Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

The examination is graded on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.

COURSE DETAILS:

 

EDUC 811 classes will take place on-line (Zoom) on Tuesdays from May 7th running up to July 9th from 4:30–9:20 pm.
We will leave the week of July 15^th to 19^th open as a time for finalizing your capstones and preparing for the two days the following week when there will be the oral presentations.
EDUC 888 and the oral presentations will take place between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on the 23^rd and 24^th of July.The due date for submission of the capstone documents is Sunday evening July 28^h. These need to be sent both to Sean sblenkin@sfu.ca and to me stephen_smith@sfu.ca

We respectfully acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen peoples on whose traditional territories our three campuses reside.

Course Description
The purpose of this third course, EDUC 811, is to help you articulate the personal value and professional significance of the topic of inquiry you have chosen to pursue in this Master of Education in Educational Practice. We shall continue to emphasize being life-long practice-based and life-wide practice-informed. In so doing, practitioner inquiry continues to be on the lived meanings that, for all practical purposes, can be gleaned from your lived experiences. In other words, it is the very proclivity to be hands-on and develop DIY proficiency which we want to emphasize in this kind of inquiry, not in any mundane sense of simply getting on with business, but as a self-aware sensibility and mindful-of-others sensitivity guiding one’s pedagogical practice and influencing the practices of others.

We will continue to refer to practices-of-the-self and practices of the self-with-others as two necessary moments of teaching identity. The Ministry of Education adoption of "personalized learning" is in keeping with this identity formation provided we take "personalized learning" to heart as being about more than individual teaching competency.

Likewise, let us not restrict practitioner inquiry to some unidimensional aspect of "life-long (professional) learning" that is only about refining teacher competencies. A broad practical vision and deeply practiced touch requires tapping into what we do when not engaged specifically in professional practices. These practices-of-the-self, which will invariably involve others as practices of the self-with-others, may be precisely the ones that best inform our professional practices and cultivate the art and wisdom of teaching.

The pedagogical applicability of practices-of-the-self and of the self-with-others can be best explored within a thoughtful, mindful, vibrant community of practice.” We will, amongst ourselves, continue to foster not just a rational community of educational thinkers but also a pathic community of educational practitioners who feel for one another and canfollow one another in making tangible, palpable sense of our own and others’ practice-based inquiries.

EDUC 888: Comprehensive Examination

Final Paper and Presentation (100%)

This culminating project, which serves as the final assessment in this MEd EP, provides opportunity to express your present understandings of educational practice. The practitioner inquiry that started with the GDE, and has continued through the MEd EP, can be brought to closure in the capstone product. In doing so, there will sharing of relevant experiences, insights and transformations with teacher peers who bear witness to these personalized, pedagogical journeys.

The comprehensive examination will involve two parts: one written and one oral. The two parts are intended to complement each other. The written paper provides a comprehensive account of what you focused upon in your practitioner inquiry, how you approached your topic, what resources you drew upon, and the insights you derived and how they are applicable to your professional practice. The oral component is not intended to summarize your paper but, rather, to give others in the cohort a feel for what you investigated. You are encouraged to consider different media, along with different genres of text, to convey the practical and pedagogical sense of your inquiry.

We will all be present for the oral component and have opportunity to provide formal and informal feedback to one another.