Course description: To what aims have education reformers aspired over time? When and how did schools become tools for divergent goals, such as reducing inequality, advancing capitalism, creating cultural uniformity, and liberating oppressed peoples? Why have educational policies succeeded or failed to achieve these ends, and what were some of the unintended consequences? In this mid-level undergraduate course, we compare and contrast selected movements, both past and present, to reform elementary, secondary, and higher education in the United States from the nineteenth-century Common School era to contemporary debates over school choice, cultural differences, governance structures, and digital technology. Students will develop skills in reading and researching primary and secondary sources, interpreting divergent perspectives, and expository writing on the web.
Cross-listed with American Studies and Public Policy & Law. Pre-requisite: Ed 200, or AMST or PBPL major, or permission of instructor.
Time & location: Mondays 6:30-9:10pm in Seabury S205, Trinity College, Hartford CT
About the instructor: Jack Dougherty, an associate professor of educational studies at Trinity College, specializes in the history and policy of education in the metropolitan United States. He received his Ph.D. in educational policy studies, with a minor in U.S. history, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. See faculty profile with contact info, and appointments & advising page for office hours and scheduling meetings online.
Teaching assistant: Andy Ribner, Wesleyan ’14 (see his profile and email), will work with students on their education policy journalism assignments
Required books:
Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, Revised and Expanded. Basic Books, 2011. ISBN 0465025579
Paul Tough, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America, Reprint. Mariner Books, 2009. ISBN 0547247966
James T. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy. Oxford University Press, USA, 2002. ISBN 0195156323
If your last name is A-L: David S. Cecelski, Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina, and the Fate of Black Schools in the South. The University of North Carolina Press, 1994. ISBN 0807844373
OR if last name is M-Z: Constance Curry, Silver Rights: The story of the Carter family’s brave decision to send their children to an all-white school and claim their civil rights. Harvest Books, 1996. ISBN 0156004798
A small fee will be collected in class to cover the cost of additional photocopies.
Schedule (always check for instructor’s updates; important changes will appear in red)
by Sunday Jan 27th
Monday Jan 28 in class: Overview & Introduction to Common School Reform
- Syllabus overview and broader questions on education reform, past & present
- In class: Interpretive reading quiz (practice) about syllabus on Moodle
- Assign authors to source detective questions
- How to schedule appointments (due by Fri for source post authors 1-3)
- How to navigate Trinity Banter/WordPress to create & categorize your first post
- In class: WordPress post on what you wish to learn (category = learning goal)
- Class policy on public writing and student privacy, and “how searchable are you?” test
- Question: who comes to the Ed Reform website and/or comments on it?
- Presentation: What textbooks reveal about the Common School Movement
- Preview next week’s readings, and how to comment on Google Document
- History lab: Common school textbooks at Watkinson Library with worksheet
due Fri Feb 1 by 9pm
- Source detective questions #1 by CV, #2 by EP, and #3 by AP — please schedule appointments with me by Friday to help you discuss your strategies
due Sun Feb 3 by 9pm
- Use “Guiding questions” below to help organize your notes and to prepare for the Interpretive reading quiz on Moodle (due Sunday 9pm) and mid-term exam
- Guiding question: How does historian Diane Ravitch explain how recent school reform movements went in the “wrong” direction, and what led her to change her thinking about these issues?
- Read: Ravitch, Death and Life of the Great American School System, ch. 1-5 (pp. 1-91).
- Guiding question: According to historian John Rury, what were the major accomplishments of common school advocates, and who opposed their reforms?
- Read: John L. Rury, “Common-School Reform,” in Education and Social Change: Contours in the History of American Schooling, Third Edition (New York: Routledge, 2009), 74–80.
- Guiding question: How did common-school advocate Horace Mann justify why citizens should financially support government-sponsored schooling?
- Read: Horace Mann, “Intellectual Education as a Means of Removing Poverty, and Securing Abundance,” excerpt from “Annual Report to the Board of Education of Massachusetts for 1848,” in Life and Works of Horace Mann, ed. Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, vol. 3 (Boston: Walker, Fuller and co., 1865), 663–670, http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001067112. Recommended: annotated GoogleDoc version, to see my questions/comments and add your own.
- Guiding question: Although prevailing norms dictated that white Protestant women should remain in the “private sphere” as mothers and homemakers during the nineteenth century, common-school advocate Catherine Beecher bent this rule to persuade women to enter the “public sphere” as school teachers. How did she craft this argument?
- Read: Catherine Beecher, The Evils Suffered by American Women and American Children: The Causes and the Remedy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1846), excerpt. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003456542. Recommended: annotated GoogleDoc version, to see my questions/comments and add your own.
- Guiding question: How did Beecher’s words influence women teachers in the West?
- Read: Ellen P. Lee and Mary S. Adams, “Letters from the Frontier (1852-53),” in Woman’s “True” Profession: Voices from the history of teaching, by Nancy Hoffman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2003), 79–84.
- Added (in class): John Hughes and New York. Committee of Catholics, Address of the Roman Catholics to their fellow citizens, of the City and State of New York (New-York : H. Cassidy. 1840), http://archive.org/details/addressofromanca00newy; see also GoogleDoc version for public annotation (page 10 excerpt).
- Recommended: Rosio Baez and Ashley Ardinger, “Are McGuffey Readers still used to educate children today?,” Educ 300: Education Reform, Past and Present, January 31, 2012.
- Recommended: Fionnuala Darby-Hudgens, “Where can you find Common School teachers’ letters?” Educ 300: Education Reform, Past and Present, January 30, 2012.
- See also: This week’s Responses to Source Detective questions by your classmates
Mon Feb 4th class: Interpreting Common-School & Contemporary Reforms
- Presentation: Thinking like a Historian about the Common School Movement
- Activity: Interpret and annotate nineteenth-century texts (see GoogleDoc links above)
- How to co-author, share, and comment on a Google Document
- Presentation & discussion: Ravitch’s Reversal and the The Nation At Risk
- Assign: Education policy journalism post (first draft due Fri March 8th by 9pm)
- How to capture and cite sources with Zotero (download Zotero) during class break
- Prep for next week’s readings
Tues Feb 5th optional event
- Teach For America film screening of school reform documentary, The Cartel, at Seabury N130 at 6:45 p.m. This will be a new option for the video analysis assignment later this semester.
Fri Feb 8th
- Updated Source detective questions #4 by KQ, #5 by SR, #6 by NS, #7 by VS, #8 by KT, #9 by RU — due by Friday 9pm, and I encourage you to schedule an appointment with me OR see a Trinity Librarian
Sunday February 10th by 9pm
- Interpretive reading quiz on Moodle on Ravitch, chapters 6-9 and Hess
- Guiding question: Do Ravitch and Hess agree — or disagree — on the current wave of school reform for greater choice and accountability? And how do both authors rely on historical evidence to support their arguments?
- Read: Diane Ravitch, Death and Life of the Great American School System, chapters 6-9 (pp. 93-194). Recommended: learn more about the author at: http://www.dianeravitch.com/
- Read: Frederick M. Hess, The Same Thing Over and Over: How School Reformers Get Stuck in Yesterday’s Ideas (Harvard University Press, 2010), excerpts from preface and chapter 1 (pp. ix-xiv, 1-38). Recommended: learn more about the author at: http://www.aei.org/scholar/frederick-m-hess/
- Guiding question: A century ago, John Dewey, Elwood Cubberley, and Robert Yerkes all were identified with broader Progressive education movement, but had very different goals. How did their views overlap or differ from one another?
- John Dewey, “The School and Social Progress,” in The School and Society (University of Chicago Press, 1900), 19–44, http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001055834; and add comments/questions to public annotation version on Google Docs.
- Ellwood Patterson Cubberley, “The Organization of School Boards,” in Public School Administration (Boston, New York etc.: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), 85–95, http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001283482. (See online for better graphics.)
- Robert M. Yerkes, “The Mental Rating of School Children,” National School Service 1, no. 12 (February 15, 1919): 6–7, http://archive.org/details/nationalschoolse01unituoft.
- “Revising the Test” (on Army Alpha and Beta intelligence tests), from “Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement, Chapter 5,” Facing History and Ourselves, January 3, 2012, http://www.facinghistory.org/revising-test.
- See also: This week’s Responses to Source Detective questions by your classmates
Mon Feb 11th in class: Progressive-Era and Present-Day School Reform
- DUE TO THE STORM, Trinity is closed on Monday, but I invite you to join me for a one-hour abbreviated class from 7-8pm via videoconference. Here’s how:
- To PARTICIPATE in the video conference, try to partner up with a classmate (or two) on one computer (since we’re limited to 9 participating connections); pick a computer with a good video camera, preferably in a quiet room with Ethernet (but wireless ok). Understand that this video conference will be viewable on the public web.
- By 6:30pm, someone in your group must register for a free Google+ account, and click on the instructor’s Google+ profile to add me to your circles (and I’ll do the same).
- Between 6:30-7pm, log into your Google+ page, and look for my invitation. (I will contact individual computers to test connections before the 7pm full session.) While you’re waiting, discuss the John Dewey reading with your group and write comments on the GoogleDoc version.
- At 7pm on your Google+ page, look for my invitation to join our “hangout” video conference session. Up to 9 computers may participate.
- IF YOU DO NOT PARTICIPATE in the video conference, you must watch the broadcast version on this page, which will be available to view LIVE or RECORDED. All deadlines will remain as-is for this course, so be sure to see my instructions on assignments to be completed by Friday.
- Presentation: Different Meanings of “Progressive” Education Reform
- In class: Track years of schooling for any neighborhood in 1940 US census manuscript
- Assign: Avoiding plagiarism exercise (category=same name; due Fri Feb 15 at 9pm)
- Choose a date for your Education policy journalism event (due Sat March 2nd by 9pm)
- How to capture a screenshot and how to add links & images to WordPress
- Prep for next week’s readings – pick up from my McCook hallway table OR see Moodle
Tues Feb 12 optional event
- Film screening: American Teacher at Wesleyan University, PAC001 at 6:30 p.m. Dinner will be provided. Call/Email Andy (aribner@wesleyan.edu) if you want to come! (more info on Facebook)
Fri Feb 15th by 9pm
- Avoiding Plagiarism exercise due (category = same name)
- No source detective postings due this week
Sun Feb 17th by 9pm
- Interpretive reading quiz on Ravitch and Progressive-era historians on Moodle
- Guiding question: Why does Diane Ravitch criticize the Gates Foundation and other private philanthropies that donate money to improving public schools? What does Ravitch mean by the “corporate school reform movement,” and what is their agenda? If there is no “silver bullet” to magically reform schools, as Ravitch states, then what type of reform policy does she recommend?
- Read: Ravitch, Death and Life of the Great American School System, chapters 10, 11 and epilogue (pp. 195-288).
- Guiding question: Historiography is the study of how different people have written about the past. How have four historians (Cremin, Tyack, Bowles & Gintis, and Ravitch) interpreted the goals and outcomes of Progressive-era reform in different ways? Why do their accounts differ?
- 1) Read: Lawrence A Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957 (New York: Vintage, 1961), excerpt pp. vii-ix, 135-142.
- 2) Read: David Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), excerpt pp. 126-129, 182-191.
- 3) Read: Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life (New York: Basic Books, 1976), excerpt pp. 180-181, 191-195.
- 4) Read: Diane Ravitch, The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1983), excerpt pp. 43-48.
Mon Feb 18th in class: Interpreting Progressive & Present-Day Reform in CT
- Historiography activity: Progressive-era reform through different historians’ eyes
- How to write about the past, and historians’ interpretations of the past
- See classmates’ education policy journalism posts and choose your upcoming event
- Presentation: Making Sense of Present-Day School Reform in Connecticut (2012)
- Assign video documentary analysis (due Sun Feb 24) and commentary on two other classmates’ posts (due Mon Feb 25), and learn how to analyze documentary films
- Assign next set of Source Detective questions and point out Resources & Guides
- Reminder: how & why to select the correct WordPress category for full credit
- How to capture a screenshot and how to add links & images to WordPress
- How to co-author a post in WordPress
- How to paste a word-processed document (with citations) into WordPress
Fri Feb 22nd
- Source detective postings #10:Cartel by SW, #10:American Teacher by VA; #10:Superman by AC; #10:Lottery by RD; #10:RaceToNowhere by AD, due Fri 9pm (Note that your source detective posting is different from the film assigned to watch)
- Recommended: education policy scholar Kendall Deas’s Teaching Discussion (12-1pm) or Research Presentation (1:15-2:15pm) in McCook 305
Sun Feb 24th by 9pm
- View education reform documentary video on TrinFlix account (requires Trinity password access), explore companion site, and write video documentary analysis (category = Video analysis, by title), with films assigned by student’s last name:
- Bowdon, Bob. The Cartel. Video documentary, 2009. http://www.thecartelmovie.com/. (for last names A-D instructor will contact you)
- Roth, Vanessa, and Brian McGinn. American Teacher. Video documentary, 2011. http://www.theteachersalaryproject.org/. (for last names E-Ka)
- Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman”. Video documentary, 2010. http://www.waitingforsuperman.com. (last names Ke-P instructor will contact you)
- Sackler, Madeleine. The Lottery. Video documentary, 2010. http://thelotteryfilm.com/. (for last names Q-S)
- Abeles, Vicki, and Jessica Congdon. Race to Nowhere. Video documentary, 2010. http://www.racetonowhere.com/. (for last names T-Z)
- See also: This week’s Responses to Source Detective questions by your classmates
- Comment on two other classmates’ video analysis posts before Monday Feb 25th class
- Start reading Paul Tough, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. Boston: Mariner Books, 2009.
- There is no Moodle reading quiz this weekend
Mon Feb 25th in class: Contrasting Theories of School Reform
- Reflection: Your challenges and successes on video analysis writing process?
- Presentation: Analyzing & contrasting theories of change
- Analysis guide for comparing theories of change in ed reform video documentaries
- Resource: Extended version of guiding questions for Whatever It Takes
- Updated: Choose education policy journalism event (1st draft due Fri March 8th 9pm)
- Resource: CT Gen Assembly, Office of Legislative Research (on Ed funding & ECS)
- How to prepare for upcoming open-book interpretive mid-term exam
- Recommended: create study groups to discuss book and/or prepare for exam
- How to declare a major in Ed Studies (beat the week-after-Spring-Break deadline)
Sun March 3rd by 9pm
- Interpretive reading quiz on Moodle
- Finish reading Paul Tough, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. Boston: Mariner Books, 2009.
- Guiding questions: What is the theory of change behind the Harlem Children’s Zone? According to Geoffrey Canada, what is the underlying cause of poverty, and how does it compare with other theories of poverty? Does the Harlem Children’s Zone strategy for reducing poverty lean more toward system-building or decentralization? Why do political leaders from sharply divided parties both praise his reform efforts?
Mon March 4th in class: Theories of Poverty and School Reform
- Presentation: Theories of Poverty & Reform around the Harlem Children’s Zone
- Mid-term exam during second-half of class
- Upload your exam responses for blind-review (use Trinity ID for filename)
- Start reading Patterson’s book and download copy of reading guide
Fri March 8th by 9pm
- Education policy journalism event (1st draft due; 2nd draft 24 hours after return)
Sun March 10th by 9pm
- Interpretive reading quiz on Patterson and Brown v Board on Moodle
- Reading guide for Du Bois, Brown, and Patterson: How have strategies to fight racism and unequal schooling evolved from the 1930s to the present?
- Read W.E.B. Du Bois, “Does the Negro Need Separate Schools?” The Journal of Negro Education 4, no. 3 (July 1, 1935): 328–335, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2291871 (requires Trinity network or JSTOR access).
- Read Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (Supreme Court 1954), http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12120372216939101759.
- Read James T. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy. Oxford University Press, USA, 2002.
- View “Fighting Back” (1957-62 segment), Eyes on the Prize video documentary (Blackside Inc., PBS, 1986/2006) on password-protected Trinflix site
Mon March 11th in class: Civil Rights Movement & Desegregation Law
- Credit to negate “all/none of these responses” wording on reading quiz
- Presentation: Evolution of School Desegregation Law, Plessy to Present
- Activity: Compare historical dramatization, historical documentary, and text
- George Stevens, Jr., Separate But Equal, Historical drama video, 1991 (excerpt).
- How to research legal cases with the Search Strategies resources
- Assign: Reading guide for Curry and Cecelski (reading quiz will be in-class)
- Feedback on education policy journalism experience
- Mid-semester course evaluations: what’s working, and what could be improved?
- Return exam #1, with selected student essay responses
Mon March 18th – Spring Break – no class
by Sun March 24th
- If your last name is A-M, read: David S. Cecelski, Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina, and the Fate of Black Schools in the South. The University of North Carolina Press, 1994, OR
- if last name is P-Z, read: Constance Curry, Silver Rights: The story of the Carter family’s brave decision to send their children to an all-white school and claim their civil rights. Harvest Books, 1996.
- See Curry/Cecelski comparative reading guide; be prepared for in-class reading quiz
- Read: Jack Dougherty, “Conclusion: Rethinking History and Policy in the Post-Brown Era” in More Than One Struggle: The Evolution of Black School Reform in Milwaukee. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Mon March 25th in class: Racism and Policy Implementation, North & South
- Welcome back and class discussion of mid-semester evaluation responses
- Majors fair (3/26 Common Hour) and Save the date (4/13 policy event; bonus point)
- Introduction to the Research Essay Process (proposal due Friday April 5th)
- Assign: Compare Trinity archival sources on 1960s-70s social change
- Presentation: Race & Education in Connecticut: History & Policy Questions
- Jigsaw-pair learning exercise on Curry/Cecelski readings
- In-class: Interpretive reading quiz to compare Curry/Cecelski on Moodle
Fri March 29th by 6pm (note: Watkinson Archives close around 4pm)
- Trinity Archives exercise due (mark initials on GDoc paragraph, worth 3 points)
Sun March 31st by 9pm
- Guiding Question: How did students featured in the readings below experience schooling and social change, in similar or different ways?
- Read: David Adams, Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995, chapter 4.
- Read: Leonard Covello. The Heart Is the Teacher. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958, pp. 28-31.
- Read: Esmeralda Santiago, When I Was Puerto Rican. New York: Vintage Books, 1994, excerpt.
- Note: There is no reading quiz this week, but be prepared to discuss & analyze in class.
Mon Apr 1st in class: Student Experiences of School Reform
- Announcement: Ask me to nominate you for Community Learning Research Fellows
- Presentation: Student Experiences of School Reform and Social Change
- Class discussion: compare your notes on Trinity 1960-70s archival sources
- Assign: Proposals (due Fri April 5th by 9pm) for Research Essay Process
- Read and evaluate sample research essay proposals (and feedback) from prior year
- In-class writing: brainstorm topics and reshape into acceptable research questions
- Resources for researching proposals
- Next week’s reading, source detective questions, sign up for conferences
Fri Apr 5th by 9pm
- Research proposals due (WordPress category = 2013 Proposal)
Sat April 6th by 9pm
- Source detective questions #11 BE, #12 SG, #13 AG, #14 EH, #15 LK
Sun April 7th by 9pm
- Interpretive reading quiz on Haley, Peterson, and Harris on Moodle
- Guiding questions: How do educators Margaret Haley (in 1904) and Bob Peterson (in 1999) explain why teachers should unionize? How does researcher Doug Harris explain the benefits and limits of measuring student growth and value-added assessment?
- Haley, Margaret. “Why Teachers Should Organize.” In National Association of Education. Journal of Addresses and Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting (St. Louis), 145–152. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1904. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112039515827?urlappend=%3Bseq=161.
- Peterson, Bob. “Survival and Justice: Rethinking Teacher Union Strategy.” In Transforming Teachers Unions, 11–19. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools, 1999. http://rethinkingschools.org/static/publication/trans_teach_union/RethinkingTeacherUnionStrategy.pdf.
- Harris, Douglas N. Value-Added Measures in Education: What Every Educator Needs to Know. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Education Press, 2011, intro & chapters 2-4, http://www.hepg.org/hep/book/132.
- Read online: Kate McEachern, “Teaching to the Test,” Educ 300 essay, Trinity College, CT, Spring 2005.
- Read online: Taylor Godfrey, “Change in Evaluation of Teach for America,” Educ 300 web essay, Trinity College, CT, May 3, 2012.
Mon April 8th in class: Teachers, Assessment, and School Reform
- Presentation on Teacher Unionism and Value-Added Assessment
- Review source detective responses and advanced research strategies
- Four-way debate with your brains and your feet
- Assign Working Thesis and Evidence drafts via GoogleDoc index, due Fri Apr 19, 6pm
- understanding Ed 300 research essay evaluation criteria (compare to Ed 400)
- group exercise: apply Educ 300 criteria to evaluate prior essay
- reminder: schedule an individual conference on moving forward in research process
- Feedback on research proposals
- Assign source detective questions #16 CK and #17 MM, due Sat April 13th by 9pm
- Refresher on how to capture and cite sources with Zotero
Saturday April 13th
- Optional: Public policy discussion on “Creating a Dual-Language Magnet School for the Hartford Region,” 9:30am welcome, 10-11:30am panel discussion, Learning Corridor Commons cafeteria, with 1 bonus point for those who attend and write reflective post (category = dual language).
- Source detective posts #16 and #17 due by 9pm
Sun April 14th by 9pm
- Interpretive reading quiz on First Amendment and religion in education on Moodle
- Reading guide: How has the US Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Free Exercise and Non-Establishment clauses of the First Amendment regarding public schools changed from the 1960s to the present?
- Charles Haynes and Oliver Thomas, Finding Common Ground: A First Amendment Guide to Religion and Public Schools (Nashville, TN: First Amendment Center, 2007), read chapter 4 (The Supreme Court, Religious Liberty, and Public Education) and chapter 16 (Frequently Asked Questions about Religious Liberty in Public Schools).
- View video excerpt on Moodle: Calvin Skaggs and David Van Taylor, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, Documentary, 1996.
- Read online: Ashley Ardinger, “Sex Education: Defining Gender Roles During the Sexual Revolution and Today,” Educ 300 web-essay, Trinity College, May 2012.
Mon April 15th in class: Religion, Sex Education, and School Reform
- Presentation: Religion, Sex Education, and School Reform
- Analyze in class: Anaheim Union High School District, “Family Life and Sex Education Course Outline: Grades Seven Through Twelve, Fourth Revision,” June 1967.
- Review source detective responses
- Online guides to improving your expository writing skills
- Presentation: Structural and Stylistic Advice on Writing Ed 300 Web Essays
- In-class exercise: How would you rewrite the introduction of draft X?
- Assign thesis & evidence drafts (due Friday 6pm) & comment groups (due Mon 6pm)
Thur April 18th
- Optional: Guest lecture by Michael Paris (CUNY, Staten Island), “Serving Two Masters Revisited: Cause Lawyering and Legal Mobilization in Sheff v. O’Neill, or, Some Thoughts on the Death (and Possible Life) of School Desegregation” Common Hour (12:15pm), Rittenberg Lounge, with 1 bonus point for those who attend and write reflective post (category = Sheff lecture).
Fri April 19th
- Working Thesis & Evidence drafts due by 6pm (via our indexed GoogleDoc)
Sunday April 21st by 9pm
- Interpretive reading quiz in Moodle
- Reading guide: How do traditional degree programs, online degree programs, and online courseware differ, according to Taylor Walsh, and how are the lines shifting between them in higher education? What is a “flipped classroom,” and what are the challenges of implementing it in the K-12 and higher education sectors?
- Taylor Walsh, Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up Access to Their Courses (Princeton University Press, 2010), chapter 1, freely available at http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9386.html
- Read online: Dan Berrett, “How ‘Flipping’ the Classroom Can Improve the Traditional Lecture,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 19, 2012, http://chronicle.com/article/How-Flipping-the-Classroom/130857/ (requires password).
- Read online: Sarah D. Sparks, “Lectures Are Homework in Schools Following Khan Academy Lead,” Education Week, September 28, 2011, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/28/05khan_ep.h31.html (requires password).
- Read some online posts: “Where’s the Classroom? A Discussion Group to Experience and Evaluate Digital Courses,” Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, Spring 2013. http://commons.trincoll.edu/itec/about/
- Comment on two assigned peer drafts before Monday’s class (worth 2 points)
Mon April 22nd in class: Credentialism and Computers in Ed Reform
- Presentation: Credentials, Computers, and Learning in Higher Education
- Individual reflection and revising
- In class: In your thematic panel, compare each author’s research proposal (and instructor’s feedback) with comments posted on working thesis & evidence drafts. Draw on research essay evaluation criteria to review what works, what to improve.
- How to design a meaningful two-minute Ed 300 research presentation (due last class)
- Presentation bonus point categories: most insightful thesis, richest source interpretation (both voted by class), and most improved panel (selected by instructor)
- Assign: final essay on WordPress (category = 2013research essay) due Fri May 3rd by 9pm)
Mon April 29th in class: Panel Presentations & Making Sense of Reform
- Read before class: Stan Karp and Linda Christensen, “Why Is School Reform So Hard?,” Education Week, October 8, 2003, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2003/10/08/06karp.h23.html.
- Marc Porter Magee, “The Promise and Peril of Cage Busting,” Education Week – Rick Hess Straight Up, April 2, 2013, http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2013/04/the_promise_and_peril_of_cage_busting.html.
- Student presentations: deliver a meaningful presentation that highlights your title, research question, working thesis, and interpretation of at least one key source (under 2 minutes, with visuals in your GDoc), as part of your thematic panel
- Student assessment of most insightful thesis, richest source interpretation; Instructor assessment of most improved panel
- Moving your research essay from GDocs/MS Word to WordPress and adding links, images, and (optional) “about the author”
- Preparing for open-book interpretive exam #2, which will be same number of questions and format as exam #1, but with a longer time period allowed (up to 3 hours), and students may do the exam anywhere with Internet access. The exam may address any topic on the syllabus, but is more likely to focus on those covered after the first exam.
- Presentation: What I Believe: Making Sense of Education Reform
By appointment
- Schedule individual appointment to discuss research essay and prep for WordPress
- Two or more students can schedule group appointment for final exam prep session
Fri May 3rd
- Final web essay due by 9pm
Mon May 6th
- Exam #2, open-book, interpretive questions will be made available on Moodle, 6:30-9:30pm.
- Students may submit word-processed responses OR scan handwritten pages as PDFs (via personal or library scanner). Upload your exam responses for blind-review (use Trinity ID for filename)
Post-course