The Edmund Gordon Centennial

Watch LIVE - Wednesday, June 2 and Thursday, June 3

Find information on each session along with links to watch LIVE:


Day 1


Opening Ceremony

Featuring remarks by TC President Tom Bailey and Provost Stephanie Rowley
Keynote speech “The Quest for Educative Assessment” by Linda Darling-Hammond, President & CEO, Learning Policy Institute

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

10:30-11:00 a.m. EDT Opening Ceremony
11:00-11:40 a.m. EDT Keynote Speech

Session I

Towards the Affirmative Development of Intellective Competence and Agency in Every Human Being, moderated by Chris Emdin, TC Associate Professor of Science Education

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

12:30-2:30 p.m. EDT

Session II

Towards “Next Generation” Affirmative Pedagogies, Situated and Social Learning, moderated by Erica N. Walker, TC's Clifford Brewster Upton Professor of Mathematical Education and Director, IUME

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

3:30-5:30 p.m. EDT

Day 2


Session III

Towards “Next Generation” Affirmative and Formative Assessments for Learning, and in the Service of Learning, moderated by Madhabi Chatterji, TC Professor of Measurement, Evaluation and Education and Director, Assessment and Evaluation Research Initiative

Thursday, June 3, 2021

10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. EDT

Session IV

From Affirmative Action to Affirmative Development: Towards Rights-based and Equity-centered Pedagogy, Assessment, and Policy, moderated by Amy Stuart Wells, TC Professor of Sociology and Education

Thursday, June 3, 2021

1:00-3:00 p.m. EDT

Reflection Salon

Reflection Salon: The Next 100 Years of Research, Practice, and Policy—Where We Want to be on Learning, Repurposing Assessment for Learning and Educational Equity, moderated by Alex Bowers, TC Associate Professor of Educational Leadership

Thursday, June 3, 2021

3:30-5:30 p.m. EDT

Closing Ceremony

Featuring remarks by Professor Edmund W. Gordon and his friends, family and former students, and conference supporters

Thursday, June 3, 2021

6:00-7:00 p.m. EDT

Conference Program

Updated on Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Dr. Edmund Gordon

Open quotesI have tried to re-conceptualize a widely accepted notion concerning Equality of Educational Opportunity. Some of my students and I believe that given the state of educational development for the diverse population of students in the U.S., the pursuit of Equity in Opportunities is more appropriate than the pursuit of equality, defined as sameness. We also believe that equity will require that we take advantage of recent findings concerning the nature of human learning that move us away from teaching and learning as the transmission of knowledge and technique toward learning as the enablement of learners to orchestrate and mediate their own learning. In the words of William Butler Yeats, ‘Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.’Close quotes

Edmund Gordon
Richard March Hoe Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Education

About The Conference


The great psychologist Edmund W. Gordon turns 100 in June, and he has been a force in education for the past 70 years — but his ideas have never been more relevant than at the present moment. Throughout his career, Dr. Gordon has called for the affirmative development of all children and for the use of educational assessment as a tool to increase their learning and life chances. Amid a pandemic that has widened educational inequity, and as the nation has resumed mass standardized testing, a group of the leading minds in education are gathering on June 2nd and 3rd both to commemorate Dr. Gordon’s life and legacy as a scholar, champion of educational equity and community activist and consider how to apply his ideas in rebuilding assessment from the ground up.

The two-day conference, featuring a distinguished group of speakers from more than 20 institutions across the United States, will be held at Teachers College, Columbia University, Dr. Gordon’s primary intellectual home, where Dr. Gordon conducted much of the corpus of his research as the Richard March Hoe Professor and Founding Director of TC’s Institute for Urban and Minority Education. Dr. Gordon’s work has provided the vision and foundations to refashion our understandings of human development, teaching and learning, with new directions in student pedagogy, assessment, and accountability. His work with respect for human and civil rights has shown us the importance of race and social class in the interplay of education and outcomes. His concept of affirmative development has helped us appreciate the emancipatory potential of education and its many branches of research and practice. Ultimately, the conference will provide insights and perspectives on Dr. Gordon’s major writings about the interplay of race and social class in education and outcomes. This conference is free and open to the public.

The Teachers College Edmund W. Gordon Centennial Conference kicks off a series of Centennial Celebrations sponsored by his many colleagues and university partners across the country.

Upcoming Events


Centennial Sponsors

Thank you to our sponsors!


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