Course LogisticsTrends in the Social-Political Foundations of U.S. Schools EDF 5607 799 Fall 2006: 8/29/2005 - 12/9/2005 Mode: Asynchronous except for Blackboard chats Wednesdays 7-8 or 8-9 EDT (either) EDF 5607 is a 3-hour course Delivery format: web |
This course will explore the context of contemporary educational politics in the U.S. through interdisciplinary social-science perspectives.
This course investigates debates about the purpose and practice of formal schooling in the U.S. with historical and sociological perspectives.
By the end of the course, students will be able to perform the following:
Finally, students who complete this course will, as teachers or other citizens, critically evaluate the place and behavior of schools for the rest of their lives. In general, students should be proficient at the end of the course in analyzing an argument about education policy by analyzing alternatives, examining the fundamental principles involved, exploring different perspectives, evaluating the importance of the issue, and examining evidence.
Within each of the five units of the course, students will watch a short video and complete readings, quizzes, online discussions, and weekly syntheses of the discussion. At the end of the semester, students will complete a 12-15 paper to demonstrate their command of key concepts in the course.
There is more about class discussions on a separate page.
Students will participate in summative evaluation for USF. In addition, I will ask for a structured formative evaluation (the Critical Incident Questionnaire) at the end of each week and welcomes feedback at all times.
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(1) Hochschild, Jennifer, and Nathan Scovronick. 2002. The American Dream and the Public Schools. New York: Oxford University Press.
(2) Tyack, David, and Larry Cuban. 1995. Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Both are available for online ordering through the Tampa bookstore.
I am writing a new book, Accountability Frankenstein: Understanding and Taming the Monster (Information Age Publishers), and draft chapters will be available during the semester as part of course readings.
All other materials will be available online, as listed in each unit. There will be additions for the last unit, and any additions or changes will be noted clearly and will be reflected in a revised syllabus.
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EDU 381-J
Office hours: virtual 9-9:30 Wednesdays in Blackboard chat and also in person
or virtually by appointment
University of South Florida EDU162
4202 E. Fowler Ave
Tampa, FL 33620-7750
dorn@mail.usf.edu
(813) 974-9482
SUNCOM 574-9482
Best way to contact: e-mail!
http://www.coedu.usf.edu/~dorn (at USF, a bit obsolete in places)
http://shermandorn.com (my professional-life blog)
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USF e-mail address as default in Blackboard.
USF ID and NetID
Blackboard compatible browser (there are problems with AOL's native browser; I recommend downloading another browser to use instead for Blackboard)
Plug-ins or other stuff to be used in the course:
Word-processing applications: I prefer the rich-text format (RTF) for papers if you do not use Word or WordPerfect. (Try File | Save As ... and then choose rich-text for the file type.)
Standard computer and internet connection.
Quizzes
Assignment tool
Lightweight chat
Discussion board
Journal
View Grades
For Blackboard
problems, contact the USF Help Desk (813.974.1222 or tollfree statewide 1.866.974.1222), which is available through 11:45 pm most
weeknights.
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A student's semester grade is a weighted average of letter grades for each assignment. Letter grades are assigned points on the regular GPA scale (A+=4.33, A=4, A-=3.67, B+=3.33, etc.). The final semester grade is based on a weighted average. Example:
Assignment |
Grade |
Weight |
Contribution to final grade |
Quizzes |
B+ |
30% |
1.00 (3.33*30%) |
Weekly Synthesis Portfolio |
B+ |
30% |
1.00 (3.33*30%) |
Perspectives Paper |
A |
40% |
1.60 (4*40%) |
Semester total |
A- |
|
3.60 |
All students must pass a plagiarism quiz at 90% accuracy as a minimum requirement the first week before completing other assignments. A student may retake the quiz as many times as necessary to answer 9 of 10 questions correctly.
Students will regularly attend the weekly chat. There are 14 weekly chats, and you may miss two without penalty. For each absence beyond two, I will deduct a full grade.
Plus and minus grades will be used in this course.
Quizzes: Every reading (including individual book chapters) will have a corresponding quiz of short-answer questions due in the same week as the reading is assigned. Each quiz is worth 10 points and will be judged by how well the answers demonstrate comprehension of the argument in the reading. The quizzes will be due Tuesday at noon. For the purpose of the final grade, the lowest three quiz score (which may include uncompleted quizzes/zeroes) will be dropped, and the remaining 27 quizzes will be averaged (with 90%=A, 80%=B, etc.).
Weekly synthesis portfolio: Starting with the second week of the course, every student will write a short (200-250) synthesis statement in the 39 hours after the weekly chat's end (i.e., by Friday noon). These weekly statements will summarize some aspect of the prior week's discussion (both on the Blackboard discussion board and in the weekly live chat) and use that aspect as a springboard to explore some course issue. There is more about class discussions on a separate page. These weekly syntheses are an opportunity to tie ideas together in a meaningful way (thus the title). I have designed the Blackboard Journal tool as the place where I prefer a weekly synthesis be placed. During each unit, the synthesis journals will only be read by the student and me. At the end of each unit, I will make all of the entries available for reading and additional commentary by the entire class. At the end of the semester (due December 8), students will be responsible for declaring which five syntheses (one from each unit) they wish me to consider as demonstration of their learning.
Perspectives paper: At the end of the semester (due December 8), students will upload a 12-15 page paper to Blackboard that applies perspectives from throughout the course to one of the hot topics this semester. While students may engage in additional reading around the topic they choose, the main part of the grade depends on use of course materials, not outside research.
Blackboard discussion forums: Each week, students will participate in asynchronous discussions through the Blackboard discussion forums. There is more about class discussions on a separate page. (You get the idea that I want you to read that page?) The purpose of the asynchronous discussions is to develop both an understanding of key course concepts and also to make those concepts come alive through interaction and a connection to current topics in education politics.
Weekly chat attendance/participation: Every Wednesday evening, I will lead an hour's live chat, once at 7 pm and once at 8 pm Eastern time using the Blackboard lightweight chat. The only exception will be the evening before Thanksgiving, when there will be no chat. Students will participate in one of the two chats each week. As described above, students may miss two chats without penalty. There is more about class discussions on a separate page.
Formative evaluation (ungraded): during the semester, I will ask students to help me evaluate the course through Critical Incident Questionnaires (CIQs), as described in Stephen D. Brookfield and Stephen Preskill, Discussion as Way of Teaching (2nd ed.) (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005). For this purpose, I will be using the online survey tool available to faculty and student researchers, so your responses are anonymous. Each week, I will e-mail you a link and the password for the survey. Here are the questions that will appear every week:
While the operationalization of grades may vary from assignment to assignment, here are the general expectations I have for student work:
Grade Description
A Outstanding work addresses the issues by integrating material from the course and presenting an original synthesis or evaluation.
B Good work addresses the issues at hand by applying course materials fairly to the topic. Good work may fail to put issues in a broader context or present well-reasoned, independent judgment of the material. It may show minor misunderstandings of course materials.
C Fair work will use some course materials in discussion of the topic. Fair responses to a specific assignment may not use the most obvious or relevant course materials and may fail to put issues in a clearly course-related context. Fair work often takes the contemporary materials at face value, without exploring the deeper assumptions that is the true subject matter of social foundations. Fair work may also show gross misunderstandings of the material.
D Inadequate responses do not show understanding of course materials or learning from the course. The mark of inadequate written work is that one could have produced it without active participation in the course.
F Failing responses do not show evidence of course enrollment. The mark of failing written work is that one could have produced it without enrolling in the course.
Specific criteria for individual assignments will be provided early in the semester.
Workload
Students should expect to complete at least 135 hours of work during this course on the substance of the course (excluding technical issues). I expect students to consider the workload of all their courses and other obligations and to balance their commitments before the semester heats up.
"I" Policy
Rarely, students need incompletes for extraordinary reasons. I will not grant an incomplete at the end of the semester without prior discussion with the student and a firm deadline the student proposes for completing the work.
My goal in teaching social-foundations courses is for students to take a second and third look at the conventional wisdom about the purpose and organization of schools. I'm an historian of education, and I assume that all students have the capacity to complete and interest in good intellectual work. The tough part of teaching online is establishing a good rapport—with the topics in my courses, it's essential—and I try to demonstrate my personality and hope I earn your trust through a number of techniques (the unit videos, live chats, ungraded Blackboard surveys).
I encourage students to correspond privately with me at least 3 times in the semester, so I can get to know you even if we never meet in person. In addition, it's especially important to ask me questions if you're not sure about something I say. Sometimes it's very hard to communicate tone through text, and I would rather you double-check something than go several weeks assuming I've meant something I may not have! If you need a more intensive interaction than e-mail, we can arrange a private chat through the Blackboard light-chat facility or a phone call.
I generally read e-mail at least once a day. My priorities are to handle emergencies first, class-wide issues second, and then other matters. I respond to the vast majority of student e-mail within a day. The exceptions are generally when I'm out of town and out of e-mail reach.
For as much work as I can give individual feedback on, I will return your work with comments embedded in the file (generally in different colors). For some assignments (mostly quizzes), I will give general criteria and observations after reading the class's work.
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This description of the readings and key topics includes links in the discussion of the materials and due dates for quizzes. Readings with quizzes are marked with an asterisk.
Hochschild and Scovronick (H&S): Chapters 1*, 2*, and 3*. Quizzes due September 5.
Dorn, chapter 1*. (Will be made available in the first week of the term, and a revised syllabus will be uploaded. Quiz due September 12.)
For the cases we consider this fall, we'll start with the Florida Supreme Court decision striking down the failing-schools voucher program, Bush v. Holmes* (2006) (PDF). Before you read the opinion, you should check out Douglas Glaeser's How To Read a Judicial Opinion (2005), which is very brief; you may also wish to print out Orrin Kerr's How To Read a Judicial Opinion: A Guide for New Law Students (2005), which is 7 pages long but can help you disentangle defendant from plaintiff, majority opinion from dissent, holding from dicta, and so forth. (Quiz due September 12.)
The Florida Supreme Court decision disposed of a case that was filed shortly after Governor Bush signed the 1999 "A+ Plan" bill into law, creating two choice programs for students zoned for schools that had twice between labeled F in the prior four years. One choice program was in the county public schools, giving parents the right to transfer their children to local public schools labeled C or better (and if I remember correctly, the county has to provide for transportation). The other choice program was a private-school voucher policy that allowed parents to enroll their children in participating private schools, schools that would accept state payment as full tuition. The case had bounced around the state court system for more than 6 years, and when it finally came to the Florida Supreme Court, most observers thought the hearing would focus on the question of whether the state constitution forbids sending funds to religious schools. But the hearing focused instead on the definition of a public school system, as you will read in the opinion. Note that there is a short, off-topic discussion in the majority opinion about the 1998 changes to the state's constitution and the standards that now exist. Those issues were not directly relevant to the holding of the case, so that passage is just chatter from the bench, or dicta. Nonetheless, it portends much for the state...
The second issue we will discuss is the relationship between religion and schools (what everyone thought the failing-schools voucher would hinge on). Here, we'll delve into a few specific cases that should challenge everyone's notion of that relationship, no matter where you started out at the beginning of the semester. First, we go to Neela Banerjee's article, Families Challenging Religious Influence in Delaware Schools*, New York Times, July 29, 2006. This is a news story about some deep conflicts over religion and public schools in rural Delaware. Is there a clear violation of the division between church and state? If so, it's only in a few places. Is there an allegation of hostility? Oh, yes... so how do we resolve these types of conflicts? (Quiz due September 19.)
But even where there appears to be a clear-cut case in terms of legal precedents, the results can be awkward. Consider the case of the Religious Speech Cut from Las Vegas Graduation Ceremony* (Las Vegas Sun, June 17, 2006), where the student later sued (Ryan Nakashima, Religious Valedictorian Sues Nevada School*, San Francisco Chronicle, July 14, 2006). As I explained in my professional blog entry on the case* (July 14, 2006), case law supports the school district in both a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000) and also a Ninth Circuit appellate decision the same year (Cole v. Oroville Union High School, 2000). But I'm not convinced the school's actions are the best choice, even if they're legally defensible. What do you think? (Note: there will be one quiz combining issues from both the two articles and my blog entry. This will be the general pattern with hot-topic readings: one quiz per issue.) (Quiz due September 19.)
We start with H&S, Chap. 4*, which discusses the last few decades of school reform and reform politics. They discuss one rationale for reform, the belief that schools and the economy are intricately linked not only for students but also the society in general. Then read T&C Chap. 1, which has a very different way of analyzing reform rhetoric. We follow up with two academic articles on schooling and the economy, the first about individuals and the second about the linkage more generally:
Rosenbaum, James E., and Amy Binder. 1997. Do employers really need more educated youth?* Sociology of Education 70: 68-85. (Quiz due September 26.)
Levin, Henry. 1998. Educational performance standards and the economy*. Educational Researcher 27 (May): 4-10. (Quiz due September 26.)
We then move into more recent stuff. Four year ago, the Florida Chamber of Commerce produced a report on links between schooling and the economy:
Florida Chamber Foundation. 2002. Preparing Florida’s Intellectual Infrastructure for the 21st Century Economy. Chapter 3* of New Cornerstone (pp. 3-1—3-75) (executive summary, primarily). Tallahassee, FL: Florida Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved June 21, 2002, from http://www.newcornerstoneonline.com/body_news.html, and you can retrieve just that chapter alone. Whether you agree with the recommendations, identify the core assumptions: what is the relationship the report assumes between schooling and the state's economy? (Quiz due October 3.)
And I'll also ask you to browse the website of Achieve, Inc., a business-oriented education reform group, especially the section of the website that explains its members' motivations* for pushing a particular brand of reform. Are the assumptions of Achieve's constituency the same as the Florida Chamber's? What would Rosenbaum and Binder say? Levin? (Quiz due October 10.)
T&C, Chapters 2*, 3*. (Quiz due October 17.)
H&S, Chapter 5*. (Quiz due October 17.)
Dorn, chapter 2* (to be available later during the semester). (Quiz due October 17.)
We will also consider recent political controversies about the release of educational research. The most prominent example over the summer was about a federally-funded study comparing public and private school performances that attempted to adjust for characteristics of students and schools. Released on a Friday in July, some have accused the U.S. Department of Education of trying to make the study more obscure. So there's been even more coverage of the study and why it was released the way it was. Public vs. Private School Report Spurs Controversy* is the transcript of a July 26, 2006 story on National Public Radio (NPR) covering the release of Henry Braun, Frank Jenkins, and Wendy Grigg, Comparing Private Schools and Public Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Statistics, 2006) (PDF). You may wish to read the Executive Summary to get a sense of the study. There's a longer discussion on the NPR show Talk of the Nation from the next day, Study Questions Merits of a Private Education* (transcript, though you can also listen to the discussion). And there's also a study criticizing the work of Braun et al., Paul E. Peterson and Elena Laudet, On the Public-Private School Achievement Debate, a paper prepared for the annual meeting this year of the American Political Science Association. (Quiz due October 24.)
The second controversy has been over a study commissioned by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), which is responsible for the national certification of teachers (a voluntary process that several thousand Florida teachers have gone through; former USF president Betty Castor led NBPTS for several years). Some states (including Florida) pay extra to teachers for national certification. One question over several years has been whether formal certification of teachers is a reliable indicator (in a lay sense) of teaching quality. NBPTS commissioned a study of achievement in North Carolina conducted by William Sanders, a statistician who works for the SAS Institute and produces accountability statistics for the state of Tennessee. There was a long period of silence from NBPTS about the study and then criticism by some that the board was suppressing the story. Finally, it was released. Bess Keller's article Under Pressure, NBPTS Releases Full Study*, in Education Week (May 24, 2006), reported on the release of William Sanders, James J. Ashton, S. Paul Wright, Comparison of the Effects of NBPTS-Certified Teachers with Other Teachers on the Rate of Student Academic Progress Comparison of the Effects of NBPTS-Certified Teachers with Other Teachers on the Rate of Student Academic Progress (Cary, N.C.: SAS Institute, 2005) (PDF). There's also a set of internal NBPTS reviews. Also see commentary in the blogs of Barnett Barry* and Andy Rotherham*. (Quiz due October 24.)
Finally, consider the case of the Pittsburgh board of education, which
earlier this year faced the release of a report on high school graduation
commissioned by the superintendent. The report is John Engberg and Brian Gill,
Estimating Graduation and Dropout
Rates with Longitudinal Data
A Case Study in the Pittsburgh Public Schools (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND
Corporation, 2006) (PDF). Joe Smydo and Tim Grant reported on the board's
reaction in Angry Board Spurns Dropout
Study* (Pittsburg Post-Gazette, July 13, 2006). (Quiz due October 24.)
Gloria Ladson-Billings, “Landing on the Wrong Note: The Price We Paid for Brown*,” Educational Researcher 33, 7 (October 2004), retrieved December 14, 2004, from http://www.aera.net/pubs/er/pdf/vol33_07/02ERv33n7_Ladson-Billings.pdf. (Quiz due October 31.)
H&S: 6*, 7*. (Quiz due October 31 for chapter 6, November 7 for chapter 7.)
Dorn, chapter 3* (to be available later during the semester). (Quiz due November 7.)
Human Rights Watch, Hatred in the Hallways: Violence and Discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students in U.S. Schools* ( New York: Human Rights Watch 2001) (Sections I-III, VII, and IX), retrieved December 14, 2004, from http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/uslgbt/toc.htm). (Quiz due November 14.)
H&S: Chaps. 8*. (Quiz due November 21.)
T&C: Chaps. 4*,5*, and Epilogue*. (Quiz due November 21.)
Dorn, Chapters 4*, 5* (to be available later during the semester). (Quiz due November 28.)
Because No Child Left Behind is always at the top of headlines these days, I am going to set that as the obvious hot topic this unit, but I will collect online resources* during the semester as the reading material in this unit. (Quiz due December 5.)
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There are two ways to approach readings in this course, and I request that you use both of them:
• Reading a source primarily for the argument of the
author: what is the logic and evidence of what the author(s) say(s)? I
think of this as "listening" carefully to a reading.
• Reading a source to mesh it with your own prior knowledge and
perspectives: what does this reading change in your own mind? I think
of this as "talking" to a reading.
You need to do both in this course. It is not sufficient to learn the "book knowledge" without looking at the issues in a broader context. It is also not fair to the author's ideas to quickly assimilate it in your mental library without making sure you understand it from the author's perspective. I recommend using your blog to work on both approaches.
Library resources: One arcane resource you should become familiar is the USF library's list of style guides for citations and formal paper writing.
The last few years of several key social-foundations journals are available through the USF library:
History of Education Quarterly
Sociology of Education
Philosophy of Education
Educational Studies
Educational Foundations
In addition, there are a few completely online journals like Education Policy Analysis Archives, as well as non-refereed publications like Rethinking Schools and Education Next that will give you a flavor of current controversies.
And Teachers College Record is a very good general journal with an extensive “portal” web site on education.
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We all have them and we all understand. If you don't get to a chat until 12 minutes into the hour, no big deal; you can still participate actively (though you'll still miss a lot). If your computer freezes at the end of the chat, just write out your Weekly Synthesis by hand and call my office line to read it into voicemail (and then provide it later when you can). If your internet connection goes out for a few days at home, discussion entries can wait a few days. Now, if you procrastinate on your paper until the very last day and then the power goes out, I will be much less sympathetic. But it is not your fault if you have ordinary, mundane technical problems. It's to your credit that you work around them.
I expect students will help each other in the course by disputing ideas (not personalities) and by being polite to each other and to me. See the page on discussions for more.
Please keep copies of all work, both work I have not evaluated and that with written feedback. A portfolio of work can help students evaluate progress in the course, troubleshoot problems during the semester, and document achievement in the event I lose my computer files, a fire destroys my office or the Blackboard servers, or someone kidnaps me.
Formal writing in college should conform to a standard of edited written English acceptable throughout academic and professional life. Edited written English is different from spoken English in that it has fairly rigid conventions that readers use to help understand the written word. Some of the conventions (such as spelling) are admittedly arbitrary; other conventions of argumentative essay-writing (such as a linear sequence, in contrast to other structures such as the parable) are culture-bound even while they have a logical rationale. Nonetheless, the writing of edited English is an expected skill of teachers and is part of the "code of power" Lisa Delpit describes in her book Other People's Children (New York: New Press, 1995).
The weekly syntheses and perspectives paper are subject to this standard. Discussion-board comments are subject to an intermediate standard, as I expect students to read through their comments (and at least check the spelling) before posting them. The spontaneous interactions of the live chat sessions are not subject to this standard. Any weekly synthesis portfolio or perspectives paper which does not meet this standard may have up to one full grade deducted, and the student or group may be required to rewrite the work to standard (with a full grade deducted) if the problems are serious.
I encourage collaboration among students when reading, studying, and thinking about the course. However, I am evaluating written work in this course as an individual's product, and I expect all students to do their own work on class assignments. I also expect students to acknowledge in writing the intellectual work of others, whether from readings or ideas learned learn from your classmates. Students may choose any consistent and clear citation format (such as that described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association or the Chicago Manual of Style). The acid test of appropriate citation is a theoretical stranger's ability to find the source independently, given just the paper. I have an on-line tutorial, aimed primarily at undergraduates, that is a definitely personal perspective on the topic, on my web page. Because of prior experiences with plagiarism at both the undergraduate and graduate level, I am also requiring that all students in this course take the on-line plagiarism quiz (on Blackboard) and pass it with 90% or 100% accuracy. (You may take the quiz repeatedly to satisfy this requirement.)
If you have not been in classes for a while, or if you're not sure what the standard is for online materials, maybe a rule of thumb will help for this course: Don't cut and paste. Don't cut and paste without citing at all: that's plagiarism. Don't cut and paste, fail to put in quotation marks, but put the author(s) and publication date in parentheses: that's awful citation mechanics. Don't cut and paste, put in quotation marks, and cite properly, because you're wasting precious space. I don't grade students for how well they quote sources (see the 25-word cumulative limit for the multimedia essay and the warning about extensive quoting in blog entries?). The highest grades come for thoughtful evaluation and synthesis. You can't do that by cutting and pasting. Period.
At USF, punishment for academic dishonesty will depend on the seriousness of the offense and may include receipt of an "F" with a numerical value of zero on the assignment submitted, with the "F" used to determine the final course grade. It is the option of the instructor to assign the student a grade of F or FF (the latter indicating dishonesty) in the course. The University of South Florida has an account with an automated plagiarism detection service which allows instructors to submit student assignments to be checked for plagiarism. I reserve the right to 1) request that assignments be submitted to me as electronic files and 2) electronically submit assignments to SafeAssignment. Assignments are compared automatically with a huge database of journal articles, web articles, and previously submitted papers. The instructor receives a report showing exact comparisons between a student's paper and other work with identical wording.
Students with disabilities are responsible for registering with the Office of Student Disabilities Services in order to receive special accommodations and services. Please notify me during the first week of classes if a reasonable accommodation for a disability is needed for this course. A letter from the USF Disability Services Office must accompany this request. Any student with a disability is encouraged to meet with me privately (with or without a consultant from Disabilities Services) during the first week of class to discuss accommodations. Additional resource information is available through the USF Undergraduate Catalog, on-line at http://www.ugs.usf.edu/catalogs/0607/assd.htm. (The graduate catalog has huge chunks in PDF, and I figured you’d want the shorter passage available.)
All students have a right to expect that the University will reasonably accommodate their religious observances, practices and beliefs. In accordance with this policy, I expect you to notify me in writing by the second week if you expect to be absent for a week's chat.
If, at the end of the semester, students think I have robbed students of some significant credit, please provide your work and some description of my mistakes. I am fallible and willing to admit errors that are likely to make a significant difference in grades.
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The College of Education is dedicated to the ideas of Collaboration, Academic Excellence, Research, and Ethics/Diversity (CARE). These are key tenets in the Conceptual Framework of the College of Education. Competence in these ideas will provide candidates in educator preparation programs with skills, knowledge, and dispositions to be successful in the schools of today and tomorrow. For more information on the Conceptual Framework, including the relationship between CARE and the six goals of educator preparation at USF and Florida's Accomplished Practices, visit http://www.coedu.usf.edu/main/qualityassurance/ncate_visit_info_materials.html.
This course is crucial to educators' professional knowledge, including "the historical and social context of schools, families and communities, cultural impacts on learning, the impact of language on learning for nonnative English speaking persons, and inclusion and equity concepts in schools and community" (2004 Conceptual Framework statement, available online at http://www.coedu.usf.edu/main/qualityassurance/documents/CF-abbreviatedDOC2.pdf). Specifically with regard to the Accomplished Practices, assignments in this course provide opportunities for students to document growth in understanding Critical Thinking, Continuous Improvement principles as well as the social context of current discussions and policies involving Diversity, Ethics, and the Role of the Teacher.
Reflecting these standards, my colleagues and I teach this course to produce educators and other professionals who think critically about the relationship between schools and society and clearly articulate their ideas in both oral and written work. We expect you to interpret (not just passively read) the material, learn the major research findings in the areas, develop informed opinions and theories about this research, and clearly express their thoughts in grammatically correct, edited American English. For instance, the evaluation of written work rejects the false dichotomy between form (style and composition) and content (information and thought). This course will help you develop your ideas and your ability to articulate them to parents, fellow educators and the larger public. Evidence of your skill development in any of these areas is documentation that belongs in your portfolio.
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Version date: August 21, 2006