An important anniversary, for which we offer a small remembrance this morning, somehow slipped past us in 2009.   We should mark this event for the significant influence it has on our work, both for those who prepare Minnesota’s teachers and for those who guide the licensure process authorizing their practice.  During the fall of 1999 a new word began to dominate our conversations with colleagues and students.  Then new to the work of teacher preparation after serving as an instructional developer and program evaluator, I first encountered “The Minnesota Standards of Effective Practice for Teachers” during a June conference hosted by the Board.  At that gathering I learned that Minnesota’s colleges would soon use these new “SEPs” to identify, instruct, and assess the pedagogical knowledge and skills to be acquired by Minnesota’s future teachers.   Where once the number of course credits, course titles, and their descriptions were criteria for approving a program of study leading to a teaching license, now our colleges would provide evidence that their candidates’ preparation included sufficient and appropriate opportunities to learn, practice, and to be assessed on the knowledge and skills described by each of the 140 SEPs as well as the content standards for each licensure area.   See full position statement.