Welcome to my Graduate Courses!

EDCI 760 Action Research in Education

Sat, 22 May 2010 20:39:41 -0500

Course Description:
This course is a graduate seminar for practicing teachers and pre-service teachers who are committed to improving their teaching practices. The premise of this course is that teachers are both consumers and producers of knowledge (theory) about teaching and learning. Teachers will learn how to become teacher-researchers who investigate and evaluate their teaching practice and create their own living theory. Teachers will be involved with action research, an inquiry that has become popular in teacher education as a form of professional learning. Teachers will also be encouraged to develop their own phronesis (practical wisdom in Greek) and praxis (practice informed by phronesis) through action research.
Course Objectives
• To help teachers learn how to conduct action research to
improve their teaching practices;
• To help teachers become reflective practitioners developing
their own phronesis and praxis;
• To help teachers become researchers who generate their own
living/lived theory.

EDCI 803 Curriculum Development

Fri, 21 May 2010 20:43:01 -0500

Course Description
This graduate course is offered to help students understand the complex nature of curriculum. As the importance of curriculum—the substance of schooling—is once again reaffirmed in the current school reform movement, this course is concerned with conceptualizing the curriculum field and theory, identifying fundamental tasks in curriculum development, discussing important curriculum issues, and thus expanding our knowledge in curriculum.

The course will focus on some of the perennial questions around which curriculum scholars have organized theory, research, and teaching in curriculum: What do schools teach?; Who should decide what schools teach?; What is the primary aim of education?; Whose knowledge is most valuable?; and Who should be involved with curriculum development? Keeping these questions at the heart of this course, the purpose of this course is threefold: First, to provide students with an introduction to the field of curriculum theory and practice; Second, to help students be familiar with the process of curriculum development; And finally, to help students come to know themselves as a curriculum thinker.

Course Objectives
At the end of this course, students should be able to:
• Understand and describe curriculum history and perspectives;
• Understand and describe the process of curriculum development;
• Create their own curriculum platform; and
• Articulate critically current issues in the field of curriculum.

Course Topics
1. The Foundations of Curriculum and Curriculum Theory: We will look at different approaches to curriculum from philosophical, historical, political, economical and social perspectives. Topics include:
• The Character of Curriculum/Curriculum History
• Kinds of Curricula that All Schools Teach
• Scientific Management
• Progressive Education
• Curriculum Theorizing
• Hidden Curriculum
2. The Principles of Curriculum: We will look at curriculum planning and development; curriculum implementation; curriculum evaluation & student assessment; and politics and curriculum decision making.
Topics include:
• Basic Principles of Curriculum
• Curriculum Development and Change
• Curriculum Planning: Levels of Participants
• Curriculum Implementation
• Curriculum Evaluation and Student Assessment
3. Current Issues in Curriculum: We will look at issues related to curriculum reform; national standards; and future directions.
Topics include:
• Politics and Curriculum Decision Making
• Curriculum in practice: Curriculum in the State of Kansas
• Standards Movement/Accountability Movement
• Curriculum Reform Movement
• Multicultural issues
• Technology in classroom, etc.

EDCI 831 Contemporary Issues in Teaching and Learning

Wed, 19 May 2010 21:40:18 -0500

Course Description:
This graduate course is offered to help students understand and articulate contemporary issues in teaching and learning that affect all of us living in the democratic and diverse society. In today’s era of accountability and standardization, teaching becomes inevitably political in that education is not free from the influences of politics and institutionalized mandates. This current atmosphere requires educators to attend to controversial issues that may contribute to educational inequalities and social injustice, marginalizing students from diverse backgrounds. We look at these issues from a critical theory perspective. This course utilizes the jurisprudential inquiry model to help develop critical thinking and critical pedagogy to become better educators who work toward social justice.

Course Objectives:
Throughout this course, students are encouraged to focus on learning to:
• Understand and articulate contemporary educational issues;
• Challenge and reexamine their own taken-for-granted ideas in
order to learn, relearn, and unlearn;
• Learn to embrace diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, social
class, language, religion, sexual orientation, and disability;
• Develop critical thinking and critical pedagogy and work
toward becoming better educators who promote social justice
and social change.

Course Topics:
1. Critical pedagogy/Critical Literacy
2. School Choice: Family or Public Funding
3. Corporatization/Commercialization in Schools
4. Religion and public schools
1. Gender Equity
2. The Academic Achievement Gap
3. Multicultural Education & Language Diversity
4. Standards-based reform
5. LGBTQ Issues

EDCI 882 Teaching and Learning Models

Wed, 19 May 2010 21:35:47 -0500

Course Description:
EDCI 882 is a graduate course in which learning theories and the complex nature of models of teaching and learning are explored. In this course, we will deliberate together on the epistemology of practice in teaching and learning while looking into a variety of models and approaches to teaching and learning, discussing their underlying theories, and examining the research that has tested them. In so doing, we will interrogate ways in which we can improve our own teaching practices that will help our students develop their intellectual tools in order to become self-sustaining, lifelong learners.

Course Objectives:
At the end of this course, students will be able to:
• Understand theories about how students learn;
• Understand and learn different teaching and learning
models; and
• Transfer the knowledge of teaching and learning theories
and models to their teaching practice.

EDCI 886 Narrative Inquiry

Mon, 17 May 2010 21:45:08 -0500

Narrative inquiry has become a popular research methodology increasingly employed across disciplines and interests over the last decade. Currently, narrative inquiry is not only used as a research methodology but also as a pedagogical tool in teaching and learning and in the field of education. The burgeoning interests in narrative inquiry among educational researchers and teachers come from the realization of the power of narratives in impacting the educational field. In this course, we will explore stories or narratives in order to understand and interrogate educational phenomena. We will also examine theoretical underpinnings of narrative inquiry, issues related to, and methods of, narrative and storytelling forms of research in education.

EDCI 907 Curriculum Theory

Sun, 16 May 2010 20:48:02 -0500

Pre-requisite: EDCI 803

Course Description
Curriculum is a field of study that has been characterized as elusive, confusing, fluid and complex. The field of curriculum studies is influenced by the ever-changing social, cultural, economic, and political landscapes of our times, therefore, curriculum is inevitably historical, racial, gendered, political, phenomenological, autobiographical, aesthetic, theological, institutionalized, and international. The study of curriculum is, then, crucial to the well-being of our learners, schools, and society. This course is a doctoral seminar where students will examine different theoretical discourses in the field of curriculum. We will explore the theoretical accounts of curriculum issues raised by a number of contemporary, influential curriculum theorists. In this course, we will actively participate in personal curriculum theorizing, a process of personal sense-making of curriculum theory from philosophical, theoretical, historical, and social considerations. The purpose of this course is threefold: first, to help students equipped with epistemological foundations of curriculum theory; second, to help students develop the ownership of theories that are personally meaningful and relevant; and finally, to help students to integrate theory into their practices for improvement.

Course Objectives
At the end of this course, student-educators should be able to:
• Understand curriculum as a field of study
• Articulate curriculum from philosophical, theoretical,
historical, and social perspectives.
• Utilize curriculum theory to better understand educational
phenomena and to improve their educational practices.

Course Topics
1. Portraying the curriculum field
2. Curriculum theorizing
3. Historical foundations of curriculum
4. Philosophical foundations of curriculum
5. Theoretical foundations of curriculum—critical theory, postmodernism, poststructuralism, and feminism
6. Social foundations of curriculum
7. Policy and curriculum
8. Alternatives and possibilities
9. Personal inquiry into curriculum theorizing