Core Courses

Education, Learners and Teachers: Introduction and Interrelationships
What are schools for? Whose interests do schools serve? Students examine critical historical and contemporary issues and questions from the perspectives of philosophy, history, culture, and public policy. Students examine their own beliefs about how people learn, articulating a personal philosophical framework. They also explore the dynamics of the teaching/learning process, including examining findings from the latest studies in brain research that have impacted thinking about the many ways students construct knowledge, acquire skills, and develop habits of mind. Discussion will focus upon major characteristics of each developmental stage and individual differences within stages. This work will be set in dialogue with issues in education and an exploration of self as learner/teacher.

Honoring and Negotiating Differences: Teaching Children with Special Needs
How do the different ways children learn affect teaching? This course examines the question through several lenses, including the latest findings in brain research concerning students’ learning styles, differentiated instruction, multiple intelligences, gender differences, children’s social interactions, and cultural and family influences. Students are introduced to various exceptionalities, examine legislation pertaining to special needs, and explore institutional practices for accommodating students with exceptionalities. Classroom practice and organization are emphasized.

Summer Session II (4 Weeks)

Looking More Closely: Learning & Teaching in Schools I
How does being a keen observer help teachers think about learners and learning in deeper, more complex ways? In this first of three interrelated courses, we will engage in experiences, explorations, and readings that will encourage us to think about observation from a number of perspectives. A particular focus of the course will be engagements with the arts as aesthetic experiences and as tools that offer multiple entries into specific content pedagogies.

Language and Word Study in a Diverse Society
Why do some children have difficulty learning to read, when speaking is such a natural act? Through readings, discussion, and fieldwork, students examine this question, investigate historical and contemporary perspectives/controversies, and explore strategies to advance all children’s word knowledge, including that of English language learners. Strategy topics include phonological awareness and phonics instruction in a comprehensive literacy program; solving and understanding complex words; and children’s spelling as a window for determining developmentally appropriate instruction.

Fall Session (18 Weeks)

Exploring the Hows and Whys: Learning and Teaching in Schools II
How can inquiry stimulate and deepen learning and teaching? Taking an inquiry stance, students learn to critique and adapt materials; explore specific content pedagogies; examine how ideas and methods fit within a school philosophy and tradition; tailor methods to specific children and their needs keeping the student’s own philosophy in mind; create methods and materials; and articulate why they decide to use certain ideas, materials and methods at a specific time.

Understanding Complexities: Developing and Supporting Literacy
What does it mean to be literate? How does literacy change over time? Students explore these questions through readings, discussion, field placements, and an inquiry project. Other emphasized topics include theoretical frameworks; instructional strategies for advancing children’s fluency and comprehension; and enhancing literacy through technology and family involvement. Emphasis is placed on reading and writing as interrelated processes with the common goal of meaning making.

Multiple Ways of Knowing: Reading Assessment and Next Steps
How can we discover and cultivate every child’s potential when children differ? This course emphasizes the use of ongoing assessment and evaluation as tools for making informed instructional decisions. Students extend their understanding of reading difficulty; administer and interpret various informal assessments; plan interventions and adapt curricula; work with children in the classroom to practice assessment and instructional techniques, and develop and present a case study of a challenged reader.

Teaching As a Profession: Seminar I
What kinds of environments encourage learning that lasts? Readings, dialogues, and case studies frame this seminar in which participants discuss classroom management and the creation of learning environments responsive to the needs of children and those members of the community who are so integral to the learning process. As part of an ongoing reflective process, students will maintain field experience journals and begin the yearlong process of compiling a teaching portfolio.

Development & Psychology of Learners: Early and Middle Childhood Years
Who are these young people - as individuals and as a group? Students examine the influence of family, peers, school, and the media on the social and psychological development of children. Case study work, including observation and interpretation and reporting of data, is central to the course. Discussions of the studies help students understand the relationship between theory and data gathering and gain an understanding of the general developmental stages of young and older children and the uses and limits of employing a developmental perspective/lens as a teacher.

Spring Session (18 Weeks)

Creating Possibilities: Learning and Teaching in Schools III
What does it mean to be an imaginative and innovative teacher? Students continue the exploration of issues related to teaching and focus on the creation, implementation and evaluation of curriculum units. Particular emphasis is given to development of multi-week thematic or subject-driven units of study with an emphasis on development of the students’ own styles and strengths as teachers. Students teach, in their assigned classrooms, small and large group lessons designed during this course.

Reading the World: Literature for Children and Adolescents
How do we make fiction and nonfiction books for young people central to the curriculum? Students explore possibilities through extensive readings of adolescent and children’s literature, including literature with multicultural and international perspectives, and through readings and discussions of various topics: Selecting and critically evaluating books, understanding literary elements and genres, fostering engagement in books and reading, developing responsive readers, creating literature-based classrooms and thematic units, and weaving literature across the curriculum.

Taking the Lead in Inquiry and Reflection: Capstone Experience
What worked? What didn’t? What are my strengths and my next steps? In this course students look closely at their teaching and children’s learning to discover ways to further refine their craft and improve their teaching effectiveness. They investigate a teaching or learning challenge through classroom inquiry, and as a culmination to the program, critically reflect on their experiences in order to develop a plan for continued personal and professional growth.

Teaching As a Profession: Seminar II
What does it mean to learn to teach? Students reflect on questions and discuss strategies that address issues and situations arising directly out of their student teaching practice. Students continue to discuss strategies for communicating with parents and other members of the community, and explore ways of taking part in the larger professional community. This seminar will address the final development of the teaching portfolio that illustrates the linkages between theory, research, and practice.

Student Teaching Experience
Teacher candidates will spend 18 weeks student teaching in a classroom appropriate to their area of licensure during the spring semester of the program. Working closely with the mentor teacher and site coordinator, student teachers become acquainted with the routines and practices of the school and the culture of the classroom. They gradually become responsible for planning and organizing instruction, teaching lessons, assessing & evaluating student learning, and maintaining an effective learning environment.