Fall 2022 - EDUC 100W OL02
Selected Questions and Issues in Education (3)
Class Number: 7796
Delivery Method: Distance Education
Overview
Description
CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:
An introduction to a small but representative sample of basic questions and issues in education. Students will examine questions relating to: the concept or idea of education; learning and the learner; teaching and the teacher; and more generally, the broader contexts of education. This course also introduces students to different ways of exploring educational questions and issues from philosophical and critical analysis, to historical and cross-cultural studies, to empirical research. Cannot be taken for credit by students with credit for 300 and 400 level education courses. Writing/Breadth-Humanities.
COURSE DETAILS:
EDUC 100W is often a student’s first and/or only Education course during their time at SFU. As a faculty, we have agreed on our core values and a broad set of related priorities that gives direction and inspiration to our practices and pedagogies: Equity, Indigeneity and a culture of Inquiry. This course aims to explore the three pillars outlined in the five-year plan through processes of dialogic and dialectic inquiry and critical reflection. We want the students to think broadly about education but particularly focus on the ways that Indigenous and Equity issues are framed and interrogated within the field of education. This focus will be framed through a lens of inquiry and will be explored predominately through the process of writing.
COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:
- Inquire into the implications of Equity and Indigeneity for learning and learners as well as teaching and teachers.
- Examine previous and current biases, assumptions, and values in relation to Indigeneity and Equity in Canadian society and educational contexts.
- Appreciate and explain the aims and goals of including Indigenous worldviews in Canadian educational contexts and how these differ from Western traditions.
- Develop awareness and knowledge about historical and contemporary Equity issues that surround education.
- Synthesize information from diverse sources to describe an orientation, clarifying values and convictions.
- Use both critical and reflexive writing as practices to understand course concepts, oneself, and others.
- Engage in meaningful and respectful conversation on complex and sensitive topics.
Grading
- Reading Responses (1 per module = 4) 40%
- Participation in online discussion (1 per module = 4), graded using a rubric with points 20%
- Discussion facilitation and summary (one time per student), graded using a rubric with points 20%
- Reflective analysis of an educational experience (once at end of course), graded using a rubric with points 20%
NOTES:
This course is a fully asynchronous online one, meaning we don't have any scheduled class time. To a certain extent, you can work at your own pace. However, there are deadlines for submitted work and online discussion to enable you to both pace your work and develop a sense of community with the other students in the class. I will also host weekly office hours via Zoom to support you in your work, as well as tutorials and special (online) workshops throughout the term.
The course is divided into an introductory week and four modules, each three weeks long. Each module is described on a single page with an overview to the topic and guides for reading/viewing the assigned material. In the first week of the module, you review the assigned materials and submit an initial reading response. These responses should demonstrate your developing capacity to engage in critical reflection on the assigned material, including the ideas within them and connection of those ideas to other materials, your personal experience, and issues in the world at large.
In the second and third week of each module, you discuss the material in small groups, with 2-3 of the group members serving as initial posters, facilitators and summarizers for the discussion. You will take turns in your group doing this facilitation. After the discussion is concluded, you submit the final version of your reading response, including any changes you decide to make to it based on the discussion. The facilitators also submit a summary and reflection of the discussion. All group members will be evaluated on their level of participation and their depth of engagement in the discussion.
Finally, at the end of the course, you will submit a culminating essay in which you integrate all you have learned through a reflective analysis of a personal educational experience. This analysis should be anchored in the ideas that you have explored through the course.
Materials
REQUIRED READING:
- Sensoy, O. & DiAngelo, R. J. (2017). Is everyone really equal? An introduction to key concepts in social justice education (2nd edition). New York, NY : Teachers College Press.
- Davidson, S. F. & Davidson, R. (2018). Potlach as pedagogy: Learning as ceremony. Portage & Main Press.
Other required readings for EDUC 100 will include a combination of journal articles and book chapters that have been selected to support the aims of this course. These journal articles can be downloaded each week from Canvas.
REQUIRED READING NOTES:
Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.
Registrar Notes:
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS
SFU’s Academic Integrity website http://www.sfu.ca/students/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating. Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.
Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the university community. Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the university. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the university. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html