Students explore instructional techniques, curriculum materials, and strategies for teaching the sciences in upper middle and high school. Standards-driven instruction, teaching for understanding, assessment, and integration of science concepts into other subject areas will be considered. Advocacy skills are developed through personal and collaborative plans for ongoing professional development. MED 641 Organizational and Policy Perspectives for Educators. Students examine the organizational behavior of schools and school systems, analyzing the politics, economics, finance, and sociology of education, with special emphasis on the teacher's role as a professional leader with perspective vision on schools and society.
Students acquire in-depth understand of the challenges of change and the moral exercise of power.
Students examine the cultural, social, political, and economic forces that have influenced the history of American education, shaping the schools we have today. Particular attention is paid to various reform movements in the past and present and their power to change American education. Students analyze current efforts to redesign schools, to rethink teaching and learning practice, and to shape a new future for American education. The Foundations of Education. Students gain an overview of the philosophical, curricular, social, historical, legal, economic, and political foundations of education as necessary background for professionalism in teaching.