Hartford Public Schools website:                   http://www.hartfordschools.org/

            HPS info on weather-related closings:           695-SNOW (695-7669)

Trinity Ed Studies Program website:  http:/www.trincoll.edu/depts/educ

Students will work as “participant-observers” with their classroom teachers for at least 8 three-hour sessions (a total of 24 hours) over the course of the semester. The objectives are for Trinity students to:

·         Integrate theoretical readings with first-hand experience, in order to complete the 6 analysis paper assignments required in the course

·         Develop meaningful relationships with students and teachers, to deepen our reflections on the contexts of urban schools and the purposes of education

·         Identify potential resources and gain practical experience for designing a curriculum project

Clusters of students will attend a mandatory orientation session during the second week of the course with their school coordinator. (Exact times TBA).

During the initial visit with the teacher, students will complete a basic contract to establish their schedule and role in the classroom. “Participant-observation” is more than just quietly watching; it includes more active roles in the classroom, such as one-on-one tutoring, working with small groups, preparing materials for a classroom project, and (in some cases) planning and teaching a brief lesson.

At the end of the semester, school coordinators will evaluate Trinity students’ placement experiences based on their level of engagement, reliability, and effort demonstrated in the classroom.

Unit 1: The Social Context of Schooling: perspectives from anthropology and sociology of education

Question: How does the social context of schooling impact learning and educational outcomes?

Thurs Sept. 8:  Images of urban education

Sophie Bell, “Dangerous Morals: Hollywood Puts a Happy Face on Urban Education,” Radical Teacher 54 (1998): 23-27.

Pedro Noguera, City Schools and the American Dream.  Series Foreword & Preface; Chapter 1, “Finding Hope Among the Hopeless”, Chapter 2, “The Social Context and Its Impact on Inner-City Schools” (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 2003), pp.vii-xiv and 1-40. 

Video excerpts in class: Stand and Deliver, fictionalized portrayal of Jaime Escalante, (1988). [Trinity Library VID 0730]

Tues Sept. 13: Education and socialization, Part I:

Kathleen de Marrais and Margaret LeCompte, “The social organization of schooling” and “What is taught in schools,” in The Way Schools Work: A Sociological Analysis of Education, third edition (NY: Longman, 1999), 43-52, 222-228, 236-247.

Laurie Olsen, Introduction and Chapter 2, “The maps of Madison High: On separation and invisibility,” in Made in America: Immigrant Students in Our Public Schools (NY: The New Press, 1997), pp. 9-28 and 37-57.

Distribute: Paper topic #1, DUE  Monday Sept. 19

Special Event: Evening lecture by Claude Steele, social psychologist from Stanford University and author of several works on “stereotype threat” to be read later this semester

Thurs Sept. 15: Education and socialization, Part II

Hervé Varenne & Ray McDermott (1999). Successful Failure: The School America Builds. Preface, Introduction p. 1-7, and Chapter 1, “Adam, Adam, Adam, and Adam: The Cultural Construction of a Learning Disability,” pp. 25-43. ( CO: Westview Press.)

Unit 2: Theories of Learning

Question: How do classical and contemporary theorists explain how people learn?

Tue     Sept 20            Classical Theory and Behaviorism

Read:   Phillips and Soltis, Perspectives on Learning, intro and chapters 1-4

Distribute: Learning vignette writing pre-assignment

Thur   Sept 22            Constructivist Theories: Piaget, Dewey, and Vygotsky

Read:   Phillips and Soltis, Perspectives on Learning, chapters 5-6

Video excerpt in class: First Graders Divide 62 by 5 (TC Press, 1999). VID 2730

Tue     Sept 27            Constructivist Theories: Bruner

Read:   Phillips and Soltis, Perspectives on Learning, chapter 7

Video excerpt in class: A Private Universe (Annenberg/CPB, 1987). [Ed Res Ctr]

See companion website: http://www.learner.org/teacherslab/pup/

Distribute: Paper topic #2, DUE Tuesday Oct 4th

Thur   Sept 29            Making Sense of Theories of Learning

Read:  Phillips and Soltis, Perspectives on Learning, chapter 9

Tue     Oct 4               Learning and Individual Differences

Read:  Rachel Gottlieb, “Special-Needs Students to Mix In: Fall Classes Open to Mainstreaming” Hartford Courant, July 3, 2005.

Unit 3: Explaining Educational Inequality

Questions: How do different theories attempt to explain racial, social class, and gender gaps in educational achievement?

Thurs. Oct. 6  The Intelligence Debate

Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray (1994), The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, Preface and Introduction. (New York: Free Press Paperbacks)

Fischer et. al (1995), “But Is It Intelligence?” and “Who wins? Who loses?”(excerpts) in Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.) pp. 55-69, 70-74, 86-93.

Selected data from SAT and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

NOTE: For next class, print out and read “Strategic School Profile” for your school. Go to CT Dept of Education, School Information website:

http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/schools/index.htm

            School Profiles > Regular Education by School 2004-05 > Hartford [find school]

Tues. Oct. 11 – no class – Trinity days

Thurs. Oct. 13  School Finance and Tracking

Jonathan Kozol, “Children of the City Invincible: Camden, New Jersey,” in Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. (NY: Crown, 1991), Chapter 4.

Jeannie Oakes, “The Distribution of Knowledge,” in Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality (New Haven: Yale Press, 1985), Chapter 4.

“Strategic School Profile” for your placement school [see directions above]

In class: Analyze metropolitan Hartford data; handout from Iva Kuzyk, Hartford Primer and Field Guide, 2^nd edition. (Hartford: Trinity College, 2003), pp. 100-103.

Tues. Oct. 18  Class Inequality: Social Reproduction Theories

Janny Scott and David Leonhardt, “Class in America: Shadowy Lines That Still Divide,” in The New York Times (May 15, 2005).

Jay MacLeod, “Social Immobility in the Land of Opportunity” (excerpts) and “Social Reproduction in Theoretical Perspective,” Chapters 1-2 in Ain’t No Makin’ It (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 3-7, 11-23.

Annette Lareau, “Social Class Differences in Family-School Relationships: The Importance of Cultural Capital,” (excerpts) in Sociology of Education 60 (1987), pp. 73-85.

Thurs. Oct. 20  Race and Educational Outcomes, Part I

John Ogbu, “Immigrant and Involuntary Minorities in Comparative Perspective,” in M. Gibson and J. Ogbu, eds., Minority Status and Schooling (NY: Garland, 1991).

Ray McDermott, “The Explanation of Minority School Failure, Again,” in Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Vol. 18, 1987. 361-364.

Ann Ferguson, “Don’t Believe the Hype” (excerpt) and “The Punishing Room,” in Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), pp. 1-3, 29-47.

Distribute Paper topic #3: DUE  Friday Oct 28th

Tues. Oct. 25:  Race and Educational Outcomes, Part II: Stereotypes

Claude Steele, “A Threat in the Air: How Stereotypes Shape Intellectual Identity and Performance,” reprinted in Eugene Lowe, ed., Promise and Dilemma: Perspectives on Racial Diversity and Higher Education (Princeton, 1999), excerpt from pp. 107-108.

Claude Steele, “Thin Ice: Stereotype Threat and Black College Students,” in The Atlantic Monthly (August 1999), pp. 44-49.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99aug/9908stereotype.htm

Stacey Lee, “Asian Americans: The Absent Minority, the Silenced Minority, and the Model Minority,” and “Academic Achievement Among Asian Americans,” Chapters 1 and 3 in Unraveling the ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype: Listening to Asian American Youth (New York: Teachers College Press, 1996), pp. 1-16 and 52-69.

Video excerpt in class: Secrets of the SAT (PBS Frontline, 1999) [Ed Res Center]

See full interview with Claude Steele at:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/steele.html

Thurs. Oct. 27: Gender Bias

Myra and David Sadker, “Hidden Lessons,” Failing at Fairness: How America’s Schools Cheat Girls (NY: Scribners, 1994), Chapter 1.

AAUW, Gender Gaps Executive Summary: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children (Washington, DC: AAUW, 1998).

http://www.aauw.org/research/girls­_education/gg.cfm

Robert Frahm and Rachel Gottlieb, “Merits of Single-Sex Classes Debated,” Hartford Courant, March 5, 2004.

Unit 4: School-based Reform Strategies

Question: How do different school-based reform strategies attempt to improve education? What assumptions do these strategies make about the causes of educational inequality?

Tues    Nov 1              Cooperative Learning

Read: Robert Slavin, Cooperative Learning: Theory, Research, Practice, 2nd edition. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995), chapters 1 and 2.

In class: Cooperative learning exercise

Thurs  Nov 3              Detracking and Multiculturalism

Video: Michelle Fine et. al., Off-Track: Classroom Privilege for All (Teachers College Press, 1998). [VID 1931]

Read: James Banks, "Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform," in Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives, 5th edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004.

Sonia Nieto, “Multicultural Education in Practice” in Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education, 3rd edition (NY: Longman, 2000).

Rita Tenorio, “’Brown Kids Can’t Be in Our Club’: Raising Issues of Race with Young Children,” Rethinking Schools 18 (Spring 2004): 29-32.

Tues    Nov  8             Family-School Connections

Read: James Comer et. al., Child by Child: The Comer Process for Change in Education (NY: Teachers College Press, 1999), prologue, part I, chapter 5.

Distribute: paper topic #4; DUE in class on Tues, Nov 15th

Wed Nov 9 Special Event

Lecture by Simone Schweber, Goodman Professor of Education and Jewish Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, on her new book, Making Sense of the Holocaust: Lessons from Classroom Practice (2004), featuring in-depth case studies of how history is taught and learned in three public high schools. Time and location TBA.

Thurs  Nov 10                        Reshaping Teachers' Work

Read: Vivian Troen and Katherine Boles, "The 'Trilemma' Dysfunction." Education Week 14 May 2003. http://www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=36troen.h22

In class: “Pathways toward Teaching” website on the Ed Studies Program website

Unit 5: Curriculum Design

Question: How do educators construct instructional units that link rich objectives, activities, and evaluation components?

Tues    Nov 15                        Curriculum Design and Objectives for Student Learning

Read: Bob Peterson, “Measuring Water with Justice: A Multidisciplinary Lesson that Explores Water Issues,” Rethinking Schools 19 (Fall 2004): 33-37.

Sample curriculum projects by previous Trinity Ed 200 students [to be assigned].

Bloom's Taxonomy

/depts/educ/resources/bloom.htm

Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences

http://www.ibiblio.org/edweb/edref.mi.th.html

In class: Curriculum project guidelines and evaluation criteria; exercise on identifying and articulating objectives for student learning

Paper topic #5 (proposal) assigned; DUE via Blackboard on Sunday Nov 20th at 9pm

Thurs  Nov 17                        Curriculum Design and Activities/Resources

Read: Linda Christensen, “Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us: Critiquing Cartoons and Society,” in Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching about Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools, 2000.

Kelley Dawson Salas, “Teaching About Toxins: Students Explore the Health Issues Affecting their Community,” Rethinking Schools 18 (Winter 2003): 22-25.

Resources:  Go to Ed Studies website (/depts/educ)

Click on “Resources” and see:

            Ed Studies Resource Center (books and videos for loan)

            Educ 200 Curriculum Design Resources (web links)

            Ed 200 Curriculum Projects (PDF and Powerpoint files from previous students)

In class: Orientation to print and digital curriculum resources; test Blackboard posting

Tues    Nov 22                        Curriculum Design and Evaluation

Read: Linda Christensen, “Portfolios and Basketball,” in Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching about Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools, 2000.

In class: Feedback delivered on paper #5 (proposal) via Blackboard

Thurs Nov 24                        Thanksgiving -- no class

Unit 6: Philosophy of Education        

Questions: What is the purpose of education? What is worth learning? How should debates over these issues be resolved in a democratic society?

Tues. Nov. 29:  Conflicting aims in public education

Joel Spring, “The Purposes of Public Schooling,” in American Education, 9^th Edition (New York: Longman, 2000), pp. 3-27.

Thurs. Dec. 1:  Liberatory Education: Goals and Challenges

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (NY: Seabury Press, 1970), pp. 57-74.

bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (NY: Routledge, 1994), pp. 1-22.

Lisa Delpit, “Skills and Other Dilemmas of a Progressive Black Educator,” reprinted in Delpit, Other People’s Children (New York: New Press, 1995), pp. 11-20.

Distribute paper topic #6: DUE Thurs Dec 8

Tues. Dec. 6:  Education for Democracy

Deborah Meier, “In Defense of Public Education,” and “It’s Academic: Why Kids Don’t Want to be ‘Well-Educated’,”,in The Power of Their Ideas (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), pp. 3-11 and 161-173.

Michael Apple, preface (excerpts) and “Pedagogy, Patriotism and Democracy:  Ideology and Education After September 11,” in Ideology and Curriculum, 3^rd Edition (RoutledgeFalmer, 2004), pp. vii-xv and 157-171.

Thur Dec 8     Course evaluations; preparing presentations; review for final

NOTE: Oral presentations of curriculum projects (5-10 minutes, with visuals)

to be scheduled for a late afternoon/evening session during end of the semester, with evaluations conducted by the school coordinators.

Thur Dec 15               Curriculum Project final draft DUE at 12 noon

Please submit a paper version AND a computer file (via email attachment or disk)

Thurs Dec 20 at 9am             Final exam, short essay responses