This course is a "bottom-up" history of education seminar on African Americans' struggle for equal education during the civil rights movement. As "bottom up" history, the course explores and seeks out overlooked and untold stories of youth and teacher activism. The course will include learning how to do oral history and engagement with the local community.

Independent Study

Directed Research under supervision of faculty member.

This course examines children's learning and development in the elementary school grades. The course, designed for students who plan to become teachers, focuses on cognitive development (e.g., the role of the brain in learning, misconceptions, transfer) and social development (e.g., relationships, moral development). Three themes emerge: individual variability and diversity, development, and translation from research to practice.

This course examines adolescent learning and development and is designed for students who plan to teach in secondary schools. Adolescent cognitive, physical, and social development is considered from a multi-level (e.g., school, family, community) perspective. In identifying links between these domains and learning, three themes emerge: individual variability and diversity, developmental trends, and translating educational research to practice.

Introduction to how research in developmental science intersects with applied work with children and youth. Students will learn foundational principles of development, examine how they apply to contemporary issues (e.g., disparities in educational opportunities), and highlight challenges present in the field. Students will also learn about programs and services designed to address these issues for children, youth, and families.

This course will examine the foundations of educational policy from critical theoretical perspectives rooted in the social sciences and humanities in a graduate level seminar intended for both disciplinary students and students pursuing specialized work in educational studies. The goal of the course is to examine from a variety of critical perspectives, the core issues that underlie contemporary debates over public and educational policy.

In this course we will cover theories, methods, and research at the intersection of education and neuroscience and the implications of this work for educational practice. Major topics include research on student development in reading and math, as well as the development of foundational skills that support student learning, including executive functions, emotion regulation, and motivation.

This course introduces students to basic concepts and methods of empirical research common to the fields of education and human development. It focuses on the relationship between research problem, questions and design and introduces students to techniques for collecting, analyzing, and evaluating research data.

This course will focus on biological, psychological and social development from birth through older adulthood. Topics will be presented via discussion of underlying theory, research, and application, with attention to how gender, race, SES, and cohort impact development. Concepts of consistency and change will be stressed. Throughout, students will be encouraged to examine and even question their own beliefs about what it means to "grow up".