This course provides students with a deep understanding of the nature, causes and consequences of poverty during the early childhood years in the United States. Students will explore mitigating factors that promote healthy child development, including the promotive role family support and practices play. Students will also examine the history of programs serving young children and critically analyze their impact.

What makes games so much fun? How can games be educational? The goal of this course is to understand how games can motivate, engage, and teach. In this course students will survey current approaches by playing a variety of games and develop understanding of game-based learning, motivation, and design thinking perspectives. Students will apply this understanding by designing a new educational game in a collaborative class project.

Field-based practicum for preservice teachers seeking initial licensure. Students develop skills in fostering positive professional relationships with students, colleagues, and peers; designing and implementing individual, small group, and whole class instruction; and observing and reflecting on practice. This course meets the guidelines for state-approved teacher education programs in Virginia.

This course explores the meaning and concepts associated with the field of learning disabilities, including the psychological and behavioral characteristics of individuals with learning disabilities. Topics include specific causes, assessment, and treatment of learning disabilities and related disabilities. Educational, psychological, historical, and medical implications are addressed.

This course addresses reading and writing development from emergent literacy through adolescent readers with attention to diverse needs of students. The course also addresses components of effective literacy programs (e.g., concepts of print, fluency, phonological awareness, phonics, spelling, writing, comprehension, vocabulary) and evidence-based practices for reading and writing instruction informed by assessment within an MTSS framework.

Using Sims Bishops' (1990) mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors framework, students read, analyze, and discuss contemporary young adult literature (YAL) featuring marginalized viewpoints and identities. Students will collaborate around strategies to incorporate contemporary YAL into schools and evaluate the viewpoints present and absent in the titles they currently use with young adults.

We study instructional design, planning and delivery, assessments, and professional behavior for pre-service teachers in a secondary field. Planning standards-based lessons, shifting to a professional perspective of learning, and the ways to gather, analyze, and use data to measure academic progress, guide instructional content and delivery, and provide timely feedback are covered. Pre-requisite: Admission to Teacher Education Program

Introduction to the study of exceptional children and adults. Extends principles of learning and intellectual, socio-cultural, emotional, and physical development to persons with disabilities. Includes gifted, autism, TBI, dyslexia, ADHD and other medical conditions; historical, ethical, and legal aspects; application of federal/state regulatory requirements; identification, education, and evaluation of students with disabilities.

This course explores how students' language, experiences, and literacy development play a role in learning content material. Participants explore the nature and meaning of content literacy and what it means to learn through texts. Theoretical and foundational considerations will frame the exploration, modeling, and instructional practice of comprehension, academic and content vocabulary, and writing to learn strategies.

This class focuses on instruction, classroom management, behavioral management, and personalized curriculum techniques for establishing positive learning environments in secondary classrooms. Prerequisite: Admission to Teacher Education Program; EDIS 5020.