Grad courses
Course Descriptions
In addition to the courses listed below, Curriculum and Instruction students can also take research courses in other College of Education programs (pdf).
The following are descriptions of some of the graduate courses that may be available to LCS students:
LLED 500 The Reading/Writing Classroom - A pragmatic look at alternative models of teaching literacy with a emphasis on the consequences of each for definitions of literacy and of a literate society.
LLED 501 The Teaching of Writing K-12 - Students examine the ways writing has been thought about and taught in schools in the United States. We will read and discuss seminal works of theory and research in the field of composition, and we will consider the implications of those works for instructional practice. Our own experiences as writers will serve as important entry points for these discussions.
CI 501 Teaching as Inquiry - This master’s level course is designed for practicing teachers to conduct research in their own classrooms. We will learn to frame questions, examine data, and draw conclusions to better understand education.
CI 502 Qualitative Research Methods in Curriculum and Instruction - In this seminar we will be examining qualitative research philosophies and practices. Specific designs and methods will be explored in detail (case study, ethnography, grounded theory, discourse analysis, narrative analysis, documentary and arts-based research).
LLED 503 Qualitative Research Methods in Curriculum and Instruction II - research design seminar in which students form writing groups and provide feedback on weekly written exercises (e.g., researcher identity, concept maps, research questions, rationale, methods) and present a research study from their field in order for group critique. In this way, students learn how to read studies for validity, rigor, etc. We discuss different frameworks of critique, from post-positivist to poststructuralist. Ultimately, students turn in a paper that can either be a dissertation proposal, a paper reflecting on some aspect of the writing process/research design (e.g., the development of research questions), or a more formal use of research design (data analysis, or a literature review that leads to a conceptual framework).
AED 505 Foundations of Art Education - This survey course is designed to introduce students to historical and contemporary study of art education. We examine movements and topics such as aesthetic education, discipline-based art education, cognition and child development in art, postmodern art education, visual and material culture studies, performance art, outsider art and critical pedagogy. Much of the course focuses on contemporary art and corresponding theories of pedagogy and practice.
LLED/SSED 530 Media Literacy and Texts in Social Education - This course examines the learning effects and social implications of media in educational systems. It draws on scholarship from history, social studies, media education, film studies, emerging literacies, and related fields. Each section may offer a different focus on topics involving visual, auditory, print, and technological documents and artifacts of popular culture and connections between the past and present, civic and social issues, language, and culture.
LLED/SSED 532 Democracy and Education - This course examines how democracy and civic participation are constructed and enacted in schooling, as theoretical concepts and pedagogical goals. Participants may investigate historical and contemporary theories and research on schooling for democracy. The class may engage in current debates around civic education, cultural politics, and critical democracy. Assignments and activities may also involve analyzing, questioning, or re-envisioning societal conditions required for a meaningful and effective democracy.
LLED/SSED 533 Theory and Research in the Teaching of Social Education - This course examines scholarly research on topics relating to connections between the past and present, civic and social issues, language, and culture. It draws on scholarship from history, social studies, gender studies, cultural studies, media education, and related fields. Each section may offer a different focus on topics in social education, ranging from history, to civics and citizenship, to democracy and civic action, and other related fields.
LLED/SSED 534 Powerful Social Studies for Practicing Teachers - This course is designed for PK-12 classroom teachers pursuing a masters’ degree. In this course, students explore innovative as well as time-tested methods for effective teaching in the social studies. Students will have the opportunity to read current and relevant research of classroom practices and may work on evaluating or developing innovative, powerful social studies curriculum and instructional methods.
LLED 541 Adolescent and Children's Literature Related to Social and Ethnic Issues - This course explores the politics of representation in children’'s and adolescent literature as it investigates and interrogates the different cultural, sociological, psychological, and historical factors that might have contributed to the language and images specific authors use to represent race, class, gender and selected social issues in their literary texts.
LLED 545 Language and Literacy Assessment - In this course we consider the roles of assessment and testing in education with particularly interest in formative assessments that influence teaching decisions. Theoretical and practical concerns are explored. Requires data gathering, analysis, and reporting.
CI 550 Contemporary School Curriculum - This course provides an overview of contemporary issues relating to schools and curriculum, their impact on pupils and society, and problems facing the construction, implementation, and reform of curriculum. In Metzger’s section, the course focuses on “school and society”—offering a sociological perspective on the interface between the educational system, societal context, and struggles over curriculum. This course emphasizes schooling and curriculum as sociological phenomena in which power and social identities are constructed, negotiated, and sometimes challenged.
CI 577 / LLED 577 Multicultural Education in Schools - This course examines human and group relations in the context of interdependent individual, cultural, and institutional behavior perpetrated in schools and by the media industries. It offers theoretical frameworks, teaching methods, and curriculum models for elementary and secondary classrooms and to explore issues related to multicultural and multiethnic education.
CI 597 -- Writing About Research in C&I - In this course, you will revise a course paper, conference paper, or a slice of your thesis or dissertation into an article for publication. Activities will address structure and organization of arguments, characteristics of research publications in various subfields, writing habits of a productive scholar, and matters of style and editing. Please note that this course is focused on preparing an article for submission, not initial research proposals or candidacy papers.
CI 597 Vygotsky's Dynamic Assessment - This course explores a reconceptualization of assessment that understands it as integrated with teaching in order to understand individuals' abilities by actively promoting their development. We will explore the theoretical basis of Dynamic Assessment (DA) in Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory of mind, especially the Zone of Proximal Development. Key works in both SCT and the DA research literatures will be covered before turning to ongoing applications in diverse contexts, with particular attention to classroom learners.
LLED 597 Post-9/11 Literacies - This course explores the nature and functions of post-9/11 literacies, particularly as they emerge and change in relationship to popular culture narratives. Students embark upon their own inquiry into the intersections of 9/11, new literacies and media and generate new, critical ideas about literacies in the Post 9/11 Era.
LLED 597 Foundations of New Literacy Studies - This course examines the emergence of New Literacy Studies (NLS) as one movement in the "social turn" away from a focus on reading as an exculsively cognitive practice. Students survey seminal works and theorists in NLS and generate a deep understanding of the interesctions of literacies, contexts, popular culture, technologies and literacy education research. An emphasis on NLS' intersections with critical literacy and social justice are also visited.
LLED 597 / SSED 597 Gender and Education - In this course, students will analyze and critique traditional conceptions of knowledge alongside feminist theory and pedagogies. The investigations seek to uncover how some historical and current constructions of race, gender, class and sexuality shape schooling and identitywork. The readings will be global, critical, historical and feminist, exploring how gendered groups are “positioned by” schooling and curriculum. Students will be encouraged to explore their own interests related to gender and schooling. Unlike many courses on gender, this course gives attention to male gender equity issues, masculinities and transgendered identities.
LLED 597 Media, Literacy and Children/Adolescent Pop Culture - combination of practical production experiences (Garage Band, IMovie, Cartoon Life) with research and theory from media studies, cultural studies, childhood studies and new/digital literacies.
LLED 597 Theories of Identity and Representation - theory survey class, looking at primary writing and education studies from colonial and post-colonial, psychoanalytic, critical race, Marxist, post-structural, feminist and queer theories.
LLED 597 Foucault and Education - careful reading of primary Foucault texts, as well as commentaries and applications of Foucault in education.
LLED 597 Theories of Childhoods - The childhood studies course examines historical, contemporary and global constructions of the concept of childhood, particularly in psychology, education, politics and popular culture.
LLED 597 The Arts Across the Curriculum - This course is offered to graduate students interested in education research, policy and curriculum design related to the performing, visual, design, writing, and media arts. Topics include the aesthetic foundations of education, the arts and cognition, the role of the arts in social and cultural transformation, and interdisciplinary arts practice.
LLED 597 Writing Across the Curriculum - Participants in this course explore the theory and research on writing across the curriculum in order to understand the history and potential of this movement. We will try to strike a balance between considering WAC as something that goes on in individual classrooms and as something that goes on in programs and institutions, and we will explore writing both as a tool for learning and thinking and as a tool for communication and the construction of knowledge in particular disciplines.
LLED 597 Writing Assessment - The course focuses on the theory, practice, and history of writing assessment. Much of the reading comes from the area of college composition, but the course is designed for students in literacy or English education, curriculum and instruction, or educational administration. We will discuss topics including but not limited to testing, formative and summative assessments, holistic and analytic approaches, and ongoing efforts toward electronic assessment, across both institutional and classroom contexts. Further, we will consider the political and policy environment for writing assessment and how it affects teaching and learning.
LLED 597 Writing and Transformation - Writing has often been described as having one or another sort of "transformative power" for the writer — the power to heal psychological traumas, the power to liberate, the power to foster spiritual enlightenment, or the power to enhance learning. Yet this notion comes with an abundance of questions: if writing does foster transformation of some kind, exactly how does this happen? And what is a “transformation” anyway? How does the idea affect teaching and learning in classrooms, or writing in extracurricular settings? And how can it be researched responsibly? In this graduate course, we will consider writing’s transformative power (if it can be said to exist) from several disciplinary perspectives and perhaps work toward a way of understanding how these different strands of scholarship could converge.
CI 597 Foundations of Education Research - An overview of a variety of approaches to educational research within the context of the Education Science Reform Act of 2002.
CI 597/CIED 597 Proposal Writing - This workshop style course provides a step-by-step guide to demystify the process of writing a successful graduate / dissertation research proposal. The initial step is to assist participants to organize their research ideas using a concept map design. Writing tools will be utilized fully to make easy the communication of the research plan, design, research methods, and presentation of final proposal idea to a doctoral committee or funding source.
WMNST 597 Girls, Girl Culture and Girlhood Studies: Towards Mapping the Field - This interdisciplinary course will examine issues around girls, girl culture, and the nature of girlhood across time, cultures and geopolitical spaces. Girlhood studies seeks to locate girls at the center of research and action in order to engage in feminist work that is not simply about girls but “for” “with” and “by” girls.
