Transformative Educator Pathway

Summer & Fall 2024 Educational Pedagogy Courses

*Courses marked with an asterisk denote courses required for the Elementary & Special Education Certification track at CU (RI only). Students interested in pursuing this certification are advised to register for the *courses.

However, all courses are open to all students regardless of their certification pathway. We encourage students to choose courses that:

• Support their pathway certification goals (whether at CU or elsewhere)
• Support their own professional development
• Enrich their CU project
• Align with their passions

Please review these courses with your lab faculty. If you have additional questions, be on the lookout for TA2BA Registration Office Hours in April (info will be listed in both the student & faculty newsletter). Lab Faculty can also reach out directly to Aubrey Schabowsky.

SUMMER 2024

• *Special Topics in Power & Difference: Foundations & Core Values of Progressive Education

1. • This course allows space for candidates to understand equitable values and beliefs as student-centered educators. They study the vital concepts of dialogical education and the idea of love as a critical stance by carefully reading and analyzing Paulo Friere’s work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. They then apply these tenets to working with families, and to interpreting the world through the lenses of race, gender, and social class.

• Special Topics in Individual & Group Dynamics: Social Emotional Learning
  • This course explores key components and stages of social emotional learning (SEL), factors that may impact SEL development, and the impact of SEL on behaviors and classroom management.
• Special Topics in Civic Engagement: Teaching Social Studies & Growing Social Consciousness
  • Candidates finish this class with a clear understanding of how social consciousness develops in children; how to plan units to promote the growth of social consciousness that includes interventions and differentiation that allows access and success for all students; and how to construct a learning environment that supports social consciousness development in a racially and linguistically diverse classroom.

FALL 2024

• *Special Topics in Individual & Group Dynamics: Educational Psychology
  • This course surveys the major social and psychological processes involved in learning and development in educational settings.
• *Special Topics in Scientific Reasoning: Intro to the Science of Reading
  • The course ensures that students understand and use scientific reading instruction and a structured literacy curriculum that integrates speaking, listening, reading, and writing through explicit, systematic, diagnostic-prescriptive instruction in phonological awareness, sound-symbol correspondence (phonics), syllables, morphology, semantics, and syntax.
  • [This course is also recommended for RI students pursuing Emergency Certification]
• *Special Topics in Quantitative Reasoning: Teaching Methods for Math
  • Teaching math through constructivist methods allows students to deepen their knowledge beyond rote memorization, develop meaningful context to comprehend the content, and take command of the learning process as an active participant rather than a sit-and-get observer. In this course, candidates deepen their own mathematical knowledge while learning to design a math classroom that promotes conceptual understanding, numeracy, and problem-solving using an equity lens.
• Special Topics in Individual & Group Dynamics: Collaboration- Home, School & Community
  • This course focuses on the roles of special and general educators as cooperative and instructional partners. Students work through real-world issues like lesson plans, roles and responsibilities during IEP meetings, family communication, paraprofessional coaching and supervision, as well as the role(s) as mandated reporter.
  • [This course looks at the collaborative process of supporting students with IEPs]