Spring 2008 Course Offerings

EDUC 170: FOUNDATIONS OF THE EDUCATION

This course establishes a liberal arts foundation for the study of education as a discipline. This course focuses on major points of view drawn from historical and contemporary American education and those knowledge bases which influence educational decisions. Philosophical, historical, political and economic and sociological foundations are examined as bases for present and future systems of education in America.

EDUC 222: DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY IN EDUCATION

Developmental Theory in Education is an introduction to the work of major theorists who have shaped how we view change and growth across the lifespan. The course examines traditional theories of cognitive, psychosocial, and moral development, as well as contemporary work that accounts for our understandings of gender and race as identities and social processes. This backdrop of theory serves as a critical lens for exploring the roles of creativity, ways of knowing, intelligence, memory, motivation, community, and stigma in human development.

EDUC 223: DECONSTRUCTING DIFFERENCE

“We believe that education is not synonymous with schooling and refers to self discovery, understanding one’s natural and social worlds and taking informed action.” This course is an investigation of the cultural foundations of American Education and examines the challenges that issues of cultural and cognitive differences pose to the learning process. It focuses on the existing definitions of knowledge, identity, community, inclusion, equity and the distribution of power. Students will deconstruct these complex concepts as they relate to labeling, learning, privilege, integration, assimilation, academic achievement, social justice, school policy, accountability and reform.

The ethical dilemmas that arise in or because of cultural and cognitive diversity are also explored in this course, especially as they pertain to the learning process. The readings, assignments and discussions will require active participation and critical self-analysis, “so that citizen-educators may model a vision of social justice and commitment to taking reflective action for the common good.”

We define an educator as any individual engaging others in conceptual change. As members of a society striving to reach its democratic ideal, all educators are also citizens with particular rights and responsibilities (Education Studies Department Mission Statement). Field experience is required.

EDUC 300: CRITICAL MULTICULTURALISM

The course ‘Critical Multiculturalism’ is designed to explore how American society has, and is responding to cultural diversity. It is an attempt to establish and assess a post-modern discourse around what Henry Giroux calls ‘the politics of difference’. Previous discussions on subject of diversity have been based on a literature that focused on the politics of inclusion. The assumption was that cultural inclusion and constructing historical ‘truth’, was a matter of compiling, legitimating and listening to the different voices and narratives of the society. Even as proponents continue to assert this model, there have been troubling indications, from critical educators such as bell hooks, and post-modernists such as Michael Apple and Peter McClaren, that this is not sufficient. They contend that merely entering the conversation is not an effective challenge to what is euphemistically called the “common culture”.

EDUC 325: HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION

History of American Education is an exploration of the purposes and practices of American education as they are reflected in the documentary history of formal education from colonial times to the present. Specifically, the course aims to cultivate an understanding, through the examination of educational documents, of the evolving contexts within which American traditions of education evolved, developed, and became institutionalized over time.

EDUC 331: SCHOOL DISCIPLINE ACTIONS, ISSUES AND TRENDS

In recent years, the culture of aggression and violence in the United States has made its way into the public schools; there are more younger, disruptive and troubled students than ever before. The teaching of discipline is at times ineffective, and students are not taught self-discipline as a natural part of the social curriculum of the school. This gives many pause for concern, and is thought by some to be the most serious problem facing the nation’s educational system.

Given this backdrop, EDUC 332 is designed to acquaint students with current research and trends on school discipline, as well as practical approaches for improving student behavior. The course will examine both the in and out of school causes for discipline problems, analyze local, state and national discipline policies, consider the role of teachers and explore some successful school discipline initiatives. Theories of power, politics, and conflict as they inform this topic will be studied.


           
EDUC 380: COMPARATIVE EDUCATION

Comparative Education, examines how and why education developed in various countries and time periods, in an attempt to determine whether or not universal patterns and relationships exist. During the semester we investigate school systems around the world. One of the challenges of making comparisons is avoiding the fallacy of comparing ‘apples and oranges’. We initially discuss the ‘comparative method’ and the importance of reliable comparative data collection and analysis.  Comparative Education is an interdisciplinary field of study, used by educational planners and policy makers to design and assess the workings of education systems.  Schools are expected to have a positive impact on their societies (analyzed as their economic, cultural, political and social systems.) School policies state what this impact is expected to be and how it will be achieved. For example, achievement statistics and other criteria of school success, are used in the context of the economic function of schools, since schools are expected to provide a skilled work force for competitive economic production - a positive impact on the economy. Low achievement scores or scores lower than those of other countries, suggest that schools are not producing a skilled work force for competitive economic production. Schools therefore would be seen as having a negative impact on the economy.

EDUC 425: SENIOR SEMINAR
The Education Studies senior seminar is designed as the capstone course in the major. As such it is a place for you to synthesize the information material of your course work in order to demonstrate the expected learning outcomes of the program.  These are:
the citizen educator who embodies characteristics of social justice, democratic values, personal agency, informed concern and action, commitment to a multi-dimensional construction of community, broad/contradictory world views, and sensitivity fo the ethical and moral aspects of experience. 
the skilled practitioner who demonstrates content and general knowledge, instructional competence, communication and interpersonal skills, knowledge and understanding of human development and human diversity, and professional collaboration 
the transformative intellectual who is guided by reflection, self-empowerment, critical thinking and inquiry, problem solving and intellectual curiosity 
Over the course of the semester, you will complete a significant research and writing project that serves to extend and advance the ideas that define the citizen educator, the skilled practitioner, and the transformative intellectual. 

EDUC 430: SENIOR SEMINAR

Senior Seminar deals with the practice of education as a discipline through research, interpretation, and conducting, writing, and presenting an action research project that is conducted in the student teaching classroom. To this end, the main objectives of the course include:

  • Observe and reflect upon your teaching and its impact on your students’ learning
  • Formulate questions upon which you can conduct classroom research
  • Collect, analyze, and make conclusions of classroom data to impact and make changes in the classroom environment
  • Determine future questions from analysis of questions
  • Evaluate one’s impact upon classroom learning based upon your action research project