Subject Description
Education

EDUC 614 | Introductory Professional Issues

This seminar involves weekly meetings in which students examine a range of issues emanating from school-based experiences. In addition, the course fulfills specific Washington Administrative Code (WAC) requirements for teacher preparation. Students hear selected speakers on professional topics related to sexual harassment, appropriate relationships and touch in school, school contract law, IEP/504 students, and child neglect/abuse.

EDUC 493 | Teacher Research Practicum

This is the capstone course and culminating experience for the Education Studies minor. Participants should have completed most or all of their Education Studies coursework before enrolling. During the course, students work with a mentor teacher to examine instructional practice and student learning in a classroom setting. Students learn about action research, and develop a study in their school-based classroom, identifying relevant questions, collecting and analyzing data, and developing practical implications.

EDUC 419 | American Schools Inside and Out

This course focuses on the ways in which educators, politicians, and the public view the state of American schools. Broad philosophies of education guide an analysis of schools, which include historical lenses as well as the current literature on classroom reforms. This course contrasts central issues of schooling as seen from the "outside" political domain and the "inside" experience of students. In particular, the course addresses how issues of race and social class as well as economic inequality surround current debates over the best way to improve schools in the 21st century.

EDUC 298 | Using Primary Sources to Teach for Social Justice

Teaching about the past tells us where we came from and provides a narrative that communicates who "we" are. Using primary sources with K-12 students is often touted as one of the best ways to shape inclusive narratives while developing reading, writing, and critical thinking. And yet, primary sources are rarely used at the pre-college level. This class is designed to introduce students to using primary documents to help K-12 students understand alternative perspectives of the past.

EDUC 296 | Using Children's and Young Adult Literature to Teach for Social Justice

Teaching reading has never been politically neutral because reading instruction, when it is done well, requires that we read something. Underlying this course is an assumption that the selection of what students read should consider the promotion of American ideals of liberty and justice for everyone. Together students think about the messages children's and young adult books send and how to select books that promote social justice. Students read children's and young adult books that include people from different racial groups, and books that open up ideas of gender and sexuality.

EDUC 295 | White Teachers Teaching Children of Color

The history of legislated and de facto everyday white supremacy in public schooling and social life has created a highly segregated teaching force. Most U.S. teachers are white, middle-class, monolingual females who grew up in predominantly white communities. Teachers of color are dramatically under-represented in the teaching force, and children of color have very limited representations of their racial identity throughout their schooling experience. The central work of this course is to center race as a lens for understanding miseducation in American schooling.