An introduction to Italian American Studies offering an overview of the Italian experience in the United States from the first great waves of immigration to today. Focus will be on the politics of representation of Italian American identity in works from a wide textual base: literature and journalism, cinema, the figurative arts, music, television, advertising, etc. Themes to be investigated include the trauma of separation, relationships with the dominant culture and other ethnic communities, and the formulation of ethnic identity in a U.S. context. A major component of this course will be oral history research in the local community. Taught in English. Mutually Exclusive with HUMN 176 and ITAL 176.
This course is designed to introduce students accepted or interested in the EFET major to the academic study of education. Students will analyze social, cultural, and political issues affecting teachers, schools, students, and the functioning of American democracy.
Prerequisite(s): WRIT 105 or HONP 100. The psychological foundations of education enable students to understand and apply essential topics in teaching and learning including development, motivation, diversity and assessment. Through relating theoretical frameworks to empirical research and applying them to classroom settings, students will be better able to understand their own experience as learners and conceptualize their future practice as teachers. Meets Gen Ed - Social Science Perspectives.
Prerequisite(s): WRIT 105 or HONP 100. This course examines the public purposes of education in our social and political democracy. Students inquire into the role of schools in fostering the development of democratic principles and practices, and examines various curriculum designs and pedagogical strategies. Students also explore the main issues stemming from the efforts to teach democratically in public educational institutions. They examine and analyze successful practices of instruction and classroom management. Students complete 25 hours of fieldwork in an assigned high-performing urban school, which provides a context for these explorations. In order to participate in the fieldwork, students will be required to undergo a criminal history background check with fingerprinting as a required component of this course, which carries a separate fee paid to the state of New Jersey. Attendance at the first class and the fieldwork orientation is required. This course is prerequisite for admission into the teacher education program. Meets the Gen Ed–Interdisciplinary Studies requirement. Mutually Exclusive with READ 210 and EDFD 210.
Prerequisite(s): WRIT 105 or HONP 100. Western philosophical heritage as related to the issues and responsibilities of American education. Comparative analysis of past and current ideological movements that influence moral, social, and educational decisions of parents, political leaders, and professional educators. Meets Gen Ed - Philosophical and Religious Perspectives.
Prerequisite(s): WRIT 105 or HONP 100. This course offers students the crucial sequence of ideas that constitute one of the central themes in American society and culture. Since its beginnings, American thinkers have seen education as the key to an informed citizenry. Major themes in American education will be looked at through the reading of primary and secondary sources. Meets Gen Ed - American and European History.
Prerequisite(s): WRIT 105 or HONP 100. Examines the nature of gender, gender identity, gender roles and gender discrimination, and the influence of these on classrooms, schools and educational policy. Meets Gen Ed - Social Science Perspectives. Meets World Cultures Requirement.
Prerequisite(s): WRIT 100; and EDFD 200 may be taken as prerequisite or corequisite. In this course, students learn about the socio-emotional development of youth within the context of urban schools. Students examine the risk factors that challenge the healthy development of urban youth, and have the opportunity to design and implement procedures, activities, and curricula for working with urban youth for promoting resilience and character skills. This course contains a seminar and field work component. During weekly seminars, students engage in readings, discussion, and curriculum development around issues that impact the healthy development of urban youth. The field work component of this course will take place in local schools in Newark, NJ with curriculum implementation for middle school youth on a weekly basis for ten weeks. Students must be able to provide their own transportation to school sites. May be repeated for a maximum of 12 credits. Meets Gen Ed - Interdisciplinary Studies.
Prerequisite(s): EDFD 200. In this course, students critically analyze and evaluate various theories of learning as they are applied to teaching, with an emphasis on educational assessment. Students gain a deep understanding of the reciprocal and entwined relationship between learning and assessment, and the assessment principles, practices, and tools associated with each theory. Moreover, students learn how to construct a variety of assessments that measure a range of thinking skills, and the methods and strategies for how to use information from their assessments to improve P-12 student learning. Students consider ethical dilemmas and implications of various approaches to educational assessment. As a result, they develop a shared professional vocabulary, a critical curiosity, and a personal ethical perspective for discussing the practice of educational assessment.
Corequisite(s): SASE 310; and SASE 312 or EDFD 312 or READ 312. Prerequisite(s): SASE 210, EDFD 210, or READ 210. Restriction(s): Admission to Teacher Education Program. This course examines the qualities of teachers, teaching, and schooling that foster the learning of students from diverse social and cultural backgrounds. Students explore the ways in which socialization experiences shape perceptions. They reflect on their own beliefs, assumptions, and perceptions about sociocultural identity and how their own socialization has shaped their perceptions of themselves and other people. Students also examine the nature and impact of the increasing social and cultural diversity in K-12 schools in the United States. They learn ways of teaching all children well and to develop positive relationships among teachers, parents and children. Mutually Exclusive with READ 305 and SASE 305.
Corequisite(s): SASE 310; and SASE 305 or EDFD 305 or READ 305. Prerequisite(s): SASE 210, EDFD 210 or READ 210. Restriction(s): Admission to the Teacher Education program. This course module exposes students to the central issues in the education of English language learners in US schools and helps them learn about best practices in education through hands-on experience creating and adjusting lessons and instruction to benefit the academic performance of English language learners as well as of all students. Issues addressed include sociocultural, legal, and political influences on the education of English language learners; principles of second language acquisition; and explicit practice in planning academic content instruction for English language learners. Mutually Exclusive with READ 312 and SASE 312.
Prerequisite(s): EDFD 220. This course explores the construction of meaning, knowledge and values using classroom dialogue as the basis for cooperative inquiry. Students reflect upon theories of inquiry. And methodologies associated with inquiry-based learning across the disciplines. The role of students and teachers in fostering and facilitating the skills and dispositions of dialogue in the classroom is examined. The course investigates the community of inquiry as a paradigm for personal and interpersonal development, education for citizenship and democratic practice, and educational reconstruction. Students engage in the formation of a classroom community of inquiry and analyze the process of that formation as it develops.
Prerequisite(s): WRIT 105, WRIT 106 and any 300-level course. This course provides students with basic training in human rights thinking, activism, and law. It emphasizes the power of education to effect social change, specifically by mobilizing people to stand against injustice and indignities. To that end, students will select a human rights topic of their choice related to concrete rights to life, liberty, equality, free speech, privacy, health, food, or housing. Students will conduct an in-depth research project on that topic and design a lesson plan. As a culminating project, students who have developed effective and successful lesson plans will have the opportunity to teach their lesson plan in a local public school at the end of the semester. Lesson plans and all associated teaching materials will be published online on the MSU Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education Project website as a resource for K-12 educators worldwide.
Prerequisite(s): EDFD 180, EDFD 200, EDFD 221 and any 300-level course. A study of recent initiatives, controversial questions, and current problems which impacted upon the field of education throughout the past decade, as well as an examination of new theories which may change the course of American education in the near future.
Prerequisite(s): Any 300-level course. This course prepares educators to effectively teach US and World History in ways that reflect current historical scholarship and anti-bias pedagogy.
This course offers an overview of key methodological principles and approaches to quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. Research literacy and developing the ability to access, read, and critique professional research literature in education, counseling, and related fields is a central focus on the course. The course also provides an opportunity for students to evaluate current research relevant to their professional interests.
Principles and techniques of research applicable to classroom situations. Various kinds of classroom research are studied and analyzed. Practice provided in the planning and outlining a research project. The development of experimental designs, and evaluation of the structure and outcomes of classroom research.
Restriction(s): Students must be enrolled in a Master of Arts in Teaching, Instructional Teaching Certificate or Master of Education. This course examines how teachers, teaching, schooling, & curriculum can foster student learning from diverse socio-economic, linguistic & cultural backgrounds. Students explore foundational learning theories & how they inform curriculum & assessment; the ways socialization shapes perceptions of oneself & others; reflect on their own beliefs about their sociocultural identities & how those have been shaped by experience. The course provides prospective teachers with knowledge & skills for evaluating & understanding student learning across diverse educational settings, including an introduction to the design & evaluation of curriculum for how it provides students with learning opportunities. Students consider assessment practices from the learners' point of view and analyze local & national assessment policies & practices in order to maximize student performance. They learn to develop assessments that meet the needs of diverse learners & are aligned with curricular learning goals. May be repeated once for a maximum of 6 credits. Mutually Exclusive with SASE 509.
This course examines creative problem solving, imagination, and other thinking skills in gifted and talented learners. These 21st century skills are considered essential for personal, social, academic, and vocational success, and they feature in many of the most influential models of gifted and talented education. The course draws heavily on empirical research examining creativity and critical thinking as well as their psychological and philosophical foundations. The central idea guiding the course is that creativity and imagination are mental skills that could be promoted and developed. They can be taught. This perspective counters the traditional view that people are naturally creative or imaginative. Students learn the optimal methods and strategies for promoting such behaviors in learners.
This course examines the historical, social, philosophical, and psychological foundations of gifted and talented education as well as issues related to the identification, instruction, and assessment of gifted and talented students. Students in the course examine the needs and cognitive, emotional, and social development of gifted and talented learners. Particular emphasis is placed on issues of diversity, democracy, and social justice as they relate to gifted and talented education. As such, the course critically examines the traditional focus of gifted and talented education on academic achievement and explores exceptional performance in alternative subject areas such as performance in visual, performing, musical, and literary arts as well as less traditional subject areas such as technology.
Corequisite(s): SASE 509 or EDFD 509; and SASE 517. Prerequisite(s): SASE 505 or EDFD 505; and SASE 518. Restriction(s): Students must be enrolled in a Master of Arts in Teaching, Instructional Teaching Certificate, Educational Services Certificate or Master of Education. This course examines the best practices in educating English language learners. Students gain a greater understanding of the linguistic difficulties and resources of English language learners as well as the importance of a multicultural curriculum. Students learn how to make content comprehensible and differentiate instruction based on the language levels of individual English language learners. Students develop an understanding of the academic and affective needs of English language learners, and of strategies for meeting these needs. May be repeated once for a maximum of 2 credits. Mutually Exclusive with SASE 516.
Prerequisite(s): SASE 505 or EDFD 505; and SASE 518. Restriction(s): Students must be enrolled in a Master of Arts in Teaching, Instructional Teaching Certificate, Educational Services Certificate or Master of Education. This course examines the best practices in educating English language learners. Students gain a greater understanding of the linguistic difficulties and resources of English language learners as well as the importance of a multicultural curriculum. Students learn how to make content comprehensible and differentiate instruction based on the language levels of individual English language learners. Students develop an understanding of the academic and affective needs of English language learners, and of strategies for meeting these needs. May be repeated once for a maximum of 2 credits. Mutually Exclusive with SASE 519.
This course provides an introductory overview of the technical issues related to the use of individual and aggregated student-level assessment data in order to inform educational decision-making. Students develop enhanced data literacy and analytical skills to facilitate data-based decision making in the identification of problems and development of solutions and action plans. Students examine and employ general concepts and techniques of data analysis, generation, and presentation, with specific applications to educational issues including program assessment and evaluation, resource planning and allocation, and strategic planning.
Introduction to Transcultural and Translingual Education in a global context with special reference to historical, cultural, social, political, legal, and psychological backgrounds; typology and definitions; programs and practices; legislation and policy; and curriculum affecting culture and language in education.
This course examines the historical, political, and ethical foundations of educational assessment. The course situates current issues in educational assessment within the larger historical and social discourse. Students consider the varied ethical dilemmas and implications for current and future educational assessment initiatives. Students develop a professional vocabulary for discussing the role of educational assessment and a critical perspective for understanding educational assessment in practice.
This course enables future and current teachers acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions to productively use classroom talk to support the development of students’ higher-order thinking and deep understanding of disciplinary knowledge. The course addresses the disparity between typical classroom practices and the current theory and research that calls for dialogic teaching as a general pedagogical approach that capitalizes on the power of talk to foster students’ thinking, learning, and problem solving. The course prepares teachers with a broad repertoire of discourse practices and to be able to strategically use different types of discourse to address specific instructional goals for their students.
This course enables teachers to utilize speaking, reading and writing across the curriculum to develop students’ argumentation skills by supporting effective reasoning in both the production and evaluation of oral and written texts. The course addresses how argumentation is encapsulated in oral and written texts across the curriculum, how arguments differ from other sorts of use of language used in school subjects, and how arguments may be evaluated. The course will also focus on helping future teachers acquire pedagogical knowledge and skills needed to support the development of argumentation in students, including cognitive and affective dispositions that support and inhibit reasoning.
This course consists of an inquiry into the necessary conditions for a form of schooling dedicated to fostering participatory democratic sensibilities, dispositions, structures, and practices, with special emphasis on the role and function of dialogical inquiry and collaborative argumentation in this process. Students in the course apply the lenses of democratic theory, dialogue theory, and critical educational theory to the phenomenon of the common school in the United States and Europe, in an effort to identify the elements of a public educational institution based on the fundamental principles of dialogue, and functioning as an authentic participatory democratic social and political apparatus.
This course provides participants with an intense experience of participating in, facilitating and assessing a community of philosophical inquiry, as that practice has been developed by the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC) over the past 40 years. The course combines multiple sessions each day with sessions devoted to the study and discussion of the theoretical foundations of this practice. Typically, about half of the participants in this seminar are educators and philosophers from other countries, providing a rich context of diverse cultural perspectives to the philosophical issues discussed.
In this course, students learn the fundamentals of creating, implementing, and maintaining curricula and developing and employing methods for identifying, teaching, and assessing gifted and talented learners. A distinguishing feature of this course is the opportunity to virtually interact with senior educators and staff members at Montclair State University’s renowned K-12 Gifted and Talented Program, which serves gifted and talented learners from New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania year-round. Students therefore apply concepts related to gifted and talented education within an authentic learning environment.
Principles and practices of educational and psychological testing and evaluation relevant to professionals in human services, communication sciences and disorders, education, and related fields. Historical/philosophical orientation; place of testing in instructional and remedial programs; statistical concepts underlying measurement; validity, reliability, response set; construction of tests and measurement instruments; evaluation and interpretation of testing data; use and misuse of testing data; reporting data to students, parents and colleagues; critical analyses of selected standardized intelligence, ability and personality tests; experimental tests and measurement instruments. Course project geared to individual student needs.
Prerequisite(s): Departmental approval. Designed for individuals who, in consultation with advisor, wish to undertake an in-depth analysis of a specific research problem. May be repeated once for a maximum of 6 credits.
Prerequisite(s): Completion of 21 credits of required courses, research courses and electives. The final course in the M.Ed.is meant to act as an individualized learning experience involving each graduate student in the planning and execution of a cumulative project. This course will provide students with a workshop environment to develop the project in accordance with his or her on-going professional interests and academic requirements. A descriptive and evaluative report are required, as is the dissemination of the project through a conference presentation, professional presentation, or academic round-table discussion.
Corequisite(s): EDFD 686. Restriction(s): Admitted to the Teacher Leadership Endorsement Program. This course guides teacher leaders to develop a form of inquiry that parallels their understandings of teaching and learning. It provides teacher leaders with the tools and resources necessary to examine their own practice as the center of their investigation and later share their findings with other teacher leaders. Participating in a cycle of inquiry, teachers design a self-study or action research project that focuses on an authentic question that has emerged from their teaching/leading in the classroom or school setting. They use a variety of different research methods such as action research and narrative research to collect and analyze data. They then share their research process with their colleagues to reflect on the process of self-study and the ways in which it has begun to impact their teaching and leading. Becoming teacher researchers enhances their teacher leadership. Mutually Exclusive with TLRN 684.
Corequisite(s): EDFD 684. Restriction(s): Admission to the teacher Leadership Endorsement Program. This course brings together current ideas and literature in a critical exploration of the interrelationship between teaching, learning, and leadership. It provides teacher leaders with tools and resources to evaluate and develop their own views of the relationship between teaching and learning and the ways to document and assess student growth. Teacher leaders develop a working understanding of concepts such as learning, cognition, development, assessment, and pedagogy and examine how they occur in a variety of cultural contexts (home, school and community) and also within their own practices. In the course teachers analyze multiple examples that illustrate common interests and concerns with an emphasis on professional learning, research-based instructional practices, and the quality of reflective practice and self-study of teaching. Mutually Exclusive with TLRN 686.
Corequisite(s): EDFD 692. This course brings together research and practice in a critical exploration of professional development and teacher learning. It provides teacher leaders with the tools and resources to be able to develop their own understanding of the role of communities of practice and professional development in teacher learning. Students study what research tells us about effective and ineffective professional development forms, focusing particularly on those that involve teacher leadership. We examine the role of technology and data analysis in teacher learning and how it is most effectively used in professional development. Students identify professional development needs in their school and then work to develop professional development plans and programs to meet those needs, incorporating technology and their understanding of effective professional development practices. Mutually Exclusive with TLRN 689.
Corequisite(s): EDFD 689. This course brings together theories and practices of education policy and law that have had an impact on teacher education, certification, and licensure. It provides teacher leaders with the habits of mind, skills, tools and resources to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of education policy and law through the lens of teacher education. Teacher leaders study the history that has shaped the development of these education policies and laws on local, state, and federal levels, and will consider the impact of politics, the courts, and public opinion. They apply these understandings in order to critique policies derived from current federal legislation and explore their roles as advocates for teachers, students, and families. Mutually Exclusive with TLRN 692.
Restriction(s): Matriculation in EdD in Pedagogy and Philosophy. This course will focus on selected theoretical and practical issues regarding the relationships between pedagogy and philosophy, including but not limited to research topics, pedagogical theory and strategy, curriculum assessment and development, the relationship of Philosophy for Children to various philosophical traditions, and related topics in critical thinking, moral education, and philosophy of education. May be repeated once for a maximum of 6 credits.
Restriction(s): Matriculation in EdD in Pedagogy. This course will examine the concept of democracy and a range of interrelated issues inherent in the public purposes of schooling in social and political democracies. Students will inquire into the meaning of citizenship in a democracy, and the role of schools in fostering its development and expression. This inquiry will be conducted comparatively. Varying domestic and international socio-cultural and political contexts will be examined. Students will examine various curricular and pedagogical designs and governance structures that can be associated with models of democratic schooling. The moral obligations of pedagogy and stewardship that fall to teachers in the conduct of educating for democratic citizenship will also be examined.
Restriction(s): Matriculation in EdD in Pedagogy. This course examines the art and science of teaching and learning in an evolving social and political democracy. It aims at developing an understanding that teaching and learning occur in sociocultural contexts. Themes to be explored include competing views of knowledge and their implications for curriculum construction; current theories of learning and assessment; strategies to ascertain student's prior knowledge and experience; and pedagogical practices that build upon student's cultural capital. The course will examine diverse pedagogical strategies and their relationships to the structure and epistemology of the disciplines. Special attention will be given to the moral dimensions of the teaching-learning process.
Restriction(s): Matriculation in EdD in Pedagogy. In this course, doctoral students will learn to analyze complex organizational patterns, situations and policies that define and affect diverse educational settings in the US and in other places. Students will examine various models of leadership, theories and research on change models, and the processes of educational policy formation. Students will develop an understanding of their own role as change agents. There will be a field component for this course in which students will conduct research on the development, implementation and/or evaluation of a plan for change in an educational setting.
Restriction(s): Matriculation in a doctoral program at MSU. This course introduces students to the theories and practices of qualitative research. Students develop skills to critically analyze qualitative studies and the various components of research design. They are also introduced to a rich array of qualitative approaches and possibilities in educational research. They develop an understanding of what is involved in designing original research and have hands-on practice with qualitative data gathering.
Restriction(s): Matriculation in a doctoral program at MSU. This course introduces students to major methodologies and fundamental skills of quantitative research. Students critically examine the features of common research methods, including experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental designs, as well as related sampling techniques. Students study the underlying principles of measurement, focusing on such concepts as validity, reliability, and bias. Students also acquire skills for interpreting basic statistical procedures. Topics include descriptive statistics, introduction to probability and statistical inference, and the presentation and interpretation of statistical data in empirical literature. The course provides students with an opportunity to use statistical computing packages, such as SPSS, to support data analysis and interpretation.
Prerequisite(s): EDFD 821. The second in a sequence of two doctoral courses in quantitative research methods, this course enables students to further examine and apply quantitative research methods and tools. Students learn widely-used statistical procedures that are fundamental for the further study of statistics. They study inferential statistical methods and their applications to research. Topics include simple and multiple regression, one-factor analysis of variance, factorial designs, analysis of covariance, and nonparametric methods. Students have multiple opportunities to use statistical computing packages, such as SPSS, to support data analysis. Students further develop the skills for understanding and evaluating the use of quantitative methods in the research literature.
Prerequisite(s): EDFD 820. This is the second in a sequence of two doctoral courses in qualitative research methods, building on students' initial understanding of qualitative research from EDFD 820 Qualitative Methods of Research in Education. This course offers students the opportunity to develop a more in-depth understanding of qualitative research and its application to original research, including dissertations. Students explore the interconnections and congruence between theoretical and conceptual framing, research design, and data analysis and representation.
Restriction(s): Matriculation in EdD in Pedagogy; Advancement to Candidacy. While enrolled in Dissertation Advisement, students will work with their dissertation advisor and dissertation committee. Credits are reported as IP (In Progress) while the dissertation is being written. At the successful conclusion of the dissertation defense, a final grade of pass will be recorded.