Spring 2016 Graduate Courses

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Spring 2016 Graduate Courses

**Please note that courses may be cancelled or changed at any time prior to the start of Spring Semester

TEAC 800: Inquiry: Teaching & Learning Dr. Steve Swidler

Tuesdays 0600-‐0850P

Overview: Coming Soon!

TEAC 801: Curriculum Inquiry Online

TEAC 811: Reading Process&Pract Dr. Loukia Sarroub

Fridays 1230-‐320P

Overview: Overview of reading processes and programs with attention to strategies for comprehension and word identification, approaches, and materials.

TEAC 813D: World Languages Assessment Dr. Ali Moeller

TEAC 813M: Teaching English Language Learners Dr. Ted Hamann

Online

Overview: This course has three key starting points—who are ELLs (in terms of skills and prior school experiences), what is content area literacy (what are the language dimensions of learning content in various academic content areas), and how do instructors modify or differentiate instruction to explicitly support ELLs’ intentional development of content area literacies. This course reminds us that ELLs bring dramatically different academic and psychological profiles to our classrooms (some have engaged in more advanced coursework than they encounter here, others have interrupted school histories and possible trauma related to war, migration, racism, legal status, and/or other issues) and that the success of ELLs is not only a product of designated ‘ESL’, ‘ESOL’, or ‘ELL’ teachers, but a responsibility of the entire school.

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TEAC 813J: Cross-‐Cultural Comm Dr. Theresa Catalano

Overview: This course will provide an introduction to cross-‐cultural and intercultural communication and the theoretical, methodological and ethnographic tools needed to

understand the tenets and implications of intercultural communication for application in your personal and professional practices. You will be exposed to a variety of readings by top scholars in the field, which focus on different types of social groups, including national groups, ethnic minorities and communities of practice. Readings will deal with misunderstandings and the impact of cultural factors on the making of meaning, as well as discrimination and the impact of unequal power relations on communication, media impact in a globalized world, language, identity and communication, and intercultural competence.

TEAC 813P: Teaching English Overseas Dr. Jenelle Reeves

Online

Overview: TEAC 813P Teaching English Overseas introduces students to methodologies for teaching English as an international language (EIL) to speakers of other languages. Topics include EIL curriculum development, instructional (and assessment) methods, and the role of culture in EIL. The primary purposes of the course are to prepare new EIL teachers and to provide professional development for experienced teachers.

TEAC 831A: Anthropology of Education Dr. Ted Hamann

Overview: This course brings back a long-‐listed but rarely taught application of anthropology to consider the worlds of schooling, education policy, and credentialing. It notes, for example, that all human cultures distinguish the ‘more educated’ from the less in some fashion (even cultures without schooling) and that the social experiment of having practically all of the world’s young people spend a portion of their childhoods under the tutelage of professionally trained strangers is very new and, in that sense, historically untested. More concretely, we read several school ethnographies to consider the development of pro-‐school and anti-‐school identities, the ways youth are understood and acted upon or engaged with, and processes of educators responses to reform. Finally, we ask what educational questions anthropology is particularly well positioned to take on.

TEAC 839: Lit for Adolescents Dr. Sarah Thomas

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Mondays 1230-‐320P

TEAC 841: Content Reading Gr 4-‐12 Dr. Sarah Thomas

TEAC 849A: Classroom Assessment Doing It Right – Using It Well Dr. Del Harnisch

Online

Overview: This course will examine the manner in which classroom assessments help teachers understand how to assess what their students know and can do in order that instructional decisions will be better aligned with the needs of students. One of the goals of classroom assessment is to increase what teachers know about students’ thinking. Often, teachers’ knowledge about what students know and can do is unfocused. Teacher generalizations are often influenced by memorable instances of students’ thinking rather than based on carefully constructed inferences that are supported by clear frameworks for content and student development. This course will focus on two areas of instructional decisions: questioning and feedback to students.

It is critical that teachers and policymakers understand that implementing classroom assessment strategies has considerable payoff for student learning. Learning how to

implement classroom assessment strategies takes time and effort, but there is evidence that if support is provided for teachers to learn how to do this, students will benefit. Because

classroom assessment helps teachers make instructional decisions that are better aligned with the needs of students, teachers who use classroom assessment effectively can be expected to deliver “stronger instruction” in the sense that students will more likely be engaged in

significant learning.

This course will focus on helping teachers to incorporate classroom assessments in instruction. This means thinking about classroom assessment during planning for instruction, gathering evidence about what students know and can do as part of that instruction, making inferences about what that evidence indicates about student’s understanding, and then adjusting

instruction as necessary to take account of that knowledge of students’ understanding. The course activities are designed to enrich teachers’ background knowledge so that they can implement better instruction using better knowledge of what students know and can do. The

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evidence is strong that if teachers learn to use classroom assessment, greater student learning will result.

The purpose of this course is to become familiar with the research in cognitive science which indicates that formative, diagnostic assessments that are embedded in instruction can substantially improve student learning which can be examined over a full semester. We now understand that assessment can work in positive ways to benefit learning, the time is right to add to our definition of good teaching the skillful use of assessment – doing it right and using it well.

TEAC 861: Ed Pluralistic Society Thursdays 0600-‐0850P

Overview: This course (or TEAC 330) is required for students seeking certification to teach in Nebraska. Students in one of the Masters cohorts typically enroll. It addresses the Department of Education’s Human Relations Training requirement. It is a survey of multicultural education in the context of U.S. schools.

TEAC 861A: Democratic Education Dr. Lauren Gatti

Thursdays 0500-‐0750P

Overview: This graduate seminar explores the defining issues, questions, and problems in the field of Democratic Education. Broadly, we will be puzzling through the question “What is the relationship between democracy and schooling?” We will read and discuss on a breadth of issues related to democratic education including the purposes of schools, ideology and curriculum, the relationship between social class and citizen-‐production in schooling, and the role of discussion, deliberation, and trust in democratic schooling. We will also engage with recent scholarship on the relationship between wealth inequality and political polarization and the implications these realities have on democratic education, specifically the teaching of social studies and controversial issues. Undergirding all of these conversations will be explicit

attention to diversity, power, and voice. We will end the semester thinking about the role of social capital in democratic society, exploring how changing participation and group

membership trends in the United States have consequences for democratic health.

TEAC 880A: Survey Instructional Tech Dr. Lynn Herr

Online

Overview: Technology provides teachers exciting new access to high quality teaching materials, presents unique opportunities to organize and present instruction and provides students new ways to interact with information and learn. In this course, participants complete a series of Web-‐based modules to develop skills and demonstrate competencies related to the what all

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teachers should know about technology (National Educational Technology Standards -‐ NETS). Each module presents resources and projects that will challenge you to think about ways technology can improve your teaching. As you develop experience you will also prepare yourself for learning how to apply new technologies as they become available.

TEAC 880J: Technology Integration: Language Arts (2 credits) Dr. Laurie Friedrich & Dr. Guy Trainin

Arranged (Day/Times TBD at beginning of semester)

This semester-‐long graduate course will prepare teachers to integrate technology in their classrooms. Content mirrors the technology course our preservice teacher should be taking during this semester so you can work together, with the assistance of a coach as needed, to plan and teach lessons where students use technology to learn.

This course uses an innovative model of teacher development for the 21st century to help teachers grow in confidence and competence integrating technology in meaningful ways. The aim is to create a collaborative environment for student teachers, cooperating teachers and university coaches that focus on new literacies integration that transforms student learning.

Our overarching goal is to make sure that teachers can provide all students with access to 21st century learning and civic participation by making sure that each teacher can enact new ways of learning and participating starting at the elementary level.

TEAC 880P: Special Projects: Educational Leadership and Technology Dr. Lynn Herr

Online

Overview: Using case studies, Internet-‐based sources, scholarly publications, and participants’ professional contexts, this course explores and applies key educational leadership principles in technology use. Participants will analyze these principles in their professional settings and develop a proposal that has significant value to their educational technology leadership role. Course topics include: shared vision, planning, access, integration into instruction, assessment and evaluation, support, professional development, community relationships, and ethical and legal issues.

TEAC 882B: Database & Web Development Dr. Al Steckelberg

Mondays 0500-‐0750P

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Overview: The course provides the opportunity to learn advanced skills in educational Web development. Participants will plan, develop and evaluate Web-‐based educational applications using a database driven Web site. A basic knowledge of Web page development (HTML) and database design is helpful but we will address these issues in class. This course is designed to build upon knowledge and skills in previous courses on learning and instructional design and emphasizes the application of learning and design principles to the creation of educational tools. Class time is spent in lecture and demonstration accompanied by weekly lab activities. Lab activities are continued and completed between class sessions. Successful completion of the course requires practice and application of concepts outside of class time.

TEAC 882J: Special Topics: Designing Learning Applications using Artificial Intelligence, NLP, and APIs

Dr. Justin Olmanson Thursdays 0500-‐0750P

Overview: This design course supports educators and instructional designers in the creation of designs, wireframes, and prototypes of learning applications for use in K12 settings and beyond. The course creates a space for educators and instructional designers to explore a number of prototyping tools and gain working familiarity with the potential use of artificial intelligence and natural language processing engines as well as APIs. Course participants will experience the early stages of learning application design and prototyping in meaningful ways. A deep

understanding of at least one focal content area as well as pedagogical insight into that area OR a working understanding of APIs, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing is required.

TEAC 930A: Ethnographic Research Methods TEAC930A (also cross-‐listed with EDPS, CYAF, & NUTR)

Dr. Loukia K. Sarroub Wednesdays 0600-‐850P

Overview: In this course we will learn how "to do" ethnographic research by considering various examples of book and article-‐length qualitative and ethnographic studies and by proposing and implementing a small research project. Discussion and readings will focus on the place of ethnographic research in education, theoretical foundations of ethnography, methods of ethnographic research, analysis of ethnographic data, the writing of an ethnographic report, and the utilization of findings. We will also explore representations in data collection and in the dissemination of qualitative research. The readings chosen for the course reflect a range of "problematiques" with which researchers and educators grapple. Hence, we will consider among other issues, relationships among different kinds of institutions, schools, parents &

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families, students, social and economic class, achievement, ethnicity, culture, nationality, age, race, gender, religion, language use, identity politics, etc. In learning how to do ethnographic research we will examine how other researchers have theorized about the "nitty-‐gritty" of everyday life in various places and times, and how they represent their ethnographic data and their roles as researchers and how the doing of research has changed over time in connection to “who" does research. We will examine salient notions of reflexivity and representation as we engage in fieldwork and course readings. Throughout the course we will emphasize the

connection between ethnography as method and ethnography as a theoretical space or site. As such, we will evaluate both our work and the work of others as being historically, politically, socially, geographically, socio-‐economically, and linguistically situated.

TEAC 946B: Special Topics in Instruction: STEM Curricula Integration Dr. Julie Thomas

Occasional Tuesdays 6-‐850pm (blended face-‐to-‐face & online)

Overview: This graduate level course will engage K-‐12 science and mathematics educators, leaders, and researchers in a critical analysis of the nature of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) knowledge construction and integrative classroom practices. Course efforts will focus on expanded understanding of the interplay between optimal learning in science and mathematics and global, political interests in integrative STEM. Students can expect to engage in a review of recent research on human learning and STEM integration, dialog with researchers and practitioners in STEM integration, and enhance their own scholarly writing skills.

TEAC 949: Education and Human Well Being Dr. Karl Hostetler

Mondays 0600-‐0850P

Overview: A premise of this seminar is that educators and education agencies should serve the well-‐being of students and others. Stated so vaguely, that claim is unlikely to generate

controversy. Matters become more complicated when we press the issues and ask what well-‐ being entails and what educators should do to serve well-‐being. Is well-‐being essentially a state of mind, so that if people feel good about their lives that is enough? That would imply that the contented slave is living a good life, which does not seem right. So, is it states of the world that count, the state of slavery being bad whatever the slave feels about it? But what good is a state of affairs-‐-‐say academic success (whatever that is)-‐-‐if persons get no satisfaction from it? And so far as serving well-‐being, should education agents and agencies force "good lives" upon people? We outlaw drugs because of the harm they do to people. Should we do the same for alcohol, tobacco, fatty foods, and gas-‐guzzling cars? Some philosophers argue that the most public agents/agencies should do is provide the resources for living a good life; people need to decide for themselves what to do with those resources. So, if educators provide adequate resources for students to make good decisions about their lives that is enough. Perhaps literature teachers find that some of their students do not appreciate literature; they get little

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"good" out of it. But if their job is just to provide resources-‐-‐expose students to literature, help them interpret it, and so on-‐-‐the rest is up to the students. Yet many teachers would not be content with that.

In this seminar it is unlikely, and unnecessary, that we solve these difficult questions. What we will aim to do is confront those questions forthrightly, knowledgeably, and thoughtfully and ponder what our inquiries might mean for education practices and policies. The two issues already mentioned-‐-‐the meaning of "well-‐being," and the responsibility/right education agents/agencies have to serve well-‐being-‐-‐will be the focus of our inquiries.

TEAC 995 (Doctoral Students): Seminar in Science Education TEAC 895 (Masters Students): Seminar in Science Education Dr. Elizabeth Lewis

Mondays 0600-‐0850P

Overview: This seminar is designed to introduce students to key findings from the breadth of educational research in science education. TEAC 995 is the second of two required doctoral seminars for students in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education (TLTE), but the course is also open to doctoral students in science departments, master's students, and working professionals who are seeking to increase their understanding of important science education issues (e.g., scientific literacy, assessment, equity, cognition and conceptual change, language and discourse in science classrooms) and current research approaches and findings. It is also a learning community in which to share ideas and receive constructive feedback about doing educational research at various stages.