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American Indian Education Histories

The study of the history of American Indian education in North America has conventionally been framed about boarding schools that missionary societies and the U.S. government established. These studies have been foundational in the history of education and American Indian history. Subsequent studies, however, have illuminated the possibility that American Indian education history is much larger, encompassing learning outside the confines of the formal school. This course attends to education within and without the school, considering American Indian histories as education histories before and after European colonization.

  • Spring, 2015

Education and Public Policy

This course examines the major public policy issues in American education: equity, excellence, and efficiency.  It emphasizes theories and techniques of policy analysis, including implementation strategies, cost/benefit analysis, and evaluation. This course will consider competing definitions of and orientations toward education policy by researching the roles of specific stakeholder groups and historically tracing the development, implementation, and movement of policy in formal and informal education settings. Particular attention will be paid to policy implementation and appropriation.

Ethics and Policy Issues

This course introduces students to the historical, philosophical, and political roots of schooling in the United States.  It includes a practical application of ethical principles of the teaching profession as well as an overview of legal regulations, understandings, and cases that students need to know and understand in order to be effective in schools.

Foundations of Education

This course is intended to help students understand how United States education has developed over time in terms of its cultural, historical, social, moral, economic, and political contexts.  Throughout the course, students  critically examine how past events, ideas, and experiences have contributed to and formed current educational practice.  In understanding schooling in the United States, it is important to understand that teaching and learning have complex intellectual and cultural traditions, have deep moral and ethical dimensions, that social forces (such as race, class, and gender) have shaped what we know as schools, and that schools and the issue of education are highly political and often economic in nature.  Questions central to this examination include but are not limited to:  What is the purpose of schools?  What institutions have been most educative in the United States?  How have or haven’t schools been educative institutions for different groups over time?  What is education policy?  How has education policy developed in the U.S.?  How have schools been structured in the U.S.? How do schools and education policy address specific social questions?

  • Spring, 2012 (alt-route, online)
  • Fall, 2009 (traditional)
  • Spring, 2009 (alt-route)
  • Spring, 2008 (alt-route)
  • Spring, 2007 (alt-route)

Histories of Education

This seminar examines the histories of American education over the last 500 years. In addition to a historical survey of formal schooling, significant attention is paid to education outside of the school setting and its role in United States’ cultural, social, and intellectual environments over time and across space.

  • Spring, 2016 (email for syllabus)
  • Summer, 2015
  • Spring, 2014 (on iTunes U email for an invitation)
  • Fall, 2010

K-8 Social Studies Methods

This course is designed to prepare individuals to become skilled, thoughtful elementary school teachers who understand how to teach social studies effectively.  The course addresses the methods, materials, and management of elementary social studies classrooms. Includes laboratory experiences in the university classroom and area elementary schools as well as seminars, and analysis of practical experience with respect to current literature.

5-12 Social Studies Methods

This course is designed to develop knowledge and understanding of effective instruction and classroom management in secondary education.  The course addresses the methods, materials, and management of secondary social studies subjects.  It integrates a clinical experience into a seminar focused on relevant content topics as well as the analysis of practical experience with respect to current research.

Methods, Materials, and Management in Secondary Social Studies Education, Part I

This course is the first in a two-part sequence designed to develop knowledge and understanding of effective instruction and classroom management in secondary education. The course addresses the methods, materials, and management of secondary school subjects. Includes laboratory experiences in the university classroom and area secondary schools as well as seminars, and analysis of practical experience with respect to current literature.

Methods, Materials, and Management in Secondary Social Studies Education, Part II

This course is part of a new research project dealing with disciplinary learning within the social studies in secondary schools.  Although there is an emerging body of literature on historical thinking and learning, there is a dearth of similar research on other disciplines found in secondary social studies curricula, such as government, economics, geography, sociology, psychology, and anthropology.  Beginning with theoretical literature on historical thinking as well as an ongoing analysis of W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk, this course will closely examine how historians and social scientists approach their disciplines and how pre-service and practicing teachers can translate this into pedagogical tools in their social studies classrooms. This course focuses on inquiry methods within history and other social science disciplines, including economics, sociology, geography, anthropology, and political science.  Through the inquiry process, students will use primary and secondary source material to construct their own understandings of history content in ways similar to professional historians and social scientists.  The organization of the course stems from the complementary assumptions that exemplary teachers are knowledgeable in their content area, and are oriented toward student learning, and see themselves as learners.

  • Spring, 2009
  • Spring, 2008
  • Summer, 2007

Native American Histories

This seminar examines North American Indian histories over the last 500 years through a variety of texts and perspectives ranging from surveys written by Native and non-Native historians to specific tribal histories. Close attention is paid to the substance and the structure of these histories, as well as the general historiography.  Students will critically examine histories about American Indian peoples in North America, understand that histories are constructed and reflect sociocultural worldviews and values systems, and explore and practice methods of historical research and interpretation with a variety of different types of evidence.

Schools and Society

This course is intended to help students how United States education has developed in terms of its cultural, historical, social, moral, economic, and political contexts.  Throughout the course, students critically examine how past events, ideas, and experiences have contributed to and formed current educational practice.  In understanding schooling in the United States, it is important to understand that teaching and learning have complex intellectual and cultural traditions, have deep moral and ethical dimensions, that social forces (such as race, class, and gender) have shaped what we know as schools, and that schools and the issue of education are highly political and often economic in nature.

  • Spring, 2008
  • Fall, 2007
  • Spring, 2007
  • Fall, 2006