Curriculum and Instruction (CI)

Multiple and mixed methods of inquiry to investigate problems in the practice of curriculum and instruction. C I 500 C I 500 Multiple and Mixed Methods in Curriculum Inquiry (3) This course focuses on practice-embedded curriculum inquiry and surveys an array of approaches and methods that are quantitative, qualitative or both. The course is intended as a gateway seminar to other C&I disciplined inquiry courses (i.e., C&I 501, 502, 503) in which curriculum and instruction students can discuss and participate in learning activities related to the readings and in which guest speakers can inform C&I graduate students about current issues and topics related to systematic inquiry with application to curriculum and instruction.

Course guides teachers to develop systematic inquires into effective teaching and learning.

Presentation of theoretical and practical issues related to designing and proposing qualitative research concerning curriculum, teaching and/or learning.

Considers forms of qualitative data, data analyses, procedures to generate data relationships, interpretation, and presentation of data.

This seminar shows students how to use ethnographic methods for education research to inform classroom practice and education policy. The course is centered around the idea that school communities serve as key sites for students of all ages to learn to become members of their culture(s). Course readings include historical to contemporary works of researchers who have shaped educational ethnography. We will also read about education in various settings and discuss anthropological explanations of inequities experienced by minority culture communities or marginalized groups. Students will carry out a mini-ethnographic study based on their area of research interest. The course is especially designed for students to be able to conduct ethnographic studies or make use of ethnographic techniques in future research projects.

Recommended Preparations: Qualitative Research course or permission of instructor. This seminar shows students how to use contemporary ethnographic theories and methods for education research to inform educational practice and policy. The contemporary movement might arguably be situated in the controversies of the 1980s and 90s, exemplified in Clifford and Marcus's book, Writing Culture, in which they identified the epistemological and political predicaments and controversies pertaining to "the crisis of representation" in the field of anthropology. CI 512 addresses methodological and theoretical approaches informed though literary, reflexive, postmodern, poststructural, feminist, multisensory, multimodal, multivocal, and postcolonial turns and the ways in which they inform educational ethnography. The course focuses on a comprehensive view of education-schools, cultural and community centers, home life- as sites for all ages to learn to become members of their culture(s). A significant and regularly occurring aspect of the class involves students engaging in contemporary ethnographic practices such as cartographic, photographic/videographic, arts-based, alternative writing, walking/movement, sensory, performative, and multimodal. The course will intersperse readings of ethnography with readings about ethnography, largely within the contemporary sphere. The focus will be on contemporary movements that are likely to affect students as they consider ethnographic approaches for their dissertation topics (e.g, science education, musical training, literacy practice, critical race pedagogy).

Recommended Preparations: A graduate course in educational ethnography This seminar will show students how to use video ethnography in education research. The course is rooted in what is popularly known as the Preschool in Three Cultures method (also known as video-cued multivocal ethnography). We will learn about and watch films using video-based ethnographic research methods. Students will also carry out mini-video ethnographies in a local classroom.

Students read the philosophical foundations of education research, study how philosophies influence methodologies, and analyze current educational problems. This course is designed for students entering doctoral programs in the College of Education. Our students are studying to become education researchers within a highly politicized environment. For example, particular definitions of education research and government policies that favor some types of research practices over others provide opportunities for and set limits upon the work of education researchers. Public controversies likewise contribute to challenges faced by education researchers who find their work affirmed or discounted by particular definitions and policies. In order to explore these controversies and to allow students to begin identifying their own "positionality" with regard to research, this course begins with a reading of the history and philosophies of education research (primarily focusing on the United States). The course goals are: - to identify underlying assumptions of competing forms of social inquiry, each determined to uncover new knowledge; - to bring those assumptions to bear on education research in chosen fields of study; and - to begin to develop one's own positions in order to direct further study and research. Specifically, through instructor facilitation and group discussions, students will come to understand major philosophical perspectives that permeate and drive research methodologies in education: positivism, postpositivism, interpretivism, critical theory, poststructuralism, and pragmatism. These understandings allow students to recognize the methodological assumptions that inform published research studies and to discover how methodologies might inform the research they wish to conduct as students and practitioners. Although the course is not required by any particular doctoral program in the College of Education, it is suggested for students who consider research important to their future careers and who see benefits in exploring the methodological options available.

The Sociocultural or Cultural Historical theory of mind originated in the writings of Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky during the 1920s and 30s. Over the course of only about ten years, Vygotsky and his circle produced a substantial body of theoretical and empirical work that challenged basic epistemological and ontological premises of psychology and that outlined a new way of understanding human abilities and their development. The framework Vygotsky elaborated has come to be referred to as Cultural Historical psychology, emphasizing the fundamental role of mediation in shaping human psychology, mediation through historically created artifacts available in particular cultures and through forms of social interaction. In the decades since Vygotsky's death, Cultural Historical psychology has been further developed by researchers around the world who have brought Vygotsky's theoretical proposals to bear on questions and problems as diverse as special education, psychological and educational measurement, early childhood education, psycho-therapy, teacher education, linguistics and communication, adult and workforce education, and political and social change. The course is organized around carefully selected, seminal readings, emphasizing primary texts authored by Vygotsky but complemented by secondary sources generally regarded as leading interpretations. Beginning with an examination of Vygotsky's enterprise to establish a unified, scientific psychology grounded in Marxian dialectics (historical materialism), the course engages with concepts and principles definitive of Cultural Historical psychology that in some cases have become highly influential in a number of disciplines and that in others are only beginning to be understood. These include mediation, Zone of Proximal Development/ZPD (zona blizhaishego razvitia/ZBR), spontaneous and scientific concepts, teaching/learning-and-development (obuchenie), inner and private speech, units of analysis and meaning (znachenie/smysl), and perezhivanie, among others. In this way, students obtain a deep understanding of the theory, both in the context of Vygotsky's own writings and the specific problems he sought to address but also in its contemporary applications. This understanding, in turn, enables students to critically evaluate uses of Vygotsky's ideas in their particular area of study while also providing the background necessary to employ the theory in their own research. The course is intended for students in all areas of education, human development, and applied linguistics. No previous knowledge of Vygotsky's work is required.

Americans have long considered their public schools to be central in the cultivation of democracy. As such, public school teachers in the United States-at all levels and of all subjects-play a key role in perpetuating democracy. Despite teachers' critical role, formal preparation for this task via professional development of teacher education is questionable at best. Little scholarly attention is paid to what teachers need to know or be able to do pedagogically to help cultivate democratic thinking in students and rarely is the responsibility extended to teachers outside of the social studies field. This course takes seriously the role of democratic practice in education writ large, asking students to consider the purposes, theories, practices, and possibility of democratic education across a variety of contexts: adult education, K-12 education, alternative education, and teacher education. In this course we will consider the purposes of democratic education in the current U.S. context, examine theories of democratic education for democracy, and explore models of democratic education in practice.

This course is a graduate level seminar designed for students who would benefit from learning how to conduct a systematic and analytical literature review. This course is appropriate both for graduate students in the early stages of determining a thesis or dissertation topic, and as well as advanced doctoral students who aim to engage in a systematic review of the literature in their chosen field. Class participants will critically analyze model literature reviews; determine criteria for inclusion and exclusion of research studies; systematically gather publications using academic databases; analyze and organize pertinent literature; and write a literature review focused on their topic of interest. The course follows a cognitive apprenticeship model of learning, such that the skills and processes involved in writing a literature review in education research will be taught within the context of the doctoral student participants' own research interests and will be explored and practiced within their professional and program objectives.

This seminar gives students an overview of the writings of key members of the "Bakhtin Circle," which included Mikhail Bakhtin, Valentin Voloshinov, Pavel Medvedev, and others. The core objective of this course is for students to learn about Bakhtinian theory and how to use Bakhtin as a philosophical method in carrying out research studies and analyzing data. In order to do this, we will read the original works of Bakhtin, Voloshinov, Medvedev, and others alongside contemporary educational researchers, theorists, and methodologists who apply Bakhtinian philosophical methods and analyses to the study of education.

Survey of 20th century theories of identity from post-colonial, critical race, psychoanalytic, Marxist, and post-structural feminist and queer perspectives.

Reading major works in Michel Foucault and applications of his work in the field of Education. CI 529 Foucault in Education (3) The purposes of this course are twofold: 1) to read and discuss in depth the work of Michel Foucault and 2) to consider how Foucault's ideas may inform and be informed by theories and practices in education. Foucault is arguably one of the pre-eminent Western social theorists of the 20th century. Researchers and theorists working from post-structural, critical and socio-cultural perspectives frequently turn to Foucault's concepts of power, discipline, and subjectivity as powerful analytic lenses for analyzing the daily lives and practices of students and teachers in classrooms as well as more generally the field of Education, educational politics and policies, and educational institutions. Additionally, given the tremendous impact of Foucault's work in multiple disciplines throughout the academe, the ability to read and apply the theories of Foucault can facilitate broader reading and discussion across a variety of disciplines. In the class, students will devote approximately 2/3 of the time to reading original works by Foucault and brief commentaries on these works, and 1/3 of the time reading applications of Foucault's work by education researchers and theorists. The primary work load of the class is reading. Reading Foucault is not an easy task. Students can expect careful scaffolding of their learning through classroom discussions, a required on-line discussion forum, and frequent feedback from the instructor. Preparation for and participation in class discussions and in the building of a vibrant learning environment are required components of the class.

This course investigates the ongoing collaborative construction and negotiation of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual, and social class identities in second language learning (SLL). It examines how we learn to speak our multiple selves in a new language, for example, how we learn to language race according to our prior background and the cultural practices and understandings of second language contexts. The impact of these social identities and polemics of racism, sexism, xenophobia, colonialism, homophobia, and elitism that arise when we study them are not restricted to experiences outside the classroom, nor can they be divorced from language curriculum and pedagogy. Examining such issues in SLL can be challenging due to the belief that raising them courts controversy unnecessarily and goes against mindsets that many value, such as colorblindness, because language learning is an area that naturally welcomes and fosters integration and interaction between different groups in multicultural education. Course participants will interrogate the idea of colorblind language learning classrooms and curricula and examine how the realities of language learners' differentiated, inequitable access, treatment, and experiences in multilingual contexts challenge the field's declared values of multiculturalism in education.

In an essay about place, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz notes that "something that is a dimension of everyone's existence, the intensity of where we are, passes by anonymously and unremarked. It goes without saying." The purpose of this course is to foreground the concept of place and real places in our daily lives and academic work, particularly with respect to education (including schooling), to make sure that it does not go without saying. What is (a) place? How is it formed, bounded, made meaningful? How is it personal and social? What are its relationships with time and space? What are its relationships with experience, culture, citizenship, margins, diversity, and so many other topics? How does it shape living, especially learning and teaching in schools, and how is it shaped by these things? How do I and we fit in? And, following the feminist educational philosopher Nel Noddings, "should schools teach for an understanding and love of place or should they now offer curricula designed to transcend place?" Through a seminar format focused specifically on educational contexts, we will study place from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives and consider what these landscapes of place mean for teaching, learning, and educational research. Readings will draw from the fields of anthropology, art/s, curriculum, ecology, geography, indigenous thought, literature, philosophy, and sociology, all intersecting with education. Assignments will include citizenship in the community of this course, personal reflection about lived place(s) inside of schools and out, critical analyses of the literature on the intersections of education and place(s), and a final project focused on one aspect of how education and place(s) intersect that is of particular interest to the student. In dialogue, collaboration, the reading of each other's writings, and other activities such as a walking tour of students' most-meaningful places on campus, participants in this course will be and become citizens of the place (and its many physical, digital, and relational places) of the course. Students will exit the course with a broad understanding of the complexity of place(s) in education, including in the work of teachers and researchers.

This seminar explores educational implications in popular texts created for and by girls across time and cultures. CI (WMNST) 542 Girls' Cultures and Popular Cultures (3) The study of girls and their relationship with popular culture lies within the interdisciplinary field of Girlhood Studies which draws on established areas of Women's Studies, Children's/Childhood studies, Cultural Studies and Educational Studies. This seminar explores girls cultures in different textual and material forms including books, toys, magazines, and new media. Students will employ feminist cultural theories to compare historical and contemporary girls cultures in relation to educational research and practice. This will provide a framework to locate girls at the center of research and action in order for graduate students to engage in methodologies that are not simply about girls but "for" "with" and "by" girls. Key topics include the misperception of girls (popular) culture as only a contemporary phenomenon, the role of girls as consumers plus producers of culture, and recurrent issues in girls cultures such as sexualization and hyperfeminity.

Current school programs and options and their impact on pupils; problems in introducing new content into the curriculum.

This course will focus on the 'methods course' in teacher education. A common feature of teacher education programs in almost any setting, methods courses are those courses teacher candidates take that address how to teach. Of course, 'how to teach' is nowhere near as simple as that would sound, and even less simple is how to teach how to teach, in a way that will actually influence how candidates will teach. Students in this course will read research on methods courses, analyze many examples at Penn State and elsewhere, and inquire together about methods course design. Students will explore: · WHY have methods courses at all? Are there things to learn about how to teach that can't be learned through field experience alone? · WHAT shall the content of methods be? Are there such things as 'general methods' or must methods courses always be content-area-specific? What shall students read and come to know in a methods course? · WHO shall teach methods courses, and who shall take them? What happens when practitioners teach methods, as opposed to university faculty? Or when we co-teach? · WHEN shall methods courses occur in the timespan of a teacher preparation program? Must they be concurrent with field experience, or should they precede it? What prerequisite knowledge or experiences matter for the success of a methods course? · WHERE shall methods courses be taught? On site in a school? At the university? Somewhere else? What about online? · HOW shall methods be taught? What course activities actually help teacher candidates learn to teach? What are appropriate uses of readings? Peer teaching? Classroom inquiry? By the end of the course, students will have articulated research-based answers to these questions. In addition, students will be able to apply the available research to existing methods courses in their own current and/or future context(s).

The study of childhood from cultural, historical, psychological and philosophical perspectives. CI 560 Theories of Childhood (3) In this course, participants will explore the highly variable ways that childhood has been constructed and enacted across multiple cultures and throughout history. Participants will begin by considering how notions of the nature of childhood, for example, children as innocent, as primitive, or as blank slates have functioned across history and in their memories and sense of nostalgia about childhood. Participants will expand their understanding of historic and contemporary childhoods through comparative studies of children. Participants will examine and critique normative theories of child development and will finish with an examination of contemporary child culture, including play and how changes in global culture affect children's lives. The course instructor will provide the readings for the course, as well as background information and organizing topics. The instructor creates and assigns activities and provides or oversees discussion questions to organize student thinking for a productive discussion. It is the instructor's responsibility to create an environment conducive to students' development of an open, vibrant learning community; to establish and oversee course standards; and to assist students to achieve both the course objectives and their own. There are no prerequisites for this course. Given that all participants have had a childhood and some may be parents, the memories and experiences each participant brings may be both a help and a hindrance. That is, insofar as their own childhoods or those of their children cause them to believe that they already know what childhood is, class participants need to recognize the limitations of their memories and experiences. The diversity of childhoods that will be represented across the members of the course is a considerable resource for participants to develop an ever-broader understanding of the cultural and historical nature of childhood.

Graduate course on revising a written product for publication in a peer- reviewed research journal in curriculum and instruction or related fields. CI 565 Writing Research Articles in Curriculum and Instruction (3) In this course, students will prepare a research article for publication. Beginning with a course paper, conference paper, comps paper, thesis, pilot study, dissertation, or another pre-existing draft, writers will learn to frame, revise, and edit a scholarly article for submission to a journal. To do this, students will spend time addressing the genres and conventions of writing about education research for an academic audience, focusing on particular subfields in curriculum and instruction. Students will read and analyze published research in curriculum and instruction, study principles of rhetoric and style, practice collaboration and peer review, and engage in intensive revision and editing. Students will gain skill in dealing with the emotions of writing, work habits, giving and receiving feedback, and motivation. They will also work through concerns like organization, exposition and elaboration, and argument as well as matters of correctness and grammar. Students will consider the variations in epistemology, genre, and conventions of argument and of style for the wide range of subfields in curriculum and instruction as well as across education subfields. This includes attention to historical and contemporary divergences between fields and ways of bridging those as needed for dissemination research. Major assignments include analyses of target journals and representative articles, experiments in scheduling and writing habits, and weekly challenges in revising. In addition, students will work in intensive writing groups across the length of the term. Each student will receive extensive feedback on a draft in progress toward the goal of having a manuscript suitable for submission by course end.

In this course, students will develop a deeper understanding of the historical and contemporary forces that have shaped language education program policies; evaluate how policies have influenced, and continue to influence, teacher education programs and educational and social outcomes of multilingual learners. Topics covered include research on the requisite knowledge educators must have to engage in practices that promote positive outcomes for multilingual learners; a historical overview of language policies and research foci; empirical evidence on the effectiveness of different language instruction education programs; contemporary issues of testing and validity, as well as reclassification and tracking; and contemporary debates (e.g., translanguaging and codeswitching; dual language for whom?).

Theories of media literacy, issues of non-print technology in language and literacy.

Continuing seminars which consist of a series of individual lectures by faculty, students, or outside speakers.

Internship in schools or other educational settings under supervision of graduate faculty in student's area of specialization.

Creative projects including nonthesis research, supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses.

Formal courses given on a topical or special interest subject which may be offered frequently.

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Teaching experience in Curriculum and Instruction undergraduate faculty supervision.

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This course applies psychological principles of adolescent development and provides a critical examination of factors (gender, socioeconomic status (SES), race, ethnicity, culture, disability, and language) that have an impact on physical, cognitive, social, emotional, behavioral, and moral developmental outcomes. This course will engage learners with the practical and theoretical issues regarding adolescent development and learning in secondary education settings.

CI 811 is the first of two sequenced methods courses for science and mathematics teachers who are pursuing certification to teach in grades 7-12 and are post-baccalaureate. The course emphasizes contemporary theory and practice informing science and mathematics education in public secondary school classroom settings. Students will deepen their understandings of theories of how people learn and apply that knowledge toward developing ambitious mathematics or science teaching practices to serve diverse learners. Students also develop familiarity with and understanding of current state and national content standards that guide mathematics and science education. Students will engage in activities intended to develop their critical consciousness around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. CI 811 focuses on teaching as a relational activity, including asset-based approaches to teaching, as well as developing teaching practices that are equity focused, anti-racist, and transformative for students who are historically marginalized in the U.S. CI 811 is scheduled concurrently with a supervised field experience in a middle or secondary school, where students have the opportunity to apply and evaluate their developing instructional skills. CI 811 and the concurrent field experience are designed specifically to provide strong connections between educational theory and teaching practice.

CI 812 is the second of two sequenced teaching methods courses for science and mathematics teachers who are enrolled in the PSU Teachers-in-Residence program and are pursuing post-baccalaureate Pennsylvania teacher certification for grades 7-12. It is meant for grades 7-12 teachers who hold emergency PA teaching certification and are currently teaching in a middle or high school in PA. It is a part of an 18-credit program that will lead to permanent Pennsylvania teaching certification for grades 7-12. The course builds on prior coursework including CI 811 and continues to emphasize contemporary educational theory and teaching practice informing science and mathematics education in secondary public school classroom settings. The course extends the equity focused and anti-racist teaching practices from 811 to prepare students to support a diverse population of students, through asset-based approaches to teaching. Having worked on the development of critical consciousness in prior coursework, they will begin more deeply engaging with research-based teaching practices through structured experiences with students in school. They will also build on their lesson design work to organize larger units of instructional practice through analysis and critique of existing materials. Finally, they will develop assessments, both formative and summative, that are informed by understandings of research-based ambitious mathematics and science teaching practices, as well as asset-based equitable pedagogies. As this course is taken concurrently with CI 895 (field experiences), there will be a natural flow of work completed as a part of CI 812 being implemented in the students' home classrooms. CI 812 is designed specifically to provide strong connections between educational theory and teaching practice.

Supervised, professionally oriented, off-campus, nongroup instruction, including field experiences, practicums, or internships. Written and oral critique of activity required.

Creative projects with a professional orientation, including nonthesis research, that are supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses.