they are linked together-only if preparation f or teaching undergraduates includes both the pedagogies of engagement and attention to the assessment of student learning. That linkage woul d be inevitable if pedagogy were a university discipline along the lin es that Dewey proposed. It is worthwhile, therefore, to speculate on w hat a school of pedagogy would look like if one were to be started tod ay.