Spring 2006 Class Descriptions

CI 435 OL - Computing and Instruction: Games, Simulations and Virtual Reality

Computers have changed our worlds in ways never imagined. As we spend our time instant messaging and emailing, the world is claiming people from every corner of the earth through online games, simulations and virtual reality! The focus of this course is Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) and its relation to classroom teaching with a particular emphasis on games, simulations and virtual reality.  Video games, robots, simulations and virtual reality are emerging as the latest technologies in k-12 classrooms for teaching and learning. Specifically, this course investigates the application of video games, robots, simulations and virtual reality to classroom teaching and learning. It provides students with computer assisted instruction using 1) a theoretical framework for understanding the dynamics of gaming, robots, simulations and virtual reality 2) an opportunity to expand their awareness of specific issues related to computer related use of video games, robots, and virtual worlds and 3) a process to explore various methods related to research and practice using simulations and virtual reality applications.  This course is available to upper level undergraduates and graduate students in Master's and Ph. D. programs throughout the university.

CI 499 AFH - The Development of African Studies: Sources, Methods, and Curriculum

This course is designed for students in the fields of African Studies, International Education, and Curriculum Studies. It explores the development of African Studies as an interdisciplinary body of area knowledge and its role in secondary and tertiary education in the United States. After examining the development of the field in the US, the course turns to an exploration of the political economy of knowledge production in Africa and the systems and roles of education in colonial, post-colonial and globalizing Africa. As a final project, students will design their own syllabi/curricular units appropriate to their disciplines and area interests.

C & I 499 BSL - Bilingual and ESL Methods and Materials

This is a teacher education course that focuses on bilingual and ESL curriculum development and instruction for students (k-12) in a variety of language and program settings. The course emphasizes second-language instructional theory and practice, bilingual and ESL materials selection and development, bilingual and ESL literacy instruction, content-based ESL instruction and sheltered English instruction. The course is designed to meet two of the course requirements for the Illinois State Board of Education's Bilingual Education Teaching Approval (ESL methods and materials and bilingual methods and materials) and one of the course requirements for the Illinois State Board of Education's ESL Teaching Approval (ESL methods and materials).  Juniors, seniors, Master's, and doctoral students are welcome to take the course.

CI 507 BA - Bilingual and ESL Assessment

This course explores the role of assessment in the education of culturally and linguistically diverse students. The current state of assessment in the United States will be analyzed as well as how assessments are used for the identification and placement of students. An overview of evaluation and assessment methods at the district and school level will be provided. Various forms of classroom-based assessment will be examined and how it can inform instruction. This course meets the ISBE assessment requirements for bilingual and ESL teaching approval.

CI 507 EDD - Evidence- and Data-driven Curriculum Planning

This lab-based course will explore the notions of evidence-based and data-driven practice. The centerpiece of the course will be a set of labs introducing the participants to SPSS/EXCEL via hand-on analyses of data sets. This lab-based work will culminate with a paper, the major course requirement, reporting the results of an analysis of the effects of ‘reform’ in local schools.  The discursive  theme to be treated is evidence-based practice. We will look at examples of claims for evidence-based practice and  ask if there can be such a in K-12 education.  The course is targeted on pre- and in-service masters’ students in educational policy and administration and curriculum administration. It offers a beginning lab in SPSS and its application to real-world, local school data.  Background reading: D. K. Cohen, S. W. Raudenbusch & D. L. Ball (2003) Resources, instruction, and research. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 25 (2), 119--142.

CI 507 LAS - Large-Scale Assessment

This course explores the principles and practice of large-scale assessment -- of the kind used in the OECD PISA project, the IEA TIMSS project, NAEP, and the NCLB-driven state-wide assessment programs. After a review of the principles of assessment and a descriptive review of PISA, TIMSS, and NAEP, the center-piece of the course will be discussion of a set of papers by Robert Linn critiquing -- from the point of view of a psychometrican -- the policies and practices around NCLB.  The course is targeted on doctoral-level students in educational policy and administration and curriculum administration who are interested in understanding the framing and operations of NCLB.  Textbook: Edward Kifer (2001) Large-scale Assessment: Dimensions, Dilemmas, and Policy (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin).

CI 507 LS - Learning in Science

This course for doctoral and masters students looks at major learning theories as they apply to science education.  Course readings will focus on major figures in and theories of learning that have had a substantial impact on science education research and practice, such as behaviorism, Piaget, Dewey, Vygotsky, information processing theories, situated learning, and constructivism, among others.  In addition to discussing course readings, students will engage in learning activities and reflect on their own learning in light of their experiences and the course readings.  While the class will tend to focus on examples from science and mathematics, students in areas other than science are welcome.

CI 507 PDM - Professional Development in Mathematics Education: Research, Policy, and Practice

This course will consider research perspectives, policies and practices associated with the professional development of mathematics teachers.  Although efforts to improve U.S. public schooling have been an enduring process, the NCLB has intensified scrutiny on school performance. Especially in the current policy environment, it is important to understand the proliferation of standards for and new ideas about curriculum and instruction; their correspondence to what we, as practitioners, mean by professional development; and to investigate the ways in which teachers may improve their practice. In this course we will examine what policymakers recommend for effective professional development, what research findings seem to suggest, how schools do professional development for successful mathematics teaching, and the implications of policy and real world practices for equality of opportunity for mathematics learning. Professional development specialists will be featured as guest lecturers as we consider the real world of professional development practices.  Student learning activities include brief summaries of course readings called queries, a reflective journal, and the analysis of a professional development program for mathematics teachers. Highly motivated master's students and doctoral students are encouraged to enroll.

CI 507 RUQ - Reading and Understanding Quantitative Research

This course is intended to help novice researchers (practitioners or beginning graduate students) understand and evaluate quantitative research. It is also intended for more advanced graduate students who are focusing on qualitative or other research methods in their own work but who want to have a better understanding of quantitative research. The course is open to students in any area of study; practitioners are particularly welcome.  The basic working mode in the course is for students to bring in quantitative research articles in their own area that they are particularly interested in understanding or  working through. Typically we discuss enough of the article to understand the purpose of the research and then focus on one or more particular topics (sampling, design, statistical procedures), which are then explained in lecture-discussion format. So in effect the research paper is used to motivate and illustrate the essential ideas involved, and to constantly illustrate the meaning of any statistical aspect in ordinary English. Particular concepts and interpretation of results may also be practiced using concrete data-sets supplied by the instructor, running them on SPSS Windows, and discussing and interpreting the SPSS output.  Concepts to be covered depend to some extent on student background and will include some basic concepts like as population, sample, variables and data-sets, to basic design ideas, the idea of hypothesis testing (sampling distributions etc.) and elementary hypothesis tests like t-tests, ANOVAs, and chi-square tests for contingency tables etc. Much of this is done in terms using pictures. Depending on student interest and the articles they bring, somewhat more advanced topics like factor analysis or discriminant analysis, or path analysis or loglinear models may also be covered. Students are encouraged to come see the instructor if they are considering taking the course to discuss their individual situation and interests.

CI 509 AR - Action  Research

Action research in educational and other social settings involves systematic study carried out by people who are participating in a social practice – like schooling, community life, social services, workplaces, etc. The research topics and questions are formed from issues that are important to people in their school and community contexts. Action research highlights the knowledge people create as they seek to improve their practice, their understandings of social practices, as well as the contexts in which practice takes place. In this way, action research has professional, personal, and political dimensions. It is a process which privileges neither theory nor practice, but regards both as important and mutually informing. Syllabus.

CI 540 SER - History and Philosophy of Science Education Reform

We will explore the history of reform in science education in the United States. We will examine the ways in which perceptions of science and science education have changed over the last century, and consider ways in which changing views in and of science have affected and continue to affect science education practice and research.  We will focus on the lessons we can learn from examining history of science education.  The course will also move to the current times to consider what recent movements are impacting science education.  The course will be divided into three parts. The first part will provide a general overview of the history of science education. Once we have a better sense of how science and science education have changed over the last century, we will examine issues in science education and how they have changed.  We will conclude by considering impacts and implications of what we have learned regarding current teaching practices and policies. 

CI 582 A - Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum

Designed primarily for teachers at the elementary through middle high level, this course focuses on theory and practice related to reading and writing across the curriculum.  The course emphasizes practical application of specific methods and strategies for fostering effective integrated literacy instruction.  Discussion and hands-on activities are the main instructional methods used in this course.

CI 590 CAT - Pro-seminar for Students in CATE

This pro-seminar for CATE grad students will serve as a forum for discussing the many matters, research questions, graduate-life concerns, and so on across this multifaceted and motley division. Faculty and grad students from across the division will discuss their work, their interests, their agenda, their secrets for survival and thrival, and the tricks of the trade in general. I will arrive with an initial and flexible framework for the semester. The first meeting will be devoted to filling in the details of that framework to make it useful for CATE members. The goal is a pro-seminar that will serve as a catalyst for other activities, academic and social, across the semester. Non-CATE students with a good story welcome.

CI 590 GYM - Globalization, Youth Cultures and Media Technologies

In this course students will examine the global and the local in relation to the lives of children.  For example, we shall consider how the economics of globalization affect the lived experiences of children and adolescents worldwide (e.g. poverty, social injustice).   Also, the context of a commercialized visual culture such as the United States is examined in terms of how the nature of media act to shape perception and desire.  The course, framed by a critical studies perspective, focuses on issues related to power and social justice, specifically with regards to the rights of children as indicated by the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which has instituted minimum standards that protect and insure children’s welfare worldwide.   More specifically, we shall examine the phenomenon of violence and our relationship to it both in terms of how it exists within the lived experiences of many children both locally and internationally, and as an expression of social imagination within visual culture.  Students will engage in the practice of cultural criticism and be invited to consider the following questions:  How is childhood socially constructed, by whom, and for what purposes?  How are these factors related to the international rights and welfare of all children?  What characterizes commodification and its relationship to the “culture industry?”  What defines the association between children’s lives within existing socio-economic contexts and “cultures of violence?”  What does it mean to experience childhood within a postmodern technological society sustained by a globalized market economy?  This course will be of interest to graduate students in the areas of curriculum and cultural studies, media and technology studies and teacher education. 

CI 590 IME - Inspirational of Higher Math for Educators

This experimental course is a response to the situation that a large majority of mathematics teachers in our middle schools and high schools are almost completely disconnected from the spirit of higher or abstract mathematics and the joy and inspiration which the latter provides. To engender this spirit and inspiration, this course gets students involved in a fascinating area, working at their own pace and at concrete levels, and exploring connections to things in- and outside mathematics. The idea is not to teach “how to teach” higher math, or “how to apply” higher math to real life or the high school class room, but to get class members so enthusiastic and inspired about doing things connected with higher mathematics and into the spirit of higher math that they start to develop classroom applications on their own. I taught this type of course once before, under the title “The Inspiration of Higher Math: A course for educators”, It was very successful and I found that class members were eager to develop their own classroom ideas and materials. Syllabus.