ED 521 Student Growth and Development Students investigate implications for teaching of research and theory growing out of the work of scholars such as Piaget, Kohlberg, Elkind, and Erikson. Students generate and study the implications of contrasting guidelines for teaching from principles associated with a variety of contemporary topics associated with student development, experience, and achievement. This course considers the relationship of the individual and society and of individual cultures within a pluralistic society. Topics include major theories from social psychology, multiethnic and multicultural education, and interpersonal communications skills. This course investigates the various learning characteristics of gifted and handicapped students and the strategies and practices elementary and secondary school teachers can use to develop the full range of learning abilities of individuals and groups.
Students prepare and carry out lessons in mini-teaching and real classroom situations.
This course trains students to use research-based methods and materials to accelerate children's development in language arts. Topics include stages of language development, theory of whole language instruction, the reading-writing process, bookmaking, the writing workshop, and the integration of language arts with other disciplines. This course introduces teaching methods for arithmetic, computation, and basic mathematical concepts. Topics include strategies for teaching mathematics in accordance with the stages of children's cognitive development and for teaching prenumber and number concepts, place value and numeration, whole numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. This course is designed for experienced elementary or secondary school teachers who wish to deepen their knowledge of the teaching methods of their discipline, as well as interdisciplinary teaching methods.