Pedagogical Core: Four Courses, 12 credit hours
EDAD 610 Dynamics and Management in the Secondary Classroom (3 credit hours)
This course examines the major factors which contribute to effective management in a diverse classroom environment: spatial concerns and configurations, a positive learning climate, differentiated instruction, communication patterns and skills, behavior management techniques, development and presentation of appropriate and professional attitudes, understanding at-risk behavior, and strategies for dealing with at-risk students and students with personal problems.
EDAD 611 Information Literacy and Technology (3 credit hours)
This course assists teachers in finding and using information effectively and efficiently to enhance their content-area instruction and professional development. It also prepares teachers to effectively teach these skills and abilities to their students. Strategies for appropriate information retrieval and use will include both practical hands-on work and reflective writing in order to develop an educational framework for information. In addition, legal and ethical issues surrounding the use of information will also be covered.
EDAD 612 Multicultural Teaching Methods (3 credit hours)
This course will focus on the diversity of schools and the community, and will provide candidates with information about effective teaching in a diverse classroom. The importance of taking responsibility for the education of all students will be stressed as well as the need to establish challenging and appropriate expectations for all. The New York State Learning Standards will be considered as they pertain to cultural diversity and various curriculum areas. The role of family, peers, parental involvement, and poverty in both overall society as well as the culture of schooling will be studied. Effective techniques for communicating with students and families will be examined. In addition, candidates will analyze their own personal values in relation to multicultural issues of society and education.
EDU 615 Research Methods (3 credit hours)
Prepares candidates with the critical skills needed to be an informed practitioner and critical consumer of information. In this course candidates will develop an understanding of the research process, both qualitative and quantitative, including formulating a research problem, data analysis, and interpretation. Since leaders in the field are increasingly relying on research results for improving school practices, candidates will learn how to critically analyze research studies, review ethical considerations in conducting research and discuss the importance of scientific research for education policy and practice. As a culminating course experience, candidates will plan a research project consistent with their interest and the course goals. In this course candidates will be encouraged to serve the education field by active supporting and participating in research and to join their subject area professional organization, which promotes a lifelong dedication to knowledge and professional development. [Note: Candidates planning to take EDAD 625 should inform the instructor and plan to complete a research proposal based on the action research model.]
Education Elective: Choose one course, 3 credit hours
EDA 610 School Law (3 credit hours)
Principles of public school law with a focus on NYS Education Law and select federal and state cases affecting the administration of our educational system. Topics include student residency, attendance and discipline; freedom of speech; search and seizure; FERPA; IDEA; LRE; employee rights.
EDAD 620 Assessment and Accountability in Education (3 credit hours)
Federal mandates for increased standardized testing and subsequent funding for schools is meant to increase individual school district accountability for student performance. Candidates will become familiar with the standardized tests for middle and high schools students in New York State. They will also learn how to report and interpret the results of these standardized tests. Candidates will understand the value of using data and other assessment methods (i.e., curriculum mapping) to demonstrate teacher effectiveness and student learning, empowering them to be educational leaders in their area of expertise. Application of descriptive statistical methods including central tendencies, standard deviation, correlation coefficients and standard scores will be addressed. The elements of test construction, including reliability, validity and item analysis will be considered. Candidates will use statistical software to analyze student scores on various tests.
EDAD 621 Comparative Education (3 credit hours)
Most educators today are aware of the global forces that affect their work—be it in terms of the rising emphasis on technology and information in the classroom, the aggressive policies on preparing children and nations for a competitive international economy, or issues raised by an increasingly diverse population of students. Yet, for the most part, our growing sense of the global dimension of domestic educational issues has not been accompanied by attention to formal, cross-national comparisons of educational systems. This course is designed for (a) students who are interested in studying education and education policy in an international or comparative setting, and (b) students who would like to understand the American educational system by way of comparing across educational systems. Another important purpose of the course is to help students new to the study of education begin developing their own philosophy and theory of education. Course assignments are designed to introduce the topic of international and comparative education and to systematically develop the tools and methods for informed thinking about education in a global era. Companion Travel Course Option.
EDU 514 Contemporary Issues in Education (3 credit hours)
This course is designed to prepare teachers to take a leadership role by analyzing factors which have an impact upon schools as change agents within society: cultural perspectives, political agendas, local and national concerns. Topics may include standardized testing, unionization, school violence, and tenure.
EDAD 625 Research in Action [Prerequisite: EDU615] (3 credit hours)
This course provides an opportunity for candidates to conduct an action research project based on their research proposal developed in EDU615. The approach of action research is to analyze practice to determine its effectiveness. Building on their research proposal, candidates will collect data appropriate for their study, using an appropriate measurement tool. Data analysis using correct statistical testing procedures, as well as interpretation and discussion of the findings will be included in the final research report. Candidates will present their findings to the academic community and submit their papers for publication in a relevant journal.
Content Area: Choose four courses, 12 credit hours
ENG 600 Multicultural Literature (3 credit hours)
In this course candidates will be exposed to two levels of multiculturalism. Increased cultural awareness comes from contact with difference. For individuals to understand who they are, quite often, they need to confront that which they are not. The danger of only studying literature about people like themselves is that they may take their way of life for granted. They may falsely universalize their specific outlook, assuming that all people of all times were exactly like them; later in life, when they run into others who think differently from them, there is a chance they may view them as abnormal, immoral, or strange. Assuming the perspective of a twenty-first-century reader living in the United States, all of the texts covered in this course will present quite different perspectives. In the first part of the course multiculturalism will be viewed from a world-historical perspective, by examining some hallmarks of the ancient world, with the hope of opening minds to other religions and political systems. Then, from the perspective of the contemporary world, participants will consider texts by writers from cultures usually viewed as outside the mainstream of American demographics. Candidates will present short lessons on the material, introducing the text and starting the discussion in ways appropriate for high school students. Candidates will be required to incorporate a variety of approaches in presenting the material, including: (1) an author-based approach, in which the text is presented by focusing on the role of the author and his/her biography, unique style, and possible intentions; (2) a historical approach, in which the text is used to explain something about the historical setting to which the text relates; and (3) a “close reading” approach, in which the focus is entirely on reading comprehension and discussion is limited to what is in the text.
ENG 603 Nature Writing (3 credit hours)
Individuals who teach writing are most effective when they themselves are writers. In this course, candidates will explore the natural world in a concrete way through the writing process. Candidates will learn to teach writing by the experience of keeping a journal, developing ideas through drafts, revising their own and others’ writing, and editing for clarity. Consideration will be given to writing in various genres and using writing as a learning tool. Candidates will deepen their writing, reading, listening and observational skills and align them to State/Provincial Standards for English Language Arts; respond to the natural world reflectively and imaginatively in a journal; develop and present lesson plans that apply concepts learned in this course to an adolescence English classroom.
ENG 667 Literary London (3 credit hours)
Participants will study the literature and culture of London in-class, followed by a 10-day trip to London, England. Class work will include lectures and collaborative tasks, with an eye to candidates’ applying and adapting materials and teaching methods to their own high school courses. In London, activities will include visits to some of London’s many art galleries (The Tate Museum, The Tate Modern, The British Museum, The National Gallery), the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, a performance at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, one or two more live theatre performances, two guided London Walks, and a train excursion to Canterbury Cathedral.
ENG 623 Shakespeare’s Theater (3 credit hours)
The purpose of the course will be to use characteristics of Shakespeare’s stage, or conventions of his theater, to explore his plays, and to consider how this approach could effectively be used to present Shakespeare in secondary classrooms. The primary focus will be on the public amphitheaters, such as the Globe, but attention will also be given to performance at court and at the indoor Blackfriars. Participants will consider the treatment of space: the open thrust stage, the upper stage, the trap, and the inner stage as used in Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet; the use of male actors to portray female roles and questions of gender: Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing; Shakespeare’s language: the problems posed by blank verse, prose, rhymed speeches, tag lines, and song when teaching the plays: All’s Well That Ends Well and The Tempest; and character portrayal and the conventions of costume and casting: The Merchant of Venice and Othello. Throughout the course feature length film and video productions of the plays will be used to illustrate some of the approaches directors have taken to the problems above.
ENG 750 Writing to Learn – WNY Writing Project Writing Summer Institute (6 credit hours)
The Writing to Learn course will be conducted in conjunction with the WNY Writing Project Summer Institute. This is an intensive immersion program that meets for seven hours every work day over a four week period. Based on the National Writing Project model of teachers teaching teachers, teaching candidates will interact in a rigorous writing and reading experience with Writing Project teacher consultants who represent a wide range of expertise and contexts. This interdisciplinary course will offer candidates the opportunity to study best practice, implement effective writing strategies and discuss current research on literacy. There will be three strands to this course. First, candidates will develop their own writing skills as they write in various genres and share their writing with the group. In the second strand, candidates will develop a lesson plan for effective reading and writing and demonstrate that lesson to the group. Lastly, candidates will read various research on adolescent literacy with the purpose of incorporating it into their practice. The course will also include an off campus excursion, such as an art exhibit, a nature walk, or an architectural tour of the city, that will link a real world encounter with a writing experience.
ENG TBD Petersburg, Russia: Summer Literary Seminar (3 credit hours)
Before leaving for St. Petersburg, participants would attend a series of in-class sessions to provide them with an introduction to the city and its history, focusing on its illustrious literary past and the writers closely associated with it: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Gogol, from the nineteenth century, and some of the most well-known poets of Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary St. Petersburg. While in St. Petersburg, candidates would participate in a morning workshop and an afternoon workshop. The morning workshop would focus on teaching creative writing and facilitating the creative writing workshop. The workshop experience is rigorous, but stimulating, and would be useful for teachers of creative writing because it models the hands-on practice of writing in this setting, as well as the techniques of facilitating such workshops. Daily writing assignments would incorporate a variety of genres. In the afternoon workshop, offered in cooperation with Herzen University, candidates would choose a course from several options in Russian historical, literary, and cultural topics and lectures given by visiting and resident writers/scholars. Evening lectures and literary readings by resident writers are also part of the academic program. Seminar scholars offer guided literary walks around the city to various sites including the neighborhood in which Dostoevsky wrote and set Crime and Punishment, the place where Pushkin died in a duel, and the palace where Rasputin, the “mad monk,” was imprisoned briefly until his death.
ENG TBD American Author Series (3 credit hours)
Individual courses would focus on one American author (Thoreau, Twain, Hemmingway, etc.) providing an in-depth examination of the work, life, and times of that figure. Methods for effectively incorporating content into secondary classrooms will be addressed.