425 courses with the subject EDUC, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
EDUC 1000Foundations of Tutoring Training
This Foundations of Tutoring Training is designed to empower students not only to excel in their studies, but evolve into life-long learners and empathetic leaders. The introductory tutor training is the first step in that development, offering a distinct blend of academic mastery and personal development. Students develop a deeper understanding of concepts while learning tutoring strategies and activities that can be used in a small group and one-on-one setting. This course creates a greater appreciation for the in-depth understanding of content specific concepts and skills, basic tutoring strategies, and small group management techniques, which are integrated throughout the course to provide a productive and engaging environment for meaningful academic learning and to facilitate social and emotional growth. **This course is only available to high school students participating in the Tutor Training Program.
This Advanced Tutoring Principles builds on the introductory course, empowering students to delve deeper into their tutoring skill set, cultivating advanced tutoring techniques and leadership attributes that can be applied to their own learning and to support students in small group and one-on-one training. This program offers students designing specialized tutoring strategies for diverse learners, demonstrating a deeper understanding of pedagogy, fostering leadership skills by cultivating students’ skills in leading tutoring sessions, managing group dynamics, and driving positive change. Students gain systemic knowledge, understanding how systems impact learning, providing them with an edge in comprehending complex academic concepts and real- world applications, delving into subject-specific tutoring techniques, reinforcing specialized knowledge and promoting adaptability. Emphasis is placed on strategic collaboration through advanced group projects, engaging in research-driven projects related to tutoring and education. The program also fosters holistic development by facilitating deep dives into personal growth strategies, fortifying students not only academically but also mentally and emotionally for the challenges of academic life and beyond. *Must take Foundations of Tutoring Training as a prerequisite. **This course is only available to high school students participating in the Tutor Training Program.
EDUC 1920Language, Social Interaction, and (Mis)understanding
From late-night hangouts with friends, to online blowups with strangers, to chats with the AI-assistants that are increasingly embedded in every platform, we are always interacting with others. But, how do we figure out what is meant by what is said, written, or signed? How do we know when someone is being sarcastic or sincere? And, what happens when our conversational partner is not human? In this class, we will examine what linguists, philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, and everyday people have said about the process of sense-making in social interaction. We will consider the case of face- to-face conversation, as well as what happens in online spaces. In addition, we will ask how new conversational technologies, like chatbots, are unsettling some of the ways in which humans typically participate in and perceive interactions. The goal of this course is to develop a critical, interdisciplinary understanding of how meaning is constructed, negotiated, and contested in everyday interaction. Along the way, we will reflect on our own interpretive and interactional practices. Assignments will include readings, student-led discussions, analytic exercises, and a final exam.
This course is about looking at elementary school classrooms and understanding children's experiences of school from a variety of perspectives, and from a variety of theoretical and methodological lenses from which the student can interpret children's educational experiences. This course is about developing the skills of observation, reflection, and analysis and to begin to examine some implications for curriculum, teaching and schooling. This course requires you to spend time in an elementary school classroom.
EDUC 2445Civil Dialogue Seminar: Civic Engagement In A Divided Nation
The goal of this course is to help students develop concepts, tools, dispositions, and skills that will help them engage productively in the ongoing experiment of American democracy. This nation's founders created a governmental structure that sets up an ongoing and expansive conversation about how to manage the tensions and tradeoffs between competing values and notions of the public good. These tensions can never be fully resolved or eliminated; they are intrinsic to the American experiment. Every generation must struggle to find its own balance, in no small part because in every era people who previously had been unjustly excluded from the conversation find a way to be heard. That inevitably introduces new values and changes how enduring ones get interpreted. The challenge of each generation is to develop that capacity to its fullest. The goal of this course is to equip you to engage fully in your generation's renewal of the conversation. Class sessions will use a variety of modalities: lecture, discussion, case studies, opportunities to experiment with the tools and techniques of civil dialogue and writing. Each session will include some theory or historical context, a case study, exploration of a key concept of civic dialogue with a related tool or technique, and an interactive exercise. This course is part of a larger effort by the university (called the Paideia program) to help Penn students build these skills
Current issues and research, applying psychological theory to educational practice. As such, this course will explore the fundamental themes in behavioral, developmental, and cognitive areas of psychology as they relate to education. Topics include: learning, motivation, growth and development, cognitive processes, intelligence tests, measurements, evaluations, etc.
This course represents an opportunity for students to participate in academically-based community service involving tutoring in a West Phila. public school. This course will serve a need for those students who are already tutoring through the West Phila.Tutoring Project or other campus tutoring. It will also be available to individuals who are interested in tutoring for the first time.
Intellectual, emotional and behavioral development in the college years. Illustrative topics: developing intellectual and social competence; developing personal and career goals; managing interpersonal relationships; values and behavior. Recommended for submatriculation in Psychological Services Master's Degree program.
A life-span (infancy to adulthood) approach to development. Topics include: biological, physical, social and cognitive basis of development. Films and guest speakers are often included.
Theoretical and practical aspects of the study of literature for children. Students develop both wide familiarity with children's books, and understanding of how children's literature fits into the elementary school curriculum.
EDUC 4902Teaching Creative Writing to High School Students
This undergraduate course explores effective methods for teaching creative writing to high school students. Students will examine developmental considerations, pedagogical approaches, assessment strategies, and classroom management techniques specific to creative writing instruction. The course includes a unique practicum component where graduate students collaborate with high school creative writing students to gain hands-on teaching experience.
EDUC 4920Language, Culture, and Society in Contemporary Korea
In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of cultural diversity and linguistic variation within Korea. However, this phenomenon is far from new, as the Korean language has historically acted as both a mediator and a product of societal shifts and influences, including colonization, modernization, and globalization. This course offers a critical examination of the conventional notion of monolingual and homogenous Korea, inviting students to delve into the nuanced realities of language, culture, and society in modern-day Korea. Through a combination of readings, lectures, and discussions, this course will explore a broad range of topics, including language policy, language education, the Korean diaspora, gender and language dynamics, and honorifics. Guided by the central question of how language mediates social perceptions and categorizations, students will consider the complex interplay between language, cultural identities, and sociopolitical issues in Korea. By the end of the course, students will have gained a robust and holistic understanding of the multicultural and multilingual dynamics that characterize contemporary Korea and its position in the world, informed by the view of Korean as an embodied translingual practice. Students interested in sociolinguistics, cultural studies, or international affairs are encouraged to join. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5007Teaching & Learning in Student Centered Classrooms
Most teachers have ambitious goals for their classrooms. They strive to make their classrooms spaces where students engage in authentic and meaningful work, where students collaborate on challenging and complex tasks, and where students develop deep disciplinary knowledge and the skills and mindsets that are necessary for their success in college, career, and society. However, many classrooms fall short of this ambitious vision. This course explores the challenges and opportunities teachers face when they attempt to build student-centered learning environments, and offers educators tangible insights and practices to support their work.
EDUC 5007BTeaching & Learning in Student Centered Classrooms
Most teachers have ambitious goals for their classrooms. They strive to make their classrooms spaces where students engage in authentic and meaningful work, where students collaborate on challenging and complex tasks, and where students develop deep disciplinary knowledge and the skills and mindsets that are necessary for their success in college, career, and society. However, many classrooms fall short of this ambitious vision. This course explores the challenges and opportunities teachers face when they attempt to build student-centered learning environments, and offers educators tangible insights and practices to support their work Two Term Class, Student must enter first term; credit given after both terms are complete 0-1 Course Unit
This seminar is designed to integrate student teaching fieldwork and university course work through reading, discussion, and reflection. Central to this course will be teacher research, an inquiry stance toward learning how to teach, and a social justice approach to education. Throughout the semester, we will be examining a range of issues through theoretical and practice-oriented lenses that will deepen our understanding of teaching and learning. Offered within the Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program.
This seminar is designed to integrate student teaching fieldwork and university course work through reading, discussion, and reflection. Central to this course will be teacher research, an inquiry stance toward learning how to teach, and a social justice approach to education. Throughout the semester, we will be examining a range of issues through theoretical and practice-oriented lenses that will deepen our understanding of teaching and learning. Offered within the Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program. Two Term Class, Student must enter first term; credit given even if second term not complete 0-1 Course Unit
This seminar is designed to integrate student teaching fieldwork and university course work through reading, discussion, and reflection. Central to this course will be teacher research, an inquiry stance toward learning how to teach, and a social justice approach to education. Throughout the semester, we will be examining a range of issues through theoretical and practice-oriented lenses that will deepen our understanding of teaching and learning. Offered within the Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program.
EDUC 5018Integrating the Arts in the K-8 Classroom
It is an unfortunate state of public elementary and middle level education that programs and time spent in arts education are becoming more and more limited, as school leaders feel the pressure to prepare their students for mandated assessments. In this context, it is essential that K-8 educators enter schools prepared to fill this gap through the development of opportunities for children to explore their worlds and express their knowledge through creative channels. This course has been designed to emphasize student-centered pedagogies and to prepare teachers to utilize the arts as one mechanism for building culturally responsive classrooms. This course will prepare K-8 teachers to enact lessons that support students in authentic, collaborative, iterative learning through the creative integration of visual arts and music. The course is split into two modules, one that focuses on visual arts and one that focuses on integration of music. Additionally, this course supports the development of Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) PreK-8 teacher competencies. Prerequisite: Admission to the UTAP program or permission of instructor.
In this course, the interconnections of language, literacy and culture are explored in order to build a knowledge base and understanding of how children learn to read and write. Emphasis will be on how to teach and develop literacy curriculum in the elementary grades, and on how close listening and observation of children in their classroom contexts, combined with a critical reading of research and theory, can inform teaching practices. A central tenet of this course is that the best teachers of reading and writing are themselves active and engaged readers and writers. An important goal is to combine an inquiry approach to teaching and learning with an inquiry approach to thinking about how we teach. Offered within the Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program.
The goal of this course is to prepare teachers to facilitate science learning in the elementary and middle school. Special emphasis is placed on striving for a balance between curricular goals; individual needs and interests; and the nature of science. Offered within the Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program.
EDUC 5030Cultivating Creativity in the K-8 Classroom
This course is an introduction to maker education and project-based learning, and will prepare K-8 teachers to enact classroom practices that support students in authentic, collaborative, iterative learning through the use of a variety of creative and technological mediums. Classes will consist of a combination of lecture, discussion, and maker lab. This course is about learning to create and teach others how to make. Students will explore a variety of techniques including basic circuitry, coding, architecture, and design while seeking a balance between free exploration and discovery within parameters. Prerequisite: Admission to the UTAP program or permission of instructor required.
EDUC 5031Mathematics in the Elementary and Middle Schools
Learning to teach mathematics in ways that foster mathematical understanding and enjoyment for every student requires that teachers draw on different kinds of knowledge, skills, and dispositions. In addition to developing an understanding of central mathematical ideas, learning to teach math involves learning about learners, the understandings and conceptions they hold, and the processes through which they learn. It also involves developing skill in constructing tasks that engage students in mathematical exploration, creating an environment that facilitates reasoning, and finding ways to analyze and learn from one's own teaching. Offered within the Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program.
EDUC 5040Differentiating Instruction for Special Education Learners
This course engages student teachers working with diverse learners, presenting factual information about specific areas of need situated within a socio-cultural framework. It addresses content related to both special education and English language learners in three areas: (1) Introduction to Special Education; (2) Learning Categories; (3) Issues in Special Education. Offered within the Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program. Prerequisite: Permission needed from department
EDUC 5041Differentiating Instruction for English Language Learners
This course provides teacher candidates with strategies to differentiate instruction for English language learners and culturally diverse populations. Teachers will develop a skill set of inclusive, instructional techniques aligned with the WIDA assessment framework, and other pedagogies that support language learning in the content areas. Teachers will draw on knowledge of federal and state policy, sociolinguistics and culture, collaborative instruction, culturally supportive pedagogy, language assessments, and theories of language development.
EDUC 5065Introduction to Teaching & Classroom Routines
This course is designed to support summer fieldwork in libraries, and serves as a bridge between fieldwork and course and fieldwork that begins in the fall. The course begins with a set of experiences in local communities which, along with courses, helps apprentices learn about neighborhoods and communities in which schools are located. This course provides apprentices with approaches to establishing classroom/ group norms and practices allowing teachers to develop relationships with children. Apprentices will learn to establish routines and activities to be used in summer and fall fieldwork, as well as the professional cycle of planning, enacting, observing, and reflecting in a professional learning community. This course will also contribute to apprentices' understanding of literacy and math learning in the K-8 classroom. instructor.
Admission to the UTAP program or permission of the
EDUC 5090Radical Reading: Structured Literacy in Context
Reading is an educational justice issue. Limited reading skills impact communities in many ways, including safety, economics, employment opportunities, health, gender disparities, and democracy. Educators must prepare to assist in mitigating the impact of low literacy levels by supporting the development of reading skills across all grade levels. The Structured Literacy framework has been introduced as a set of competencies to support reading skill development. While structured literacy competencies are designed to ensure all children receive the appropriate support to access reading instruction, educators must carefully provide this instruction in alignment with culturally responsive teaching practices to ensure deep, meaningful engagement and strong learning partnerships. In this course, we will: Deepen knowledge of Structured Literacy competencies. Explore how to connect Structured Literacy and Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices in ways that promote educational justice. Use best practices in providing reading support for literacy skill development in a school setting.
This course will blend an explanatory and descriptive account of behavioral evolution over the early years of life. After a review of "grand developmental theory and the major themes of child change (from images to representation; from dependence to independence; from instinctual to social beings), this course will survey the child's passage from infancy through the early school years. While the emphasis will be on the nature of the child--what she/he sees, feels, thinks, fantasizes, wants and loves--these realities will be understood in terms of developmental theory. At each stage, the course will review the development of cognition, personal identity, socialization, and morality in pluralistic contexts.
The aim of this course is to provide educators with hands-on experience with a range of technologies. During the course we will explore and learn how to handle web-based, free technologies that can be used by educators to design educational activities appropriate for their students.
EDUC 5134Diversity and Social Justice in American K-12 Education
In this course, students will develop a critical understanding of how various markers of social difference mediate the privileging of some and the marginalization of others within K-12 schools. Additionally, by considering their potential to act as agents of change, students will devise and share strategies for anti-oppressive educational practices.
EDUC 5144Dashboards for Discovery and Learning Applications
As online learning tools have become more prominent, dashboards have emerged as a way for helping students, teachers, and other stakeholders in navigating learning data. They can provide both formative and summative information about a wide range of data and a wide range of stakeholders. However, learning can take many forms and does not always require (or result from) a linear path. Successful learning often requires persevering in the face of obstacles, but allowing learners to stagnate in such a space for too long can be demotivating. Likewise, we have also seen research that suggests that results in short term learning gains do not always lead to long term success. Even digital learning systems with substantial automation require data to be presented in a way that is relevant for the given stakeholders. This course explores starts with an overview of the kinds of digital learning systems currently available and a high-level view of the kinds of measurement constructs that have been modeled using their data. It then covers the kinds of motivational principles, cognitive biases, and other data visualization principles that are important to communicating different kinds of data. Finally, it culminates in the development of a novel dashboard system, the design of which students will justify both with a review of the literature and with a mini-usability study.
" This course provides an understanding of the nature of entrepreneurship related to public/private/for profit and non-profit educational and social organizations. The course focuses on issues of management, strategies and financing of early stage entrepreneurial ventures, and on entrepreneurship in established educational organizations.
EDUC 5151Outside the School Box: History, Policy and Alternatives
So, we all know that we've been educated by many factors -- schools, family, media, community organizations, religious institutions, employers, health agencies, social movements, and so on. Yet when we speak about "education," we often collapse it instantly into "schooling." What if we didn't? This discussion-based course takes on that challenge. What if we look at education as it actually happens, in ways inclusive of but reaching well beyond schooling? What if we step outside the school box into which we're often putting education? What are the implications for how we think about education, about particular configurations of educating institutions in any current educational ecosystem, about public and private purposes, and about what it means to be a professional in education? How do we wrap our arms around "education" when it suddenly encompasses, well, all of those entities that intentionally educate us? Viewing education more broadly than schooling, we will pursue a conversation between historical and current challenges, toward understanding the present implications -- for practice, for policy, for professions -- if we were to make such a basic shift conceptually and operationally. Students will explore several historical case studies, conceptual frames, current models in the field, and policy challenges, culminating in a related research project of your choice.
EDUC 5160Quantitative Ethnography and Epistemic Network Analysis
This course introduces the theoretical, methodological, and practical foundations of Quantitative Ethnography (QE), a methodology that blends aspects of qualitative and quantitative approaches to illustrate patterns and find meaning in large datasets. Through participation in the course, students will: (1) Examine the theoretical foundations of the emerging QE field (2) Explore applied research and practice examples from leaders and innovators in QE (3) Practice specific QE modeling approaches such as Epistemic Network Analysis (4) Explore techniques and tools for automated data coding, discourse segmentation, and model refinement.
Collaboration & Conflict is an experiential and interdisciplinary exploration of how people work together to solve complex problems. The course explores the deeply intrapersonal and interpersonal demands of exercising leadership within partnerships, teams, and complex organizations. The course seeks to help students understand why effective leadership is a cognitively demanding task, requiring both adept emotional intelligence as well as expert technical skill, and why most of us must develop as individuals in order to develop as leaders. The course draws on relevant research, theoretical frameworks, and best practices from psychology, sociology, business, law, medicine, negotiation, economics, education, and more.
This course is designed to provide an overview of the major discussions and debates in the area of gender and education. While the intersections of gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality are emphasized throughout this course, the focus of the research we will read is on gender and education in English-speaking countries. We will examine theoretical frameworks of gender and use these to read popular literature, examine teaching practices and teachers with respect to gender, using case studies to investigate the topics. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
More and more education takes place asynchronously and online, but relatively little asynchronous instruction takes advantage of the technological advancements that have taken place in recent decades, replicating traditional models for instruction online. In this class, you will learn about the pedagogy and technology of adaptive learning systems, individualized and personalized technology that helps students construct understanding and develop skill. We will read and reflect on both classic and recent papers on this technology, and study many of the successful examples of adaptive learning systems, both systems that have scaled and systems that have failed to scale. We will investigate key methods this type of learning leverages, and key pedagogies it affords.
In this course we will draw on the Internet and daily news (internet circulated, usually) to find "Citizen Sociolinguists" who speak with authority, while juxtaposing these media with the usual scholarly sources. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This course brings together scholarship in pragmatics, interactional sociolinguistics, and critical discourse analysis to help language teachers and intercultural educators foster pedagogies that respond to the complexities of living in a multilingual/multicultural society. Through a series of readings, small research projects, and activities, participants will develop a collection of educational practices that focus on 1) raising metalinguistic awareness, 2) developing resources and strategies for communicating across perceived social and cultural boundaries, and 3) assessing intercultural interactional competence. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This course offers students opportunities to investigate, observe, design practice, and critically evaluate the integration of content and language teaching - Content Based Instruction. The settings investigated include thematic English Language teaching; co-teaching and peer coaching by ESL and content teacher teams; and sheltered content instruction, among others. Standards, integrations of tasks, and special language requirements in various content areas are reviewed.
EDUC 5220Pedagogy and Action for Critical Education
This graduate-level course is designed in collaboration with students and is centered on student-facilitated critical dialogue. Students in this course will engage with salient dimensions and theoretical foundations of issues, such as social justice, diversity, intersectionality, oppression, and more, within educational spaces. Through course activities and discussions, as well as student designed and facilitated classes, students will examine issues related to anti-oppressive education and develop skills in workshop design and facilitation that will empower them to work towards social change as community members, educators, and/ or researchers.
EDUC 5232Indigenous Education and Language Revitalization
The course examines Indigenous education and language revitalization from an international perspective, considering questions like: What policies, ideologies, and discourses shape the history of Indigenous education? What roles do pan-Indigenous and international organizations play? What does decolonizing and Indigenizing schooling look like? How do Indigenous epistemologies, ways of knowing, being and relating influence education? What does culturally relevant schooling mean in Indigenous contexts? What are the roles of Indigenous communities in language revitalization and educational processes? Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1609
EDUC 5236Intercultural Communication and Miscommunication
An introduction to basic issues in intercultural communication, reviewing various perspectives on the nature of culture, communication, "miscommunication" and inter-cultural relations. The course criticizes two commonly held assumptions: 1) that "cultures" are unitary and unchanging and 2) that inter-cultural contact and communication is inherently more troublesome then intra-cultural communication. The course considers ways in which intercultural communication has important consequences in education, medicine, social services, business settings, and international contact situations. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This course traces the development of research on language and gender, introducing key theoretical issues and methodological concerns in this area. Participants will consider how gender ideologies shape and are shaped by language use, with particular attention to how research findings can be applied to educational and other professional settings. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: GSWS 5720 1 Course Unit
This course concerns a basic theoretical and practical foundation in language assessment, with particular emphasis on assessments used in second and foreign language education. The course covers various kinds of testing (both formal testing and performance-based assessment), theoretical and technical issues associated with test development, administration, the social influences of testing, and future directions in language assessment.
Exploration of issues affecting educational policy and classroom practice in multilingual, multicultural settings, with an emphasis on ethnographic research. Selected U.S. and international cases illustrate concerns relating to learners' bilingual/bicultural/biliterate development in formal educational settings. Topics include policy contexts, program structures, teaching and learning in the multilingual classroom, discourses and identities in multilingual education policy and practice, and the role of teachers, researchers, and communities in implementing change in schools.
The goal of this course is to increase students' explicit knowledge of selected isolatable parts of the English language and to identify their pedagogical applications with respect to the needs of learners of English as a foreign/second language. This goal is realized through an investigation of: 1)frequently occurring linguistic forms and the rules an principles that govern the way that these forms can be combined and ordered; 2) the meanings that can attach to these forms; and 3) the social functions associated with these forms.
EDUC 5268Teaching Performance Art for Cross-Cultural Education
This class examines issues related to cultural communities and the arts, specifically performance, writing and storytelling as an educational tool for generating cross cultural and intercultural understanding, dialogue and exchange. Assignments will focus on, cross-cultural research and dialogue, and skill building in teaching, writing and performance. Students will also develop an understanding of how performance can be used to enhance classroom activities in elementary/middle/secondary/ post secondary classroom curricula.
This course provides an overview of general trends in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). It equips prospective language teachers with basic skills for designing online materials and using them for teaching in synchronous (real-time) environments. During the course, students will explore several online platforms, such as Zoom and Frame. The course will also involve the use of AI and various technological tools that can be used in both virtual and in-person settings. Throughout the course, students will engage in hands-on activities. Those planning to teach online are especially encouraged to enroll.
EDUC 5272Selected Topics in ELX: Conversation Analysis for Second
Language Teaching and Research The focus for each semester will vary to reflect those issues most relevant to current concerns in educational linguistics.
EDUC 5280Teaching Writing in Multilingual Contexts
This course introduces participants to a range of theoretical and practical issues related to second language literacy development, with a particular emphasis on writing instruction. An intensive service-learning project offers course participants the opportunity to work with developing writers d in a bilingual community organization. The dual emphasis on theory and pedagogy is intended to create space for critical reflection on the characteristics, production, teaching, and assessment of written texts in bi/multilingual educational settings. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
Immigrant youth often face the dual challenge of learning a new language and learning academic content in that language simultaneously. Many educators, however, struggle to identify and implement instructional practices that acknowledge immigrant learners’ strengths, while also attending to their linguistic, academic, and social needs. This course brings insights and findings from sociolinguistics to bear on research on teaching practices to develop a situated, interactionally mindful approach to supporting the language and literacy development of multilingual youth in contexts of migration. An intensive service-learning project offers course participants the opportunity to “learn by doing” by working closely with multilingual youth in a community-based, immigrant-serving organization. Although the course takes the case of immigrant and first- generation students attending U.S. elementary and secondary schools as its starting point, discussion of the implications and applications to other educational and national contexts is encouraged. The goal of this course is to prepare educators to work with multilingual immigrant youth in contextually sensitive, theoretically informed, interactionally attuned, and humanizing ways.
This course focuses on the fundamental teaching skills that you need as a language educator. It is designed to help you develop effective ways of doing as much as knowing and thinking about language teaching and learning within a reflective practice framework.
Join the class 'Literacy in Action: Literacy Internship Experience' for the opportunity to examine literacies in situated contexts through hands-on action. An internship experience with local partners forms the cornerstone of the class, allowing students to pursue interests in preK-8 classroom and out-of-school practice, curriculum development and professional learning, or policy and research. Students will consider their own interests and positionalities, emic and etic perspectives, and the particularities of Discourse(s) within their field sites. Together, they’ll unpack literacies to partner meaningfully both inside and outside of educational spaces– that is, entering communities respectfully, assessing organizations’ needs, aligning with stakeholders’ missions and visions, and creating programming that adds to the overall success of their field site. This class provides all students with an interest in literac with a supportive space to study and explore contemporary issues in literacy policy, research, and practice that are crucial in creating more just, equitable spaces for learning in Philadelphia and globally. No prior experience necessary. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5382Theories and Pedagogies of Teaching Writing
This seminar examines various theories and pedagogies of teaching writing in multilingual, multimodal contexts. It explores the historical and ideological underpinnings of contemporary theories of writing and attends to how writing, and the teaching of writing, is shifting in a mobile, networked, and global age.
This graduate seminar is designed to explore how literacy and learning are changing as people participate with digital technologies across intersecting local and global networks. Participants will collaboratively investigate how young people's digital literacies-their culturally and socially situated meaning making practices mediated by digital tools- emerge in relation to constantly shifting technologies of communication and are constructed, reconstructed, negotiated, and embodied in multiple semiotic systems across everyday contexts. This course highlights how digital literacies are situated, and how these socio-cultural understandings illuminate issues of power and privilege.
EDUC 5406International Early Childhood Policies and Programs
This course focuses on early childhood development research, policies, and practices in low and middle-income countries. The first part of the course reviews the evidence for investing in young children from economic, health, and education perspectives. The second part of the course discusses current issues related to designing, implementing, and evaluating quality, contextually-appropriate early childhood interventions.
EDUC 5414Economics of Education in Lower Middle Income Countries
How can economic tools be used to analyze educational programs and development? This course explores the economics of education, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Key topics include returns to investment in education, education production, costs and financing, teacher labor markets, the role of education in economic development, public and private education markets, school choice, and equity concerns, including income disparities. The course will introduce key analytical approaches, including economic modeling and policy evaluation techniques. Students will engage with case studies from both high- and low-/middle-income countries, along with interactive activities such as group discussions, panel discussions, and debates. By the end of the course, students will have developed foundational skills in economic analysis of education and gained a deeper understanding of key global challenges in the field, particularly in LMICs. The course is open to graduate students as well as advanced undergraduates from across disciplines. While no prior background in economics is required, familiarity with basic economic concepts will be helpful.
Migration has long shaped societies, economies, and education systems, influencing policies and lived experiences across the globe. This course explores the intersections of international migration, displacement, education, and policy, with a focus on how migration impacts children, youth, and their communities. We examine key theories of migration and incorporation while critically analyzing issues such as border securitization, forced displacement, and the educational experiences of migrant and refugee learners in a variety of international contexts, including the US. The course also engages with contemporary displacement crises, the role of schools in shaping inclusion and exclusion, and the evolving definitions of refugee status and durable solutions. Through an interdisciplinary lens, students will develop a nuanced understanding of migration’s complexities, including its connections to climate change, global governance, and shifting legal frameworks. The course emphasizes migrant agency, advocacy, and alternative migration futures, encouraging students to critically engage with equity, justice, and human rights in migration discourse. As part of the course, students are encouraged to design their own final project related to the topic of migration based on their personal interests.
This course examines the possibilities and limitations of conceiving of and realizing citizenship on a global scale. Readings, guest lecturers, and discussions will focus on dilemmas associated with addressing issues that transcend national boundaries. In particular, the course compares global/local dynamics that emerge across different types of improvement efforts focusing on distinctive institutions and social domains, including: educational development; human rights; humanitarian aid; free trade; micro-finance initiatives; and the global environmental movement. The course has two objectives: to explore research and theoretical work related to global citizenship, social engagement, and international development; and to discuss ethical and practical issues that emerge in the local contexts where development initiatives are implemented.
While this course will engage immigration issues more broadly, we will centrally focus on questions of immigrant incorporation and the effects of U.S immigration policy. We will start with the broad question of what should be done about the estimated 10.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Then, we will take a deeper look at the ways in which macro-level forces such as our laws and institutions shape the micro-level, everyday lives of undocumented immigrants and those living in mixed-status families. We will pay close attention to the circumstances of young people, including their experiences of exclusion and belonging across social and educational contexts. More specifically, we will examine how these factors might affect young people's development, schooling experiences, academic trajectories and aspirations, assimilation and ethnic identity, family dynamics, civic engagement, and employment.
We are living in an era in which economic, social, cultural, environmental and technological transformations are connecting people across the globe in new and unprecedented ways. Given that our world is increasingly interconnected, it is no longer adequate to prepare students to succeed simply as citizens of a particular nation. Students also must acquire the knowledge, skills, dispositions, understanding and aptitude to engage with people from different regions in the world who may hold varying or conflicting perspectives, forms of knowledge, and ways of knowing that are culturally and historically specific and informed. This course will focus on issues related to teaching and learning in the 21st century, and to preparing young people for global citizenship. We will consider what it means to be a global citizen as well as the various approaches to educating for global citizenship that have emerged in the U.S. and around the world. We will also explore instructional and curricular innovations that aim to enrich how young people learn about world regions and cultural traditions, engage with global issues and come to respect contrasting perspectives. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1613
Frantz Fanon (1963) writes that decolonization "sets out to change the order of the world." This course approaches decolonization in and around Education not as a "metaphor" for "civil and human rights- based social justice projects" couched in diversity, inclusion, and equity (Tuck and Yang 2012), but as part of a range of political projects and experiments that have sought to fundamentally reorder global structures, systems, and relations of power. Though prevailing philosophies about the meaning and purpose of Education cast schooling as a critical pathway to democratic, socially just, and inclusive societies, the historical foundations and contemporary realities of formal education in the Global South complicate theses ideals. For much of the formerly colonized world, Western education was one of the earliest and most enduring imperial projects, which deliberately undermined indigenous systems of knowing and learning in order to produce "good" subjects for incorporation into colonial regimes. Despite the promises of post- colonial nationhood, in most parts of the world, education still retains this function as the primary instrument of elite re/production and social stratification. And, yet, education is also typically imagined as central to decolonial and anti-imperial projects, improving social conditions, and forms of social and political belonging. This course interrogates histories and contemporary realities related to the politics and possibilities of Education from the vantage point of the Global South, which here signals a geography of relative geopolitical power indexing relations of development/underdevelopment, core/periphery, and empire/colony. By considering the various ways education has been part of decolonizing projects, we will investigate the relationships between education and indigenous ways of knowing and learning, colonialism, nationalism, conflict, class re/production, spatial and social mobilities, among other thematic strands. Moreover, in centering the periphery, we will explore the theoretical openings that "theory from the (Global) South" offers for decolonial epistemologies and pedagogies. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This course explores anthropological perspectives on peer-based youth cultures. It explores how educational institutions, media (fashion, music, magazines), and states shape youth cultures in cross-cultural contexts through social processes such as capitalism, nationalism, and increasing globalization. The course emphasizes ethnographies and histories which explore the relationship of these wider social processes to the lived realities of young people, situated in class, gender, national and race- specific contexts.
EDUC 5436Philosophical Aspects of Education Policy
This course, which is unofficially titled 'Justice goes to School' explores the philosophical or normative foundations of educational policy decisions. School choice, standards-based reform, civic education, children's and parents' rights, school finance reform - how do different arguments for these policies view the role of schools in society? What are their concept of the person, and their view of the educated person? We will consider arguments for and against a variety of contemporary educational policies. Students are encouraged, if they are interested, to bring to class educational policy decision that perplex or intrigue them.
EDUC 5437Interfaith Dialogue in Action (SNF Paideia Program Course)
This ABCS course explores religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue and action on college campuses. It brings together students with diverse faith commitments (including atheism) to engage with and learn from one another in academic study, dialogue, and service.
This course examines major court cases in the United States and considers their impact on education policy and practice. We consider the arguments for different court decisions in light of normative principles, precedents, and both intended and actual consequences. The court cases discussed will vary, including topics such as school finance litigation and its impact on equity since Rodriguez; speech protections for students and teachers in K-12 and in higher education since Tinker; integration, affirmative action and racial equity since Brown in both K-12 and higher education; and other cases. Fall, even numbered years only 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5440Qualitative Methods in International Educational Research
This course is designed to help students design, conduct, revise, and analyze qualitative research and modes of inquiry in the social sciences and education. Taking a global perspective, students will have the opportunity to practice qualitative research, including the developing of a research question, designing a study, interviewing, and conducting observations, and analyzing and writing up data. The course provides students with skills in the application of key qualitative methodologies, as well as perspectives of the politics of knowledge production, or how knowledge, data, and evidence are claimed, captured, and shared in international contexts. Throughout the course students will reflect on their own positionally within international educational research and qualitative modes of inquiry while considering alternatives to the dominant modes of knowledge production through an exploration of decolonial and indigenous epistemologies and practices. 1 Course Unit
Education and the American City centers on major trends and factors that have shaped cities and their preK-16 school systems since the Second World War, including racial discrimination, migration and immigration, suburbanization, deindustrialization, U.S. housing policy, social welfare policy, and urban renewal. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
This course explores the ethical elements of the work of schooling by examining ethical dilemmas faced by teachers, administrators, and policy makers. This course also explores how ethics should be taught in schools (and if it should be taught at all). The course raises and engages with the following questions: How can educators approach ethical dilemmas in their everyday work? How might an educator respond when she believes school-based policies and procedures are not in a student's best interest? How might an educator balance responses to particular events with system's level transformation? Should policy makers pander to upper-middle class parents to attract them to urban districts? How can individual teachers and entire schools teach ethics? Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
In this seminar we'll explore the political causes and consequences of school reform in the post-Brown era. Coverage will be eclectic so as to give participants a broad, interdisciplinary background in the field. We'll draw primarily from politics of education scholarship, but we'll reach beyond and examine work from political science, sociology, and history. We'll structure our exploration by considering five fundamental approaches to school reform: (1) equal opportunity, (2) standards and accountability, (3) professionalization and teacher effectiveness, (4) marketization and private sector initiatives, and (5) community control. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5449The Social & Political Philosophy of Education
Is the purpose of education to allow individuals to better themselves by pursuing personal tastes and interests, or should education be primarily aimed at creating good citizens or good members of a group? Is there a way of reconciling these two aims? Assuming that adult relations with children are inherently paternalistic, is it possible for children to be educated for future autonomy to pursue major life goals free from such paternalistic control; and if so, how? How much, if any control over education can be allocated to the state, even when this conflicts with the educational goals parents have for their children? Such questions are especially relevant in multicultural or pluralistic societies in which some groups within a liberal state are non-liberal. Should a liberal democratic state intervene in education to ensure the development of children's personal autonomy, or must toleration of non-liberal groups prevail even at the expense of children's autonomy? Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
How is education a form of political action? In this course we look at the governance of schools, the trust in them and their relations to socio- economic conditions in society, among other topics, using research in education, political science, and political theory.
This course will examine the growth and development of American schools, from the colonial era into the present. By 1850, the United States sent a greater fraction of its children to school than any other nation on earth. Why? What did young people learn there? And, most of all, how did these institutions both reflect and shape our evolving conceptions of “America” itself? In an irreducibly diverse society, the answers were never simple. Americans have always defined their nation in a myriad of contrasting and often contradictory ways. So they have also clashed vehemently over their schools, which remain our central public vehicle for deliberating and disseminating the values that we wish to transmit to our young. Our course will pay close attention to these education-related debates, especially in the realms of race, class, and religion. When immigrants came here from other shores, would they have to relinquish their old cultures and languages? When African- Americans won their freedom from bondage, what status would they assume? And as different religious denominations fanned out across the country, how would they balance the uncompromising demands of faith with the pluralistic imperatives of democracy? All of these questions came into relief at school, where the answers changed dramatically over time. Early American teachers blithely assumed that newcomers would abandon their old-world habits and tongues; today, “multicultural education” seeks to preserve or even to celebrate these distinctive patterns. Post-emancipation white philanthropists designed vocational curricula for freed African-Americans, imagining blacks as loyal serfs; but Black citizens demanded a more academic education, which would set them on the road to equality. Protestants and Catholics both used the public schools to teach their faith systems until the early 1960s, when the courts barred them from doing so; but religious controversies continue to hound the schools, especially on matters like evolution and sex education. How should our public schools address such dilemmas? How can the schools provide a “common” education, as Horace Mann called it, melding us into an integrated whole while still respecting our inevitable differences?
What constitutes merit? What should constitute merit? These questions are both philosophical and practical - and are faced by every educator in some form. The notion of meritocracy has long been at the heart of varied discourses about the place of education in American society. Merit is most often understood as inhering in consistent and individual personality traits such as competency, intelligence, and diligence. And yet, every individual is embedded in complex social worlds that are culturally specific and historically contingent. Drawing on a broad array of disciplines and literatures, this seminar-style course challenges students to consider how ideas of merit and its measurement are shaped by American history, culture, and society, and to articulate their own views as they move toward their professional goals. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1615
ACTIVISM BEYOND THE CLASSROOM (ABC) invites you to engage in participatory inquiry and public scholarship related to grassroots activism around education and social justice, in collaboration with Philadelphia community activists and one another. Together, we will explore how to form the coalition(s), theory, and praxes necessary to transform social conditions. In the first part of the course, we critically examine theories of power, resistance, and liberatory transformation to share knowledges and a build a critical vocabulary with which we will investigate the contested rhetorical and political terrain of our present moment. The notion of praxis, a guiding principle of the course, signals the processes through which "theory" is both embodied and realized. As such, in the second part of the course, we will experiment with how theory can be brought to bear on contemporary struggles around education--and, conversely, how the practices of activism can inform our learning, scholarship, and pedagogies. ABC is an Academically Based Community Service course supported by the Netter Center for Community Partnerships. Our work will crosscut three areas: (1) inquiry- based working groups, (2) community engagements, and (3) public forms of scholarship, including a class podcast, opinion essays, and a course website located at: www.activismbeyondtheclassroom.com. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5460American Education Reform: History, Policy, Practice
An examination of major trends, central tendencies, and turning points in American education reform, giving particular attention to contemporary developments such as accountability laws and school choice. This historical development of the federal role in American schooling is also considered, as is the history of school desegregation. What is the purpose of "school"? How have schools evolved across time, and how have Americans tried to change them? And what can we learn from this long history of reform?
This ethnographic methodology course considers filmmaking/ videography as a tool in conducting ethnographic research as well as a medium for presenting academic research to scholarly and non- scholarly audiences. The course engages the methodological and theoretical implications of capturing data and crafting social scientific accounts/narratives in images and sounds. Students are required to put theory into practice by conducting ethnographic research and producing an ethnographic film as their final project. In service to that goal, students will read about ethnography (as a social scientific method and representational genre), learn and utilize ethnographic methods in fieldwork, watch non-fiction films (to be analyzed for formal properties and implicit assumptions about culture/sociality), and acquire rigorous training in the skills and craft of digital video production. This is an ABC course, and students will produce short ethnographic films with students in Philadelphia high schools as part of a partnership project with the School District of Philadelphia. Due to the time needed for ethnographic film production, this is a year-long course, which will meet periodically in both the fall and spring semesters. Two Term Class, Student must enter first term; credit given after both terms are complete Also Offered As: ANTH 5830 1 Course Unit
This course focuses on how the filmmaking medium and process can provide a means for engaging youth in ethnographically grounded civic action projects where they learn about, reflect on, and communicate to others about their issues in their schools and communities. Students receive advanced training in film and video for social change. A project-based service-learning course, students collaborate with Philadelphia high school students and community groups to make films and videos that encourage creative self-expression and represent issues important to youth, schools, and local communities. Stories and themes on emotional well-being, safety, health, environmental issues, racism and social justice are particularly encouraged. A central thread throughout is to assess and reflect upon the strengths (and weaknesses) of contemporary film (digital, online) in fostering debate, discussion and catalyzing community action and social change. The filmmaking medium and process itself is explored as a means to engage and interact with communities. This course provides a grounding in theories, concepts, methods and practices of community engagement derived from Community Participatory Video, Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) and Ethnographic methods. For the very first time, Penn students will be trained to operate a state-of-the-art TV studio at PSTV (Philadelphia Schools TV). At the end of the semester approved films will be screened with an accompanying panel discussion at an event at the School District of Philadelphia (SDP). These films will also be broadcast on Comcast Philadelphia's PSTV Channel 52 and webcast via the district's website and YouTube channel. This is an ABCS course, and students will produce short ethnographic films with students in Philadelphia high schools as part of a partnership project with the School District of Philadelphia. EDUC 5466 Ethnographic Filmmaking (or equivalent) is a pre-requisite or permission of instructor.
This course reviews the major empirical and theoretical research from the social history, and social theory on the development, organization and governance of American education, and the relationship between schooling and the principal institutions and social structures of American society. Fall, Spring, and Summer Terms 1 Course Unit
Using an Afro-centric philosophical understanding of the world, this course will focus on psychological issues related to African Americans, including the history of African American psychology, its application across the life span, and contemporary community issues.
An interdisciplinary view will be used to frame biological, psychological, and social development among adolescents. Special emphasis will be placed on how contextual factors influence developmental outcomes. Theories of adolescent development and methods of intervention will also be discussed. 1 Course Unit
The effects of social processes on human development in the interlocking contexts of parents, family, peers, school, communities and culture are considered during the major developmental periods of infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The course examines what is unique about social developments, how social relationships can be defined, and what are the social precursors and consequences of specific developmental changes.
This course examines the cognitive development of the child from infancy to adolescence with an emphasis on cultural context. Topics include: origins of thinking, Piaget, Vygotsky, intelligence, development of learning and memory, language development, and moral development.
EDUC 5573Psychoeducational Interactions with Black Males
The founder(s) of this course wondered, in an overtly and covertly racist society: “What if we engaged practitioners, educators and researchers in training (social work, policy, criminal justice, counseling, education, health care, etc.) to develop a more empathic imagination and reflection of the Black male before they encounter them in practice?” Core tenets underlying this class are that racial oppression exists, matters, is ubiquitous and pernicious and that those most affected are ignorant of this reality. Students will learn how to help the Black boys and men they engage to identify and challenge the effects of racial oppression on their academic, occupational, relational and cultural well-being, and to promote post-traumatic growth. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: AFRC 5573 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
The course is intended for those who already have a foundation in the study of the psychology of women and want to expand their understanding of the provision of psychological services to include a contextual, feminist, and relational perspective. Theoretical and applied practices regarding women's mental health, issues of diversity, sexuality and relationships for women will be addressed. Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology and an undergraduate course in the Psychology of Women or approval by professor. Also Offered As: GSWS 5810 1 Course Unit
All persons have moments that elicit reflection on issues related to myriad aspects of sexuality. When working with people in clinical or school settings, these issues are ubiquitous. This course will provide a broad understanding of sexuality and specific ways to address sexuality problems.
The field of autism has generated growing interest, with increases in diagnosed cases, increased inclusion in regular education classrooms of students with autism spectrum disorders, growing recognition of neurodiversity and concomitant attempts to improve accommodations for and acceptance of adults with autism in society at large, an ever broadening repertoire of interventions and accommodations for autism, and ongoing discoveries in cognitive science and neurobiology. In many ways, examining the issues surrounding autism spectrum disorders provides insights into special needs, neurodiversity, and disability rights in general. This course focuses on the social, linguistic, cognitive, educational, and disability rights aspects of autism, including implications for treatment, accommodation, and counseling. We examine the challenges that individuals with autism have in acquiring language, in deducing the perspectives of other people (Theory of Mind), in engaging in certain types of cognitive tasks, and in having their voices heard by others. We examine, as well, the unusual talents and intellectual strengths that many ASD individuals exhibit. Students interested in working with individuals on the autism spectrum in educational and counseling settings will gain insight into: • How autism spectrum disorders affect the acquisition of social and academic skills • The availability and efficacy of different types of interventions and accommodations • Issues relating to neurodiversity and disability rights • Strategies for guiding students with autism spectrum disorders through K12 schools and beyond
This interdisciplinary course will employ a critical perspective on minority youth development, analyze the existing literature, and propose alternative explanations for observed phenomena. It will consider pertinent issues and theories of middle childhood, adolescent and young adult development. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This course emphasizes meaningful and practical learning experiences that will prepare you to be innovative, informed, reflective decision- makers and consumers of research. In addition, this course provides the foundations for students to: Develop/improve the ability to interpret and objectively evaluate studies and research in the field of education; Know the fundamentals of education research with emphasis on the basic quantitative research designs and qualitative research designs; Appreciate the importance of legal and ethical considerations in human subject research in educational settings; Demonstrate an understanding of the appropriate use of statistics and data; and Develop an awareness of program evaluation principals and concepts. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5725Software Skills for Policy Analysis and Reporting
This course is designed to introduce the various techniques and tools used in education policy analysis. Towards that goal, this course aims to introduce students to an array of software platforms and research theory that will help them navigate their course work and individual projects. There are no prerequisites and students will learn the basics of Stata, Excel, R, Qualtrics, Dedoose, and Zotero/Mendeley. The course will give brief introductions to each platform, and instruction on best use in the policy analysis space. This course will teach students to use software to analyze, visualize, and manage data. This course is designed as a preparation for students to conduct data analysis and to build a foundation of the skills necessary to conduct policy analysis.
EDUC 5730The Evolution of Assessment: Classroom and Policy Uses
This course explores the evolution and diverse uses of assessment in four major areas: the historical roots of testing and the development of the achievement testing industry; the rising interest and exploration of alternative forms of assessment; how teachers employ a variety of assessments in their classrooms; and how policymakers use assessment for decision-making and accountability purposes. Prerequisite: Permission needed from department. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This course provides an overview of key theoretical perspectives and topics in the sociology of education, including expansion of formal educational systems; the extent to which educational systems contribute to or inhibit social mobility; inequality of educational inputs and outcomes by race, social class, and gender; and the social organization of educational institutions, including sources of authority, community, and alienation. The course includes both K-12 and higher education topics.
The aim of this course is to help students understand the basic concept of globalization, how it impacts higher education in general, and how it shapes the global market for human capital and fosters private sector and for profit provision and diversifies modes of delivery of higher education. The seminars cover the nature of globalization and the way it affects the movement of people between economies to gain and apply skills and knowledge, the creation of branch campuses, the growth of transnational education and the importance of brands and information in the global higher education market.
EDUC 5806The Americas: Caribbean and Afro-Latin Education Studies
What does it mean to enter an archive where the histories of a people are preserved, contested, and reimagined? In this course, students travel to Harlem, New York, to conduct original research at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as part of a semester-long project. Home to one of the largest and most significant collections documenting Black life and culture, the Schomburg serves not only as a repository of history, but as a living site of diasporic memory and intellectual production. The course surveys the histories and social worlds of Africans and their descendants across North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, and South America, including Afro-Latin and other African diasporic communities. Foregrounding both informal and formal education and higher learning, we examine how Black communities have created, sustained, and transformed spaces of learning across generations. Centering migration narratives, we explore how these communities have navigated and resisted educational oppression while building their own intellectual, cultural, and institutional worlds. Students engage deeply with oral histories, archival materials, and primary and secondary sources to analyze how diaspora knowledge is documented, narrated, and lived.
Ranging from civic engagement to economic development, institutions of higher education in the United States have long been involved in a variety of relationships with their local communities; in recent years, there has been increasing attention paid to the opportunities and challenges implicit in those relationships. In this course, students will study and discuss the history, rationales, and manifestations of the partnerships that have developed. Through readings, faculty-and student- led discussions, guest lecturers, and policy-oriented projects, students will develop better understandings of the many topics surrounding university-community partnership activities. Among other themes we will consider institutional roles and relationships, service learning, community perspectives, issues relevant to diverse populations, policy, and evaluation.
This course aims to enable students to formulate and articulate well- informed viewpoints on a variety of issues affecting higher education institutions. Given the pivotal role of colleges and universities in our knowledge-based society, professionals in these institutions confront intricate and multi-faceted challenges. This is a survey course primarily designed to introduce students to a range of issues pertinent to higher education institutions today and to help understand the complexities of practice- and policy-making for those who work in such institutions. The emphasis lies not only in unraveling the complexities of these issues but also in comprehending the foundations necessary for devising solutions and subsequent actions. Throughout the course, students will engage in in-depth analysis, gain insights from diverse perspectives, and evaluate the potential repercussions of their decisions in domains relevant to them and today's educational institutions. The topics covered in this course will vary from semester to semester, either chosen by students registered for the course and/or the instructor. This dynamic selection aims to guarantee that the topics are pertinent to the current and relevant dilemmas facing higher education institutions at the current moment. The majority of the readings can be found online through the library or Google books. For readings that are inaccessible, copies will be provided through the Teams class website. If you miss class, it is your responsibility to obtain anything distributed or discussed in class.
EDUC 5835The Professoriate: Foundations, Careers, and Current Issues
The goal for this course is to introduce students to the world of academia, with a particular emphasis on the U.S. professoriate. We will review the early beginnings and formation of the academic profession, examine critical junctures in academic careers such as graduate student socialization, hiring, tenure, and teaching, and discuss current issues facing the academy. Those interested in exploring a career in academia are encouraged to enroll.
EDUC 5841Access & Choice in American Higher Education
College enrollment is a complex process that is shaped by the economic, social and policy context, higher education institutions, K-12 schools, families, and students. The course will examine the theoretical perspectives that are used to understand college access and choice processes. The implications of various policies and practices for college access and choice will also be explored, with particular attention to the effects of these policies for underrepresented groups. As an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course, this course is also designed to generate tangible recommendations that program administrators and institutional leaders may be used to improve college access and choice. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
Students taking this course will learn about the historical context of HBCUs in educating African Americans, and how their role has changed since the mid- 1800's. Specific contemporary challenges and successes related to HBCUs will be covered and relate to control, and enrollment, accreditation, funding, degree completion, and outreach/retention programming. Students will become familiar with MBCUs in their own right, as well as in comparison to other postsecondary institutions.
Academic advising in higher education differs within and across institutions and has evolved in its method of delivery, yet consistently focuses on and is attributed to student success. Key advising concepts, theoretical approaches, and relational skills to support students in the college environment will be examined in this course. Attention will be given to best practices and advising diverse student populations with academic planning, goal setting, and decision-making. An understanding of policies related to privacy, confidentiality, and university considerations will also be discussed. This course provides a foundation in academic advising, strategies and skills needed to promote institutional mission and goals, and equips aspiring and current professional advisors with the resources to assist collegians in having holistic and gratifying experiences in higher education.
Designed for non-financial managers, this course provides students with an introduction to basic concepts related to the finance of higher education. It examines the forces that influence the financing of higher education at both the state and federal levels. It addresses both the macro-economic and micro-economic issues related to higher education finance. In addition, students will be introduced to issues related to institutional finance.
This course covers a variety of issues in the management of student services on campus. After examining the historical context of student affairs and the theoretical frameworks of student development, students explore ways to most effectively administer the numerous activities that comprise student affairs programs.
EDUC 5892Professional Development in Higher Education
To prepare for a career in higher education administration, this course emphasizes practical application of theory and skill development. The course provides an overview of different careers in higher education, equips students with tools to embark on a successful job search, offers networking opportunities with administrators in higher education, and introduces students to relevant and timely literature and resources in higher education professional development.
This course explores issues of diversity as they pertain to higher education, including race, ethnicity, gender, class, religion, sexual orientation, ideology, etc. Rather than focusing on specific populations of people, the course will tackle issues of diversity within the context o concrete higher education functions and problems.
This course provides an introduction to network perspectives of learning and network analysis of learning processes. Throughout the course, students will be introduced to network theories of learning as well as theories of social, cognitive, semantic, and multidimensional networks. Students will engage in hands-on activities, plan a network analysis project, and apply network analysis techniques to learning contexts of interest to them. Prerequisite: Basic programming skills in R/Python are required. Prior knowledge in learning theories, statistics, and data structure is recommended but not required.
This course is an academically based community service (ABCS) course open to undergraduates and masters students. The course introduces current approaches in mathematics teaching and learning, research on how children develop foundational mathematical concepts, and basic concepts of cognitive and social/emotional development. Students will have opportunities to continually apply theory to practice through bi-weekly one-on-one sessions with an elementary student, using research-based instructional modules that are designed to increase math confidence, engagement, and number sense, as well as regular assessment and reflection on the child’s growth and progress. Penn students will have the opportunity to deeply engage with children and the school community, while continually developing and refining effective instructional practice (e.g., posing questions, supporting productive struggle, connecting representations). The course meets twice a week, and the tutoring sessions are conducted during the scheduled class time. No previous teaching or knowledge of mathematics content is required. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5913Programming Fundamentals for Educational Research
What is computer programming, and how can it be used to improve your research? This course teaches the fundamental concepts and f techniques of programming using Python, while emphasizing a variety of applications to educational research, including data analysis, data visualization, data wrangling, data retrieval, and reproducible workflows. The course covers fundamental programming concepts, as well as software engineering topics such as writing robust code, testing, debugging, collaboration, version control, and working with file systems. The course is taught with an active, hands-on approach to programming, including class discussions and group work. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5914Creating Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Classrooms
In this course, students will explore a variety of approaches as to what makes a classroom culturally responsive and what makes a learning experience culturally sustaining. Coursework will build on a student’s own contexts and experiences as they examine teaching and learning practices in K-12 classrooms. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit e 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
EDUC 5916Quantitative Ethnography and Epistemic Network Analysis
This course introduces the theoretical, methodological, and practical foundations of Quantitative Ethnography (QE), a methodology that blends aspects of qualitative and quantitative approaches to illustrate patterns and find meaning in large datasets. Through participation in the course, students will: (1) Examine the theoretical foundations of the emerging QE field (2) Explore applied research and practice examples from leaders and innovators in QE (3) Practice specific QE modeling approaches such as Epistemic Network Analysis (4) Explore techniques and tools for automated data coding, discourse segmentation, and model refinement.
This design-centered course asks students to investigate AI concepts, tools, and impacts, then translate them into human-centered artifacts for real audiences—e.g., workshops, demos, media, or creative works— while evaluating learning and societal effects. Through iterative cycles of discovery, making, and reflection, students collaborate with campus groups and communities to prototype and assess AI experiences that are understandable, responsible, and context-aware. 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
The Large Language Model (LLM) Seminar is designed for graduate students, offering an overview introduction to both theoretical foundations and practical applications of LLMs in education. This seminar focuses on state-of-the-art LLM applications in educational settings, showcasing applied research from distinguished experts in both LLM and education fields. Students will engage with seminal research papers, attend expert-led talks, and participate in interactive discussions with these leading professionals. The course culminates in a collaborative, hands-on project, allowing students to demonstrate their proficiency in applying LLM skills to address real-world educational scenarios. By the end of the course, students will be able to: (1) Understand the advantages and limitations of LLM in educational contexts. (2) Critically analyze educational research and developments in the realm of LLMs. (3) Discuss the ethical considerations and societal impacts of deploying LLMs. (4) Apply LLMs to enhance learning and teaching experiences. (5) Conduct collaborative research on LLM-related topics.
EDUC 5920Children's Additional Language Development
Children learning an additional language (AL) in immersion or instructional contexts are growing worldwide. Their language development has distinct characteristics while also sharing similarities with adult AL development. This course addresses major issues concerning children’s (learners up to age 12) AL development and explores their implications for teaching. The completion of EDUC 7225 (Second Language Development) or an equivalent course is a prerequisite. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
The course is built on the premise that developing critical arts-based praxis and pedagogies deepens art & academic learning for both students and teachers. In this course, you will explore the critical role that arts- based learning can play in and across disciplines. You will also develop a deep understanding of what it means to implement arts integration in educational settings from a systems approach. We will do this together through building a collaborative art inquiry into teaching and learning. Our work together will combine arts-based educational scholarship with artmaking itself: through guided lessons, you will learn visual art techniques you can bring back to the classroom, but will also serve as the materials for your own visual teaching philosophies. No art experience is necessary. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5932Racial Formations and Educational Inequality
Employing an interdisciplinary approach, this course examines how racial meanings are constructed, negotiated, and contested through educational policies and practices. It considers how racial discourses shape diverse students’ experiences in schools and how students engage with these processes in ways that can disrupt, reproduce, or reinterpret dominant racial ideologies and their own racial positions. We also analyze how race interacts with other systems of identity and power— such as class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship—to shape educational structures and everyday life in schools. This course invites students to critically investigate how racial discourses function in schools and to consider their implications for the broader purposes of education in the United States. By the end of the course, students will be able to criticall analyze how racial formation processes shape educational systems and apply intersectional frameworks to understand and challenge educational inequality.
EDUC 5941Women, Human Rights and Global Transformations
Women, Human Rights and Global Transformations is a seminar style, graduate course that engages global human rights issues and interdisciplinary research from diverse fields, including anthropology, philosophy, history, education, and law. The course focuses on scholarship and activism around human rights abuses in times of war and peace and the movements that rise in response. It is designed to bring together the distinct voices of artists, advocates, scholars, and survivors. Diverse course material offers practical and theoretical approaches to women’s and girls’ rights with a particular focus on transnational feminism, storytelling, and online social movements as sources of global transformation. Grounded in feminist theories, we explore systems of historical domination and modes of resistance and alliance. Weekly readings ask students to analyze human rights documents, curricula, websites, and YA novels alongside academic literature and public scholarship. We also engage with a range of multimedia sources, including music, poetry, and film. This course aims to be a deeply reflective and highly engaged academic experience. Students complete public-facing assignments and undertake individualized final projects to be shared in an end-of-semester symposium. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This course asks the following questions: How are the racial meanings made, re-made, and/or unmade through education? How do racializing discourses interact in schools to shape the larger U.S. racial structure(s)? And, how do students engage with racialization processes through educational institutions in ways that disrupt, reproduce, and/or reinterpret their racial position, the broader racial structure, and dominant racial ideologies? This course encourages students to critically investigate how racialized discourses function in schools, and the implications for the purpose of education and racial ideology in the U.S. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5944Education and the Politics of Knowledge in the Global South
This course investigates the politics of knowledge production, or how knowledge, data, and evidence are claimed, captured, and shared in educational development. Students will examine the logics, histories, actors, and power structures at the foundation of contemporary knowledge production and global governance through multiple disciplinary and theoretical lenses. Throughout the course students will reflect on their own positionality within international educational development and consider alternatives to the dominant modes of knowledge production based on decolonial and indigenous epistemologies, creating opportunities to envision otherwise worlds and reparative futures. y 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
EDUC 5945Qualitative Methods and the Politics of Knowledge
This course is designed to help students design, conduct, revise, and analyze qualitative research and modes of inquiry in the social sciences and education. Taking a global perspective, students will have the opportunity to practice qualitative research, including the developing of a research question, designing a study, interviewing, and conducting observations, and analyzing and writing up data. The course provides students with skills in the application of key qualitative methodologies, as well as perspectives of the politics of knowledge production, or how knowledge, data, and evidence are claimed, captured, and shared in educational and international development. Throughout the course students will reflect on their own positionality within international educational development and qualitative modes of inquiry while considering alternatives to the dominant modes of knowledge production through an exploration of decolonial and indigenous epistemologies and practices. 1 Course Unit
This course is designed for ISHD master’s students interested in conducting research and/or participating in an applied or research-based internship setting. The main goals of this course are to: (1) develop students’ capacity to connect human developmental theories and related coursework to research and practice, (2) to explore the practical applications of research and theory in human development and (3) to provide an introduction to the essential components of designing, conducting and evaluating research in developmental psychology. The course will cover topics related to developmentally appropriate practice, research methodology and translating research into practice using lecture, discussion, in-class activities, and outside reading and writing assignments. The objectives of this course are to help students develop the skills necessary to: • Critically evaluate research and the conclusions that can be drawn from research (i.e., to promote the skills necessary to be a good consumer of research) • Conduct quality research in developmental psychology • Make connections between theory, research, course material and real life application Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
Formal schooling isn’t the only source of education and socialization made available to the nation's young people. They learn not only from the adults in their lives, but the books, movies, shows, songs which they are exposed to. This course gives particular attention to the effect of storytelling as well as Matters of Representation that inform the child about the world, through concept development and ultimately about their place and/or potential in the world as we unpack Sociocultural Development using theories Self-Efficacy, Possible-Selves/Possibility Development. From Sesame Street to Gracie, Scholastic, Lee&Low as well as Tor Publications to news alert algorithms, TikTok #LifePurpose and similar hashtag trends the influence of media on learning and development is unmistakable. In this course, we explore the contact zones Social Literacy and Human Development to gain insight on these immersive tools to affect best outcomes for developing peoples. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This course explores childhood socialization in school environment. Topics include process of socialization; social systems and school as extension of larger society; different agents of socialization in school; values, attitudes, beliefs, and norms; shaping of behaviors; types of behaviors affected by socialization in school; and role of parents in school. 1 Course Unit
Digital Technology and Child Development The term "digital natives" is used to refer to the generations of children that have grown up surrounded by technology, making them particularly adept at using digital devices and platforms. However, there is an ongoing debate about the impact of digital technology on children’s cognitive and social development. This course explores the effects of digital technology on various aspects of childhood development, providing a view of how technology shapes the modern developmental landscape. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5971Dimensions and Drivers of Educational Inequalities
Education is often characterized as a means of upward mobility and an equalizer of societal outcomes. This survey course critiques this perspective by exploring the structural factors that give rise to inequity and inequality in education. More specifically, we examine the role of institutions, policies, neighborhoods, and schools in fostering or reducing inequity in educational inputs and inequality in educational outcomes. The specific learning objectives are as follows: Interrogate the goals and functions of education; Explain key concepts such as educational opportunity, educational outcomes, (in)equality, and (in)equity; and Describe the structural forces that create inequities and inequalities in educational opportunities and outcomes.
EDUC 5972Economic Perspectives on Higher Education Policy
This course explores contemporary issues in higher education policy from economic perspectives. Each class will focus on a particular policy issue within higher education and work to understand how economists approach these issues. Policy topics include high school to college transitions, college access and success, student debt and financial aid policy, returns to education, and labor market transitions. Students should come away from the course with (1) an understanding of critical policy issues in higher education (2) economic approaches to analyzing higher education policy and (3) economic theory and empirical evidence supporting or discrediting policies in higher education. Prior course- taking in introductory statistics or causal inference is helpful but not necessary. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5973Social Capital and Social Networks in Schools
Schools are key organizational contexts in which students, teachers, and parents develop relationships with one another. Drawing on conceptualizations of social relations as a resource (e.g., Pierre Bourdieu James Coleman, Nan Lin), a rich scholarship identifies the advantages of school-based relationships, from channeling information and advice, to providing emotional support, to encouraging involvement. This work illuminates how the architecture of social networks and actors’ locations within these networks have significant consequences. This graduate seminar offers an introduction to theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding school-based social structures. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5974The Politics of Policymaking in K-12 Education
This course will introduce students to the role of politics in K-12 education policymaking. The course will examine policy models and frameworks while exploring the dynamics of individuals, interest groups, and coalitions in the policymaking process. A portion of the course will be dedicated to the application of policy models and frameworks to current policy issues in the K-12 arena.
EDUC 5976Assessing Research Quality in Education Policy
This course will introduce tools for conducting literature search and research synthesis. The focus of this course is both practical and methodological. Topics covered involve background on different parts of the research synthesis process, including problem formulation, conducting literature search, data evaluation, effect size coding, and data analysis. Further, statistical methods used for summarizing the effects found in a study (effect sizes) and for combining the results of these studies will be introduced and developed. The statistical package R will be used to conduct the statistical techniques discussed. By the end of the semester, students will be able to conduct replicable search of the literature, evaluate study quality in the context of policy research extract, and code information from eligible studies, as well as create meta-analytic databases using appropriate statistical techniques. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1625
EDUC 5977Other Ways of Seeing and Doing: K -12 School Reforms
Around the World. This course surveys education reform efforts in different countries to develop skills in policy analysis, reform design, implementation and appraisal. The seminar series will cover various approaches to design and implementation and the merits and challenges of different education reform strategies. There will be reform examples from Peru, Rwanda, Ghana, Vietnam, Estonia, Kazakhstan, USA, Singapore, Hong Kong, Qatar, Kyrgyzstan, England and Scotland. They all are K -12 school settings. In addition to developing students’ knowledge the seminars and assignments will try to help them further develop skills in thinking critically, arguing logically, writing succinctly and clearly, and working well with others. 1 Course Unit
This course introduces students to a variety of educational policy strategies aimed at improving the quality of teaching and learning in P-12 settings. The goals of the course are to (1) to familiarize students with , the arguments and evidence relating to important education policies and/or interventions and (2) provide students with an analytic framework to assess education policy more generally. Specific policy areas in K-12 education include school choice, school accountability, teacher effectiveness and labor markets, school finance reform, and the role of technology in schools. Throughout the course, we will focus on the differential impact of policies by student demographic characteristics (e.g., race, gender, socioeconomic status) and community context. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5983The Community’s College: Bridging Research and Practice
What does it mean for a college to belong to a community? This course examines the history, development, challenges, and future of community colleges in the United States, with particular attention to the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) as a key institutional partner. Founded on the promise of open access and local opportunity, community colleges have long served as gateways to higher education for first-generation, working-class, immigrant, and adult learners. Through a sustained focus on CCP, the course situates national debates about access, equity, workforce development, and public funding within the lived realities of an urban-serving institution. Students engage the college not only as a subject of study, but as a community-based partner embedded in the social, economic, and educational landscape of Philadelphia. We examine the structural challenges community colleges face - including funding constraints, shifting policy priorities, and evolving student support needs - alongside the innovative practices and institutional commitments that sustain them. By analyzing CCP’s mission, programs, partnerships, and role in the city, students consider how community colleges function as engines of access, mobility, and civic engagement. Together, we ask: What does it mean to be a “community’s college”? How does CCP embody -and complicate -the democratic promise of open-access higher education? And what might its future reveal about the future of public , higher education in the United States? 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
EDUC 5984Equity and Inclusion in Higher Education and Beyond
The topics of equity and inclusion have been at the center of debate within U.S. higher education. But the same can be said of other important segments of American society, such as law, medicine, government, and housing. Despite equity being such a pervasive topic, we in higher education rarely - if ever - look across different settings, sectors, and industries for novel approaches to our vexing problems. In this class, we explore the contours and dimensions of equity and inclusion in higher education and stretch them by engaging with literatures, case studies, and speakers from across different sectors and disciplines. In doing so, we glean what higher education can learn from others, and what others can learn from higher education. 1 Course Unit
Studies that implement mixed methods may lead to more nuanced and deeper understandings of research phenomena. Mixed methods, however, may be more expensive in both the time and the resources (e.g., financial capital, human capital, etc.) required to conduct them. However academic journals and research foundations have begun to embrace the benefits that come from rigorous and well-executed mixed methods research studies. In this course, students will be exposed to current and emergent trends in mixed methodologies in the social sciences. We will begin by exploring current approaches to mixed methodologies, such as the convergent design, explanatory sequential design, and exploratory sequential design, and investigate exemplary applications of these designs in higher education research and other fields (e.g., organizational psychology, medicine, etc.). Students will also be exposed to innovative approaches in mixed methods research that are currently emerging, such as equal status design. Ultimately, students will learn how to identify and discern rigorous mixed methods studies, develop compelling and answerable mixed methods research questions. A subsequent course will focus on the use of no-code software applications to analyze qualitative evidence, although some of those tools will be discussed in class when pertinent. 1 Course Unit
This course provides students with an overview of American higher education, with focus given to the contemporary structures, functions and principal missions of various institutional types (e.g., two-year, four-year; public, private non-profit, private for-profit; teaching-focused, research-focused; specialty institutions). This examination of the American higher education “system” will be organized around several overarching questions: What is the purpose of higher education in the United States, and who are the “clients” of American colleges and universities? How do colleges organize themselves internally and what personnel do they employ to achieve their intended aims? How (and why) does instruction differ across various institutional types, and how is effectiveness assessed? 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
EDUC 5988Seeking Global Citizenship at Home and Abroad
Climate, health, racial equity, human rights: most of the challenges we face require global analysis and location action, but initiatives for global citizenship across educational institutions are frequently under-theorized or marginalized. The ideals of active and analytically robust global citizenship, rooted in common human dignity, inclusion, justice, and sustainability, require simultaneous engagement with local civic entities and the capacity to support global education and critical analysis. In addition to conducting a thorough review of the literature, this course will integrate understandings of emplaced global civic practices, and how the central challenge of building a more just, inclusive, sustainable world is enacted through ethical community-campus partnerships and civil society actions. While local engagement with global issues will be a clear theme, the course will also include voices and perspectives from the Global South and from community partners around the world. Students will gain deeper understanding regarding theoretically robust practices for supporting critical global citizenship education and community- campus partnerships. The Wednesday meeting of this course may occur off-campus in Philadelphia, with rotating community organizations.
The social and political context, the expectations for higher education, and the consumers of post-secondary learning and credentials are changing dramatically in ways that deeply impact the operation of our colleges and universities, the student experience, and the outcomes that result. Why then are learning institutions – ostensibly designed to teach evolving knowledge, nurture open-minded curiosity, and model continuous improvement-- so hard to change, even in small ways? How can we manage the facilitation of change despite institutional inertia? This course is grounded in research and theory on how higher education leaders, at all levels and in all types of institutions, can lead the change process, with close attention to practical, proven strategies from within and outside higher education. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 5990Education in a Connected Global Landscape
This virtual course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the field of education in an interconnected world. Throughout the course, students will explore fundamental questions about the purpose, practice, and impact of education: How do cultural and social contexts shape teaching and learning? In what ways does technology redefine teaching and learning? How do global education policies influence local schools and communities? Through dynamic online discussions, collaborative projects, and insights from guest speakers across the Graduate School of Education, students will critically examine the complex relationships between education, language, technology, culture, and society in the 21st century. Key topics include: the evolving purposes and roles of education across diverse contexts, the ethical and practical implications of educational technology, effective and inclusive teaching and pedagogical practices, and equity and access challenges in K–12 and higher education. This course equips students with the foundational knowledge and analytical tools needed for advanced study in education and prepares them to engage thoughtfully with the complex educational challenges of a globalized world. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 6030Teaching in the Middle and Secondary Schools: English
This course is a collaborative inquiry into the dynamic concept of adolescent literacy and its potential as an organizing construct for improving teaching and learning. It provides opportunities to investigate a variety of resources including our own histories as well as a range of print, digital and visual texts and to conduct fieldwork in various middle and secondary school classrooms where youth are being positioned (and positioning themselves) as literacy learners and literacy is being defined, performed, practiced, interrogated, and interpreted, within and beyond the school curricula. By engaging with youth, in various texts and contexts and for a range of purposes, participants will try to make sense of how adolescents negotiate their worlds, in school and out. The approach to literacy is interdisciplinary, drawing from the domains of literature, composition, linguistics, curriculum theory, anthropology and psychology and from theory, research and practice of both university-based and school-based teachers, writers and researchers. The intent is to pose and refine questions about what it means to teach literacy in ways that take seriously what youth bring to school as their own knowledge and passions, cultural and linguistic resources.
EDUC 6041Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Urban Secondary Schools
While a wealth of evidence has illustrated the role of culture in mediating learning & engagement in educational spaces, responding to the pedagogical impact of culture remains challenging for many educational practitioners and institutions. This course will tackle that challenge by exploring the affordances of culturally responsive pedagogies, defined briefly as the philosophical beliefs and conceptual understandings of the interactions between cultures, learners, and educational contexts that guide the design and facilitation of learning experiences. Through course texts and discussions, dialogue with local educators, and inquiry- and practice-oriented assignments, this course will expose students to culturally responsive strategies for engaging, educating, and empowering students in urban secondary schools. Prerequisite: Admission to the UTAP program or permission of instructor.
Teaching is a work of the whole self; and teachers are the lynchpins of schools and schooling in American society. The purpose of this course is to develop a critical understanding of the larger forces at play in our work as educators, and conceptualize what that means for the day-to-day of our teaching practice. In this course, we will explore the ways in which American schools have been molded by the social, political, economic, cultural, and ideological forces in society at large. By historically linking the development of educational initiatives to notions of power, nation building, and citizenship, this class furthers an understanding of the assumptions about the purpose of education within this democratic nation, and its role(s) within our current social and political climate. Additionally, we will explore how the work of teaching can support transformation, rather than reproduction, of these macro-level injustices and inequities. We will draw on students' experiential knowledge of schools and teaching to imagine how urban educators can transform the socially reproductive practices of schools. The work of increasing access to opportunity has been a path walked by educators, individually and collectively, and schools, by leaders and as organizations, and by reformers. With these understandings about self, school, and society, we seek to create a community of practice of equity- and justice-minded teachers, driven by the belief that we are all co-learners in our endeavor as teachers and as citizens, and that we are all co-participants in a democratic society. Prerequisite: Admission to the UTAP program or permission of department.
eaching is a work of the whole self; and teachers are the lynchpins of schools and schooling in American society. The purpose of this course is to develop a critical understanding of the larger forces at play in our work as educators, and conceptualize what that means for the day-to-day of our teaching practice. In this course, we will explore the ways in which American schools have been molded by the social, political, economic, cultural, and ideological forces in society at large. By historically linking the development of educational initiatives to notions of power, nation building, and citizenship, this class furthers an understanding of the assumptions about the purpose of education within this democratic nation, and its role(s) within our current social and political climate. Additionally, we will explore how the work of teaching can support transformation, rather than reproduction, of these macro-level injustices and inequities. We will draw on students' experiential knowledge of schools and teaching to imagine how urban educators can transform the socially reproductive practices of schools. The work of increasing access to opportunity has been a path walked by educators, individually and collectively, and schools, by leaders and as organizations, and by reformers. With these understandings about self, school, and society, we seek to create a community of practice of equity- and justice-minded teachers, driven by the belief that we are all co-learners in our endeavor as teachers and as citizens, and that we are all co-participants in a democratic society. Prerequisite: Admission to the UTAP program or permission of department. Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete 0-1 Course Unit
The purpose of this course is to advance students' understanding of curriculum as a phenomenon and artifact of educational practice. Students will explore curriculum as a social and cultural phenomenon, be introduced to an approach to developing curriculum, and examine factors that influence how curriculum is enacted.
In this seminar, we will discuss and design projects related to the "maker movement" in education using various materials and technologies as we consider issues of access and diversity around making.
EDUC 6111Educational Assessment of and for Learning
This course introduces the essential theories and practices of cognition based educational assessment and the focus will be on exploring the implications of recent developments in cognitive psychology and learning theories for educational assessment by reviewing available assessment examples and research assessment prototypes. It includes topics like, what is the purpose of assessment, how can we design fair and valid assessments to elicit student cognition, how technologies can support the measurement of student cognition and learning processes, and assessment and social justice and accessibility issues.
In this course class members will simultaneously engage in an academic study of educational leadership focusing on Pre-K-12 schools and school districts, and in a continuing leadership development laboratory experience designed to increase one's personal efficacy as leader. A basic assumption for the course is that leadership is a central component of schooling; teaching is considered as foremost a leadership activity, whether with five year olds or high school seniors, and successful schools and districts are assumed to have capable leaders. The course will give particular attention to the recent shift in role expectations for school leaders - from competent manager to accountable instructional leader - and what this shift means in relation to the day-to-day work of educational leaders.
This class discusses the potential and risks of big data-based learning analytics. We will discuss the uses, applications, and benefits of analytics, the relationship between validity and risk, and potential ways to mitigate and reduce risks. We will discuss these issues in the context of existing and emerging educational systems.
This course introduces students to the theory, history, and practice of mixed methods research. Students will build skills in design and implementation of studies that incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methods. Theoretical framing, research questions, design and selection of methods, sampling, instrumentation and data collection, and analysis are addressed.
This course is a survey of the kinds of theories, methods, design considerations, and applications through which educational researchers understand and design environments to improve learning. The course features the most recent trends in learning primarily through educational technologies. It includes perspectives that consider, who is learning, how it is being learned, what design characteristics are needed to ensure learning takes place in different learning environments, and societal and technological influences on learning. Four main learning goals underpin the course content: 1) Understanding learning needs of youth and adults as they interact in school and in society; 2) Investigating the main learning theories and methods influencing the field and how they are instantiated in practice; 3) Examining and reflecting on how technologically designed learning environments address important learning challenges; and 4) Evaluating how these learning environments and applications have helped learning, how they have not, and how they can be improved. Prerequisite: EDUC 616 or learning theories is preferred and will be reviewed at registration.
EDUC 6150Technologies for Language Learning and Teaching
In the last decade, the landscape of second language learning and teaching has moved online. Numerous edtech ventures have funneled hundreds of million dollars into online tutoring in English for young students by companies like VIPKid, mobile apps like DuoLingo have used gamification to keep millions of learners of second languages motivated, and social robots are bring developed to support young children's language development. In this course we address critical questions: How can technology applications be supportive of second language learning and teaching for young and adult learners? What works and what doesn't work? What evidence do we have? To answer these questions, we bring together research and design two academic fields: (1) Theories and instructional approaches for teaching and learning a second language; and (2) Theories and designs using technologies for learning and teaching. Our goal is to examine how the integration of these two efforts can result in more supportive and effective learning and teaching in a time, in which technologies provide new opportunities and challenges for second language learning and teaching.
Since the nineteenth century, museums have played a key role in the collection and dissemination of knowledge, and today their educational programs play a vital role for an array of communities. This seminar provides an introduction into museum education, the fields that influence it, pedagogical approaches used, and contemporary challenges.
This course is designed to explore the research literature on classroom teaching processes as well as the contrasting conceptual and methodological approaches upon which this literature is based. The course introduces students to the major substantive areas in the field, develops a critical perspective on contrasting paradigms, and raises questions about the implication of research on teaching for curriculum, instruction, evaluation, and teacher education. Spring, odd numbered years only 1 Course Unit
Whiteness as a sociopolitical formation has shaped the very essence of educational spaces and processes in the United States. Drawing upon scholarly perspectives from whiteness studies and educational studies, this course will examine the material and ideological effects of whiteness on teaching and learning in American K-12 and higher educational institutions. By identifying the dilemmas associated with uncritical attitudes toward whiteness as a sociopolitical and pedagogical phenomenon, this course will encourage students to consider more liberatory approaches to naming and negotiating whiteness in American education. This is a graduate-level course that presumes introductory- level prior knowledge in educational studies and critical studies of race. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This seminar gives an overview of the intersections and interplay among gender, sexuality, and education through theory, practice, current discussions, and analysis of varied contexts in English speaking countries (e.g. the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia). After examining the theoretical foundations of genders and sexualities, we will look at their histories and effects in K-12 schools and colleges and universities as well as explore special topics.
EDUC 6181Applied Research in the Learning Sciences
This course will introduce students to basic skills necessary to plan, conduct, analyze, and report on a research project. Activities will include literature review, formulating research questions, describing appropriate research methods, managing and analyzing data, and reporting on progress. Students will work on a research team with their peers and will complete hands-on activities that culminate in a conference paper describing their research. In this course, we will work with publicly available data using a qualitative content analysis approach. We will not be conducting human subjects research. It is recommended students take EDUC 6144 Learning Sciences Past Present and Future before taking this course
The course in Databases and Data Management offers students a comprehensive coverage of databases and data management, tailored to both industrial and educational contexts. Students will learn basic concepts and practical skills for storing, manipulating, and working with data in real-world scenarios using real-world data. Key topics covered in this course consist of databases, including data design, data modeling, data querying, and reporting, as well as data management, including data selection and appraisal, data storage and security, legal and ethical considerations, data sharing, data archiving, and data preservation. Students will learn the structured query language (SQL) for database operations in this course.
The In/formal Learning Experiences Internship covers the theory, research, and practice of informal learning. The course is designed to provide background readings, a discussion forum of central issues in informal learning, and a place to share and exchange internship experiences. This course does not provide students with an internship. Internships are optional and must be secured independently. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 6189Contemporary Issues in Mathematics Curriculum
Educational leaders and policy makers in the U.S. have long used curriculum reform to drive change in K-12 teaching and schooling practices. This course examines the assumptions underlying this approach and examines the related research evidence. Spring, odd numbered years only 1 Course Unit
EDUC 6192Large Language Model Applications in Education
Large Language Model (LLM) Applications in Education is designed for graduate students, offering an overview and introduction to both the theoretical foundations and practical applications of LLMs in education. The course focuses on leveraging LLMs, particularly through the OpenAI API, to address real-world challenges in education, such as personalized learning, content generation, automated grading, and learning analytics. Students will gain hands-on experience in using LLMs to develop tools and solutions that enhance teaching and learning processes. The course is divided into three parts: Introduction to LLMs: Covers the history, evolution, and ethical considerations of LLMs, along with hands-on experience in setting up and using the OpenAI API. LLMs in Education: Explores applications of LLMs in education, including content generation, personalized learning, automated grading, and chatbots. Concerns and Future Directions: Discusses ethical challenges, bias, and future trends in LLMs, with a focus on their implications for learning analytics and AI in education. Prerequisite: Python required; EDUC 6190 Feature Engineering (or Equivalent) and EDUC 6191 Core Methods in Educational Data Mining (or Equivalent) are recommended
EDUC 6216Approaches to Teaching Chinese in the K-12 Context
This course provides an overview of the theory and practice of Chinese language teaching with a focus on the K-12 context. Students will explore current issues pertaining to Chinese teaching pedagogy and curricula. There will be opportunities for students to lead discussions, observe classes, create lesson plans, and teach Chinese classes at local Chinese schools.
LGIS students must complete a 160-hour Participant Observation (P.O.) ethnographic internship at an approved site over the summer between their first and second years of study. Students submit an initial proposal for their intended P.O. project as a culminating assignment in EDUC 7220 at the end of their first spring semester. At their summer P.O. site, students conduct research and collect data that will be used in their second year of study.
This graduate seminar is a capstone course in the Reading, Writing, and Literacy master's program, designed to help students develop understandings about key theoretical underpinnings of literacy research. As a foundational course, the seminar will explore how literacy has been conceptualized over time and across disciplines, examining how literacy has functioned as a touchstone issue in policy and practice as people debate what 'counts' as literacy. While we explore these debates, we focus particularly on contemporary literacy theories that understand literacy to be multiple, ideological, and socially situated - practices grounded in specific contexts that are fundamentally linked to broader social, cultural, and political power structures. Inquiry sits at the heart of the course, with students developing an online learning portfolio centered around their individual research, course readings, and prior experiences. Students will reflect on their RWL program of study, write about conceptual territories at the heart of the program, r and curate materials from the semester and their program of study to demonstrate their learning and development over time. Students will work with coaches as well as engage in a workshop learning environment, culminating in an online learning portfolio and presentation to RWL faculty. 1 Course Unit
This course examines critical issues, problems, and perspectives in multicultural education. Intended to focus on access to literacy and educational opportunity, the course will engage class members in discussions around a variety of topics in educational practice, research, and policy. Specifically, the course will (1) review theoretical frameworks in multicultural education, (2) analyze the issues of race, racism, and culture in historical and contemporary perspective, and (3) identify obstacles to participation in the educational process by diverse cultural and ethnic groups. Students will be required to complete field experiences and classroom activities that enable them to reflect on their own belief systems, practices, and educational experiences. This is a Masters level course. Also Offered As: AFRC 6323 1 Course Unit
This course draws on varying pedagogical and personal perspectives to explore conceptions of reading comprehension and how it can be taught to children and adolescents. Focus will be given to how certain ways of structuring dialogue about a text profoundly change how readers think about and do reading. 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
This course acquaints students with the ever-expanding body of literature written for young adults, considering the theoretical and pedagogical issues it raises. Readings include many young adult novels; empirical research on adolescent response to literature; and literary theory.
EDUC 6362Picturebooks and the Practice of Literacy
This course examines the formal properties of picture books and their use in enabling literacy development. The course uses aesthetic theory, theories of text-picture relationships, theories of literacy and theories of literary understanding, and also exposes students to empirical research on children's responses to this literary form.
This course is designed as a collaborative investigation into practitioner inquiry and the work of inquiry communities in K-16 and graduate/ professional school settings, professional networks and community- based organizations. The focus is on conceptual and methodological frameworks and methods of practitioner inquiry and the contexts, purposes and practices of differently situated inquiry communities. Participants will explore a range of practitioner inquiry traditions and texts that go by terms such as action, collaborative, critical, community- based, participatory, autobiographical, emancipatory, narrative and pedagogical. They will also conduct an inquiry based on their particular interests and contexts. The course will emphasize practitioner inquiry that intentionally engages issues of equity, access and culture in educational settings. Spring, even numbered years only 1 Course Unit
Teaching reading/writing/literacy to adults for whom English is a first or second language. Topics include contrasting conceptions of literacy and learning; participatory literacy programs; instruction and curriculum for adults with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and nationalities; alternative/performance-based assessment; and practitioner research in adult literacy education.
EDUC 6402Curriculum & Pedagogy in International Contexts
This course explores the problems, issues, and approaches to teacher preparation and the development of curricula and instructional materials, particularly (though not exclusively) in developing country contexts through a seminar styled class and a hands-on semester long project.
EDUC 6460Qualitative Methods: Principles and Techniques (offered3
Fall, Spring and Summer) while those interested in quantitative traditions enroll in EDUC 6667 Introductory Statistics for Educational Research (offered Fall, Spring and Summer). Students are encouraged to discuss other options with their faculty advisors. Electives must be graduate level and taken for a letter grade. Students should determine elective courses in conference with their faculty advisors to ensure they align with the Planned Program of Study. With faculty advisor approval, electives may potentially be taken in Education, Culture, and Society (EDCS), other GSE programs, or from graduate programs across the university. Students seeking the Community Action and Social Change Concentration must dedicate three CUs from the five electives, as described as follows: the student will complete 2 Community Concentration Electives selected with program approval; 1 Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course; and 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26 an aligning topic for the master's capstone, and has thus meet all requirements of the Community Action and Social Change Concentration. A list of suggested electives is available in the program. ABCS courses are offered through the Netter Center and must be 5000 level or higher. Candidates for the M.S.Ed. degree must demonstrate knowledge of the field of education beyond the area of specialization. Students must complete one approved graduate level (5000 and above) GSE course outside the student’s area of specialization, earning a grade of "B" or better. In EDCS, the requirement must meet the additional following criteria/conditions: (1) it must not be a core/disciplinary foundation course as required in this Planned Program of Study; and (2) it must not be taught by a faculty member whose core appointment is in EDCS. Course Title Course
Schools are key organizational contexts in which students, teachers, and parents develop relationships with one another. Drawing on conceptualizations of social relations as a resource (i.e., social capital), a rich scholarship identifies the advantages of school-based relationships — from channeling information and advice to encouraging involvement, from providing emotional support to creating opportunities to socialize. The scholarship on social capital illuminates how the architecture of social networks and actors’ locations within these networks have significant consequences. This graduate seminar offers both an introduction to theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding school-based social structures.
EDUC 6490Master's Seminar in Education, Culture, and Society
This seminar explores key foundational questions for graduate-level work: How is academic knowledge formed and reproduced? How do we engage with and interrogate the scholarly research? And, how do we participate in the academic conversation around a topic? The Master's Paper Seminar introduces students to academic discourse, disciplinary writing conventions, and research practices. As part of this course, students are guided through preparing a Capstone Paper (centered in an argument-driven, robust, literature review) on a topic of their choice. 0.5-1 Course Unit
Supervised U.S.-based research or internship. Students engage in applied or scholarly work that advances understanding of education and development Students pursuing a standard 3 month domestic placement will be able to enroll in this course once during their program of study. Students pursuing an extended 6 month domestic placement will be able to enroll in this course twice during their program of study. 3 Course Units 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
EDUC 6510Cultural Perspectives on Human Development
This course focuses on children's and adolescents' development from cultural and cross-cultural perspectives. Topics include traditional and recent theories of cultural influence on development, research strategies, socialization values and practices, and socioemotional and cognitive functions such as aggression and conflict, shyness, and academic achievement in cultural context. Issues involving ethnicity and social and cultural changes are also discussed. 1 Course Unit
In the past quarter century, the awareness of the unique issues facing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals has expanded and become essential knowledge in our work as educators, providers of psychological services, and other service provision fields. This course provides a contextual and applied understanding the interactional processes facing LGBT individuals. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: GSWS 6120 1 Course Unit
Through didactic and experimental learning activities, students will explore various theoretical approaches to groups, learn and apply principles of group dynamics, develop familiarity with ethical, legal and professional standards relative to group leadership, learn member roles and functions in group, examine group counseling in a multicultural context, and relate these issues to the leader's interpersonal style and behavior. Applications to specific developmental stages and contexts will be explored. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 6515Parenting and Children's Educational Development
Theory and research on family influences on achievement development, models of the home-learning environment; parental involvement in schools. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
EDUC 6517Counseling for School to Career Transitions
This course is designed to provide an overview of career education and counseling principles, and to make connections between school, work and career at all levels of education and personal development. It will explore the transition process from school to work, and the relationships among work, career and well-being. “Possibility development” and “inventing the future,” will be guiding themes for the course which provide that preparing for college and career is essential to inventing a positive future. The following general topics will be covered through a combination of lecture, experiential activities, readings, and guest speakers: - Career counseling theories - Career decision making processes - Possibility development counseling and mentorship - Identifying and cultivating student strengths - Approaches to career development education in K-12 and college - School to work transitions - Legal issues in the workplace - Resume writing and interviewing
Technologies applied to education (EdTech) have a long history: from origins in radio and TV, through computers, laptops and the Internet, and most recently with the advent of AI. Each of these technologies was expected to revolutionize schooling, teaching and learning. In this course, we will consider the multiple roles that EdTech has played, and is playing today, across the globe, and especially in low-income settings. We will delve into applied research, use project-based learning, and develop ideas that can be used for planning the future use of digital technologies and AI in globally diverse contexts. We will have visiting experts join several class sessions.
This course will provide an overview of the approaches to various psychological interventions with a focus on theory, key concepts, and therapeutic processes. The purpose of this course is to develop a knowledge base of the underlying principles and approaches of psychological interventions. Students will be required to demonstrate a working knowledge of the key concepts of the psychotherapeutic approaches presented, distinguish between different approaches, and make a preliminary rationale for the use of a particular approach. Students also are expected to develop a critical perspective and demonstrate the ability to analyze theories and interventions.
Admission to Couseling and Mental Health Services.
EDUC 6587Counseling Ethics & Professional Principles
This course will provide the student with an opportunity to learn and incorporate the multifaceted roles of the professional counselor and assist the student in developing a sense of their professional identity. In this process, the course will focus on the professional role of the counselor; ethics and their application across situations and professional settings; and gaining strong professional communication abilities. The primary goals of the course are to develop the student's awareness of their roles and responsibilities as a professional, incorporating ethical standards as a counselor, increasing professional communication skills, and understanding the roles of counselor across professional settings.
Seminar and lab to accompany supervised practicum or apprenticeship experiences in schools, colleges, or community agencies. Placement to be arranged by instructor. Two Term Class, Student must enter first term; credit given after both terms are complete 1 Course Unit
Use of Statistical Software including Statistical Analysis (SAS) to effectively build a wide variety of datasets for use to address a range of empirical research questions. Evaluate conventional methods for dealing with missing data and apply contemporary methods using SAS.
EDUC 6720Methods of Economic Evaluation in Education
Methods of economic evaluation are a critical component of evidence for policymaking. Economic evaluations, mainly cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost analysis, contribute information about costs relative to impacts. Rigorous evidence on effects, and the resources used to produce them, aids in selecting between policy alternatives. This course is designed to provide a strong foundation to prepare researchers to apply the "ingredients method", a rigorous method of evaluating the costs of educational programs. The course is structured to build understanding of the concepts and methods of economic evaluation, the consumption and critique of economic evaluations, and the application of the ingredients method to conduct economic evaluations. More specifically, the goals of the course are: 1) development of a clear and strong understanding of economic evaluation in education; 2) ability to discuss and write about concepts of economic evaluation; 3) assess work for strengths and weaknesses of rigor; 4) design research on cost-effectiveness; 5) conduct research applying methods covered in class to contribute to the field. To achieve these goals, the course will focus on reading and discussion of the textbook and methodological papers on concepts and methods; reading, presenting, discussing, and critiquing published research articles and reports; applying methods and concepts in exercises, group projects, and independent research proposals. Prerequisites: Prior coursework in regression, causal analysis, and program evaluation are helpful but not required. Experience in economics or calculus is not required for this course. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 6725The Politics of Policymaking in K-12 Education
This course will introduce students to the role of politics and public policy in K-12 education. The course will examine policy models and frameworks, and their application to current policy issues in the K-12 policy arena. The specific learning objectives are as follows: Understand the stages of the policymaking process; Gain a broad understanding of the models and frameworks that can be applied to understand policymaking; Understand the dynamics of individuals, interest groups, and coalitions in the policymaking process; and Apply policy frameworks and theory to current political issues in education.
The purpose of this course is to focus on major US social policies impacting our most vulnerable subpopulations of children living in poverty. The class will explore how developmental science can provide a broad conceptual framework to inform the construction of social policies for children and evaluate their effectiveness. Since much of the social policy issues for children in the US public square are currently hotly debated, the class format will incorporate debate and require students to actively research and defend positions on existing policies. Class size will be set at a level to maximize interaction and involvement.
This course examines the legal, political and economic issues surrounding how public schools are funded, including equity, productivity and the interaction of finance and school reform. Through readings, discussion and written assignments, students will develop and apply policy analysis skills to the area of education finance.
*Note that you can take both of these classes and one can count in Section 3 or Section 5. Education Policy Core Courses (3) Select three of the following: *If you take more than 3 classes from this list, you can count the fourth (etc.) class as an elective.
This course has two main goals. One is to teach students to apply economic principals to analyze a wide range of educational policy issues. The other is to provide students with a foundation in contemporary education policy issues. The course is designed to address analytic issues relevant to a wide range of educational professionals, including managers, policy makers, and evaluators. The course will be divided into five units: (1) principles of economic analysis in the context of education policy; (2) the economics of early care and education; (3) cost- effectiveness analysis; (4) human capital investment; and (5) education finance.
EDUC 6804Ethics and Leadership in Higher Education
This course looks critically at the various theories of leadership with a special emphasis on the ethical dimensions of leadership. Leadership theory and practice reveal that there is no one approach that is best or that works in all situations. Aspiring leaders must have a variety of lenses through which they can analyze and understand the elements involved in ethical leadership. At the end of the course students will be able to apply essential concepts of ethical decision making and leadership - the role of trust and the ability to build trust, the uses of power, the importance of good decision-making, the conflicting priorities that arise from living out your core values in the workplace.
EDUC 6807Academic Governance: How Colleges and Universities Work
Introduction to selected issues pertaining to faculty and academic governance, such as: Who governs American colleges and universities? What are the respective roles of the president, the board of trustees, the faculty, and students in institutional decision making? The course will also explore key contemporary governance issues.
EDUC 6808Organizational Change in Higher Education
Colleges and universities today face tremendous challenges--calls by external constituents for greater accountability, scarcity of resources, greater competition, and pedagogical innovations. The need for change, and for change agents, in our institutions of higher learning has never been greater. This course examines organizational change both theoretically and practically in college and university settings. Students will be introduced to many of the most current, influential, and promising theories about how change occurs at the departmental, institutional and system level. Using case studies, we will apply these frameworks in order to diagnose and develop constructive strategies for meaningful change. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
Being a proficient consumer or capable producer of data-driven insights requires knowledge of higher education context and policy, a firm handle on research methods, and familiarity with the various sources of available data. In this class, we will explore postsecondary data sets at the national, state, and institutional levels, discuss the kinds of insights these data sets allow, and investigate the shortcomings inherent in these data. By reading recent examples of published work using these data sets and through hands-on activities, we will explore social, political, financial, and ethical issues related to evaluation in higher education. A central goal of this class is to give students the opportunity to work with a variety of data sets and learn to report key findings from the data.
College Student Health explores postsecondary student health issues from historical and research perspectives, including stress, sleep, sexual health and safety, alcohol and other drugs, and mental health and wellness, among other topics. This course surveys the roles, responsibilities, and best practices of campus health professionals. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1639
Enrollment management is an organizational concept of strategies for achieving institutional goals. The course provides an overview of multiple enrollment management models, the evolution and maturation of these models, the related implications of these organizational structures and strategies, and the benefits and drawbacks on institutions and their markets.
Examined in this course are theories and interdisciplinary perspectives pertaining to gender on college and university campuses. Emphasis is placed on the social construction of gender, gendered institutional norms and practices, gender disparities on college campuses, and the unique experiential realities of women, men, and transgender persons in a variety of roles and postsecondary educational contexts. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This seminar offers students a collaborative setting in which to explore a topical area, craft a literature review and refine their research questions. The course will be of special interest to doctoral candidates who are drawn to an area of inquiry (e.g., presidential leadership, diversity, access, organizational change) but now wish to elicit from it a discrete "researchable" question. Prerequisite: Permission needed from department. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This interactive course focuses on the history of American higher education from the Colonial period through the current day. An emphasis is placed on underrepresented institutions and individuals. Students will have the opportunity to make connections between historical trends and movements and current issues.
EDUC 6845Geography of Opportunity: Landscapes of College (In)Access
Who has access to opportunity -and how is that opportunity mapped onto a city? This course examines the subfield of urban geography and its application to education and higher education scholarship. Drawing from research on college access and choice, students analyze the educational landscape of the City of Philadelphia through field- based inquiry. Treating the city as both site and text, we explore how opportunity is spatially produced, distributed, and experienced. Through community-based fieldwork, students engage questions such as: How do residential communities define and experience “education”? How do colleges and universities engage their surrounding neighborhoods in expanding (or limiting) access? How is opportunity conceived, structured, and contested? What are the spatial and non-spatial dimensions of educational inequality? What constitutes educational opportunity in Philadelphia? Students integrate urban geography and higher education research to critically examine how place shapes access, aspiration, and mobility.
In this class, students will learn how to systematically plan for a university course, develop a teaching philosophy, create a course syllabus relevant to their discipline and expertise, design and implement evaluation instruments to assess teaching and learning, experiment with a range of technologies to advance teaching, and participate in a teaching simulation. This course also incorporates issues of diversity with regard to teaching. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
Explores the role of the most senior campus leader, with attention to the various types of non-profit colleges and universities in the U.S. As chief executive, the president or chancellor is ultimately accountable for the academic, extracurricular, athletic, student life, and residential experience, while assuring that the physical plant and facilities, campus safety, technology and information services, administrative operations, and legal affairs are well-managed and maintained, and that the needs of students, faculty, staff, and trustees are addressed. The president is also responsible for fiscal success, donor and alumni relations, marketing and communications, community and government relations, and for guiding a campus through crises. As the institution’s primary advocate, spokesperson and cultural steward, they build relationships with a wide array of constituents, and set and guide progress toward the mission, vision, and strategy for this complex, dynamic organizational system. Examines how presidents are selected, how they successfully navigate the nuances of their multi-faceted roles, and how to work with a president in any campus role.
Higher education, while a national (or local) responsibility, is shaped by global forces – economic, social, political and technological. This course focuses on the trends in globalization and the ways in which those forces impact universities positively and negatively. It addresses globalization and its discontents; the disruption and innovation that globalization creates and reinforces, and the ways in which global forces make universities more, rather than less, important in the global dialogue of human development. 1 Course Unit
Higher education, while a national (or local) responsibility, is shaped by global forces – economic, social, political and technological. This course focuses on the trends in globalization and the ways in which those forces impact universities positively and negatively. It addresses globalization and its discontents; the disruption and innovation that globalization creates and reinforces, and the ways in which global forces make universities more, rather than less, important in the global dialogue of human development. 0.5 Course Units
The traditional mission of teaching, research and service continues to evolve in response to changing public expectations for higher education. This course focuses on ensuring meaningful and impactful student engagement; the foundational role of research and the ways new knowledge can be leveraged to address problems; and the ways in which the teaching and learning functions are changing in light of technology innovation and increased demands for measurable outcomes. 1 Course Unit
The traditional mission of teaching, research and service continues to evolve in response to changing public expectations for higher education. This course focuses on ensuring meaningful and impactful student engagement; the foundational role of research and the ways new knowledge can be leveraged to address problems; and the ways in which the teaching and learning functions are changing in light of technology innovation and increased demands for measurable outcomes. 0.5 Course Units
Effective universities require effective management and governance to lead change and drive innovation. This course focuses on how leaders lead and affect intentional institutional change; the role of strategy and planning as vehicles for intentional long-term change; and the ways in which institutional level governance can positively impact the trajectories of institutions. 1 Course Unit
Effective universities require effective management and governance to lead change and drive innovation. This course focuses on how leaders lead and affect intentional institutional change; the role of strategy and planning as vehicles for intentional long-term change; and the ways in which institutional level governance can positively impact the trajectories of institutions. 0.5 Course Units
The notion of higher education being an Ivory Tower, separate from the world, is nostalgia if not outright myth. Universities are very much shaped by the contexts in which they operate. They need to be responsive to political, economic and social trends. What happens outside universities impacts what happens inside of them. This course seeks to understand how universities must operate in and leaders must shape the political context; the role regulation and politics play; and how university leaders must ensure quality and relevance. 1 Course Unit
The notion of higher education being an Ivory Tower, separate from the world, is nostalgia if not outright myth. Universities are very much shaped by the contexts in which they operate. They need to be responsive to political, economic and social trends. What happens outside universities impacts what happens inside of them. This course seeks to understand how universities must operate in and leaders must shape the political context; the role regulation and politics play; and how university leaders must ensure quality and relevance. 0.5 Course Units University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1641
University leaders need to think about and prepare for the future. Universities risk becoming stagnant and outdated if they do not continually innovate. This course focuses on the principles of design thinking, how leaders can engage campus communities to design and bring about a desired future. It will explore new models of universities and how universities, even long-established ones, can become the disruptors. 1 Course Unit
University leaders need to think about and prepare for the future. Universities risk becoming stagnant and outdated if they do not continually innovate. This course focuses on the principles of design thinking, how leaders can engage campus communities to design and bring about a desired future. It will explore new models of universities and how universities, even long-established ones, can become the disruptors. 0.5 Course Units
Universities never have a slow day. There are constant demands on leaders’ time, talent, and skills. To be effective leaders must have the skills to use data to understand their problems and opportunities, the capacity to lead in times of crises, and leverage the skills and talents of individuals collectively to advance the university and its priorities. Leadership is a collective pursuit, one that requires intentionality and agility, and is shaped by context and circumstance. 1 Course Unit
Universities never have a slow day. There are constant demands on leaders’ time, talent, and skills. To be effective leaders must have the skills to use data to understand their problems and opportunities, the capacity to lead in times of crises, and leverage the skills and talents of individuals collectively to advance the university and its priorities. Leadership is a collective pursuit, one that requires intentionality and agility, and is shaped by context and circumstance.
At their core, universities are human endeavors. Their primary output is human, citizens active in social and economic pursuits. Their primary input is human, the faculty who deliver the core functions of the university. This module focuses on the human dimension of higher education with a particular focus on equity and inclusion in diverse contexts; how to effectively build and manage teams essential to deliver on the mission; and how individuals can manage and benefit from being intentional stewards of personal, professional and organizational transitions. 1 Course Unit
At their core, universities are human endeavors. Their primary output is human, citizens active in social and economic pursuits. Their primary input is human, the faculty who deliver the core functions of the university. This module focuses on the human dimension of higher education with a particular focus on equity and inclusion in diverse contexts; how to effectively build and manage teams essential to deliver on the mission; and how individuals can manage and benefit from being intentional stewards of personal, professional and organizational transitions. 0.5 Course Units
Universities are not businesses (far from it with their social missions, academic core, and public policy ties), but they do have business functions. This module explores three areas related to the business functions of higher education. Their entrepreneurial activities, the ways they project (intentionally or not) their brand identities into the broader world, and how they engage alumni as active contributors to the university, and well beyond their simple donor role. University leaders need to understand the ways their universities can create and sustain entrepreneurial cultures to secure needed resources and leverage resources and assets to positively impact the university. 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
EDUC 6880AAction Lab: Problems/Opportunities of Practice
Unlike other modules in this program, this course is the equivalent of three modules. It will take place over three points in time during the spring and summer semesters. This program is based on the premise that it will help develop knowledgeable, skills leaders to effect change in their higher education contexts. To that end, this capstone course will allow students to frame a problem of practice through an Action Lab, which is a highly engaging, problem-based, and solution-orientated, course. To say higher education has problems is a gross understatement. (We also have a lot of opportunities too, not all negative, thank you very much….) Reading the news headlines from around the world, or even holding a simple conversation with a faculty member, administrator, trustee, alumnus or student will yield a list of challenges the need to be addressed or opportunities of which to take advantage. Challenges and opportunities know no country boundaries as we have all learned in this program. This course does not attempt to address everything, but rather to work with each student or teams of students to identify, frame, articulate, understand, and contextualize a meaningful problem of practice and propose a well-grounded strategy to make positive progress. This work can be done alone or in pairs. The assignment expectations outlined below will be adjusted for those working together. 0.5 Course Units
EDUC 6880BAction Lab: Problems/Opportunities of Practice
Unlike other modules in this program, this course is the equivalent of three modules. It will take place over three points in time during the spring and summer semesters. This program is based on the premise that it will help develop knowledgeable, skills leaders to effect change in their higher education contexts. To that end, this capstone course will allow students to frame a problem of practice through an Action Lab, which is a highly engaging, problem-based, and solution-orientated, course. To say higher education has problems is a gross understatement. (We also have a lot of opportunities too, not all negative, thank you very much….) Reading the news headlines from around the world, or even holding a simple conversation with a faculty member, administrator, trustee, alumnus or student will yield a list of challenges the need to be addressed or opportunities of which to take advantage. Challenges and opportunities know no country boundaries as we have all learned in this program. This course does not attempt to address everything, but rather to work with each student or teams of students to identify, frame, articulate, understand, and contextualize a meaningful problem of practice and propose a well-grounded strategy to make positive progress. This work can be done alone or in pairs. The assignment expectations outlined below will be adjusted for those working together. 0.5 Course Units
EDUC 6893Student Development in College Environments
Student development refers to the ways a student grows, progresses, or enhances their developmental capabilities through enrollment in higher education. In this course, we will examine student development in college settings using the theoretical frameworks of adult development, positive psychology, and social cognitive theory. We will focus on the first three steps of adult development: identity development, relationship skills development, and career development. In this course, we will use an evidence-based approach by learning to interpret correlational studies (quantitative) and by conducting in-depth interviews (qualitative). Additionally, the course will focus on student development through the lens of diversity, equity, belonging, and inclusion, exploring how college environments can foster the psychological conditions essential for student development.
This course includes theoretical and practical applications for the teaching of world languages, based on the five "C" goal areas: Communication, Cultures, Comparisons, Connections, and Communities of the World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages. Approaches and techniques will be explored to equip world language teachers with the knowledge and tools necessary to create a student-centered, standards-driven, communicative classroom. Learning will take place in multiple ways including videos, observations, reflections and virtual visits.
This seminar invites students to grapple with the question of ‘Why Classroom Discussion Matters?”’ Drawing from readings in philosophy, learning theory, and empirical research on discussion-focused classroom interventions and teacher professional development, we will consider the purposes of and challenges to open classroom discourse. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1643
The world is full of complex problems. These problems exist within our organizations, our institutions, our communities, our countries, and our world. These problems require people to work together, often across boundaries that are political, cultural, disciplinary, geographical, and more. This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of how people work together to solve complex problems. The course is interdisciplinary in that it intentionally draws students from schools across the University of Pennsylvania. In this class, students will be asked to explore how their disciplinary background can contribute to complex problem solving, as well as the limits to the types of analysis and solutions their fields can provide. Students will explore how other fields approach problem-solving and learn alongside classmates from across the university to practice collaboration across boundaries. Designed around a set of experiential learning activities, students won’t just learn about negotiation and collaborative problem-solving, they’ll actually practice it through a series of negotiation simulations. The course draws on the foundational theory and practice of negotiation as a way to think about interdisciplinary and collaborative problem-solving. Students will explore negotiation as a collaborative practice where people work together to understand problems, generate ideas, secure agreements, build commitment, and implement sustainable solutions. Ultimately, the goal of the course is to help students develop their practice as collaborative problem-solvers today so that they can take on the world’s toughest challenges in the real world tomorrow. Please note that this course meets in an intensive and accelerated format. Please also note that students are required to purchase course materials.
EDUC 6912Sociohistorical Contexts of Teaching and Learning
Teaching and learning are social phenomena that reflect and inform the aims, anxieties, and conflicts of the social contexts within which they unfold. Engagements in thoughtful and effective educational research and practice demand nuanced understandings of the complicated and evolving relationships between educational enterprises and the societies that shape them. In this course, we will examine the social foundations of teaching and learning. Specifically, through a series of theoretical lenses, we will question how social formations like democracy, capitalism, fascism, and digital societies have attempted to define the goals and substance of educational endeavors. Additionally, we will consider the implications of the social foundations of teaching and learning for our own work as educational scholars and practitioners.
EDUC 6940Evidence in International Education: Design, Implementation
and Impact This course explores the use of evidence in international primary education and child development efforts. It begins with an overview of how evidence is used in three phases of reform or intervention: design, implementation, and impact. It offers a framework for thinking about where research questions are in a project cycle. Students will be asked to systematically consider who is asking the question and the implications of the answer for whether and how evidence is used. The course uses real cases from international education to explore key topics, such as: structured pedagogy, education technology, bi- and multi-lingual classrooms, time on task, equity, learning materials, school readiness, social-emotional learning, girls education, parents’ roles in learning, teaching at the right level, and scaling. With each topic, the class will read current evidence syntheses and explore the production and use of evidence in at least one real-world setting. Guest speakers from several of these efforts will share their experience and engage the class in learning in more depth about evidence use in ongoing reforms. We’ll explore concepts of replicability, external validity and evidence use in adaptative management. Students will also learn about the types of outcome measures commonly used in generating this evidence – assessments of basic reading and math skills, holistic child development and social-emotional, or “21st century skills” – as well as some of their challenges. They will learn about measures commonly used to capture implementation fidelity and quality of learning environments. Students will become familiar with current debates in international basic education and child development. They will know the current state of the evidence that underpins these debates, and the measures used to move these fields of inquiry forward. Assignments will challenge students to analyze evidence and interventions, as well as to design studies to move the field forward. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 6983Statistical Foundations: No-Code Data Storytelling
This course examines how quantitative evidence is interpreted, visualized, written about, and communicated in educational and social science contexts. Graduate students often need to produce research papers, policy briefs, and institutional reports using quantitative data, yet face challenges in creating and interpreting high-quality tables, figures, and narratives. This course emphasizes translating statistical output into clear, accurate, and responsible visual and written representations for diverse audiences. Statistical models and analytic procedures are introduced and critiqued to support interpretation and communication. The course teaches statistical methods as tools for storytelling hence does not replace introductory quantitative methods coursework. Students will work with an easy-to-use, no-code software tool to produce publication- and report-ready tables, figures, and written summaries, with attention to uncertainty, limitations, and the alignment between quantitative evidence and substantive claims.
EDUC 7102Conceptual Models of School Leadership & Organization
We will explore conceptual models of organization and leadership in order to develop our knowledge of how classrooms, schools, and education systems function. Our approach will be to consider foundational theoretical works alongside their recent empirical applications. Throughout the semester we will use case studies to help illuminate our understanding.
EDUC 7132Doctoral Proseminar on Education Research
This seminar is designed to enable first-year doctoral students at Penn GSE to understand the broad and diverse field of educational research and the driving debates within the broader field and sub-fields. A primary goal of the course is to support students' developing identities as educational scholars and to help them develop the intellectual skills and stances they will draw upon in doctoral work. We will pay particular attention to the multidisciplinary nature of education research, how individual disciplines and theoretical traditions approach education problems in complementary or contrasting ways, and how educational research functions at the intersection of policy and practice. The seminar seeks to encourage an intellectual community among doctoral students across Penn GSE divisions and programs and to build familiarity with professional norms and expectations. This seminar is intended to build on and complement related courses and activities that are offered by individual Penn GSE divisions.
EDUC 7220Seminar in Microethnography) must be approved before2
you can begin your participant observation internship; the participant observation internship must be completed before you may register for EDUC 8230 LGIS Seminar. EDUC 8230 LGIS Seminar is offered in the spring semester only. Students must maintain a 3.5 cumulative GPA after the completion of the first fall semester in order to register for 4 CU's in subsequent semesters. Students must maintain a 4.0 cumulative GPA after the completion of the first fall semester in order to register for 5 CU's in subsequent semesters. Two courses may be transferred into the program (as electives only) with the approval of ELX faculty. Students must earn a grade of B- or higher in core courses (see Handbook). Elective courses must be taken at the graduate level (5000 and above). Candidates for the M.S.Ed. degree must demonstrate knowledge of the field of education beyond the area of specialization. This requirement is met by satisfying the distribution requirement. To meet the distribution requirement, students must complete one approved graduate level (5000 and above) GSE course outside the student’s area of specialization, earning a grade of "B" or better. Students should check with their program manager for a list of courses approved to fulfill the distribution requirement. Further requirements regarding rses these courses may be specified by each division. urse First Year nits Fall Course
EDUC 7313Responding to Literature: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
This course deals with the ways in which readers respond to and transact with literary texts, and aims at helping students understand the nature of the variety of ways in which literature interfaces with our lives. Three different types of discourse are read: literary criticism; empirical research on response to literature; and literary texts themselves. Various types of literary criticism are considered, including (but certainly not limited to ) what is commonly called "reader response criticism"; text-based criticism; and criticism that contextualizes literature socially and historically. The empirical research on response deals with ways in which readers of various ages interact with literature, mostly in school settings; some attention is given to instructional design and critique of methodology. The literary texts range from picturebooks to literature for young adults.
This course examines critical issues, problems, and perspectives in multicultural education. Intended to focus on access to literacy and educational opportunity, the course will engage class members in discussions around a variety of topics in educational practice, research, and policy. Specifically, the course will (1) review theoretical frameworks in multicultural education, (2) analyze the issues of race, racism, and culture in historical and contemporary perspective, and (3) identify obstacles to participation in the educational process by diverse cultural and ethnic groups. Students will be required to complete field experiences and classroom activities that enable them to reflect on their own belief systems, practices, and educational experiences.
Approaches to Literacy Tutorial Work Total Course Units 6-7 Literacy Studies Absence Policy Students who miss three or more classes in any Literacy Studies course risk failing the course. If you have extenuating circumstances, please discuss them with your instructor and the Literacy Studies Program Manager. Students with initial certification and one year of teaching experience (outside of student teaching) take EDUC 5325. Students without certification and teaching experience must take EDUC 5324 and EDUC 5325. The degree and major requirements displayed are intended as a guide for students entering in the Fall of 2026 and later. Students should consult with their academic program regarding final certifications and requirements for graduation.
EDUC 7350Qualitative Digital Methods in Educational Research
As digital technologies infuse and shape people’s everyday worlds, educational researchers are faced with emerging and dynamic questions about the role of digital tools and spaces in their methodological practices. This doctoral seminar (also appropriate for advanced master’s students) is a hands-on, workshop-style qualitative methods course designed to help students explore these questions in relation to their research interests. We will engage with a range of methodological approaches for understanding learning with/through/about digital technologies, with students experimenting with different tools for data collection, analysis, dissemination, and workflow in the context of a semester-long inquiry into a topic of their choosing. Whether students are considering studying an online community, using video in classroom research, analyzing data using QDA software, or conducting Zoom interviews, all are welcome - no prior experience with digital methods necessary. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
International Education Development 1 EDUC 7665 Introduction to Causal Inference for 2 Educational Research 3.50 EDUC 7847 Social and Statistical Network Analysis
EDUC 7464Advanced Qualitative and Case Study Research
This course explores epistemological and methodological choices and stances in qualitative research as well as advanced research methods including qualitative research design and concept mapping, sampling/ participant selection, interviewing, coding and data analysis, instrument development and triangulation techniques.
The course will consist of experiential and small group learning, with a focus on practicing and refining skills related to advanced work in psychological services, including the application of various techniques of counseling, ethical considerations, and critiques of live and simulated counseling sessions through role-playing, audio and visual taping. Psychology M. Phil. Program.
Lab seminar group with a seminar group leader is the second component of the Professional Counseling Internship course. Lab will provide students with exposure to others' experiences in different types of internships, working with a variety of different client populations. Counseling Program. A primary goal of this course is to help each student refine his/her evolving knowledge of self as a provider of psychological services to others. Students will also evaluate contexts of practice and the professional skills, ethics and practices inherent in effective provision of counseling and psychological services. This course consists of two components: CLASS MEETINGS, during which the full group will meet to address issues related to work in various internships, as well as discuss the development of advanced counseling skills and issues; and, LAB SEMINAR GROUP, which consists of 7-8 masters students with a seminar group lab leader. Prerequisite: Students must be enrolled in the M. Phil. ED. in Professional Counseling Program.
Examines the definition and measurement of risk and resilience from the perspectives of developmental psychology and ecological theories of development; introduces students to the conceptual and practical integration of intervention and prevention sciences to address social, emotional, educational, and health problems across childhood.
EDUC 7548Neuroscience, Brain Development, and Learning
Neuroscience has made tremendous progress toward understanding the neural bases of cognition. The development of the human brain in response to maturation and learning is of particular interest to educators. This course provides an overview of brain development and methods used in cognitive neuroscience and how research in the brain sciences can inform educational practices and policies. Topics include brain development, methods of cognitive neuroscience, neural development in audition, vision, and motor skills, neural processing of language, neuroscience of learning differences, and changes in the brain associated with environment, such as socioeconomic status. 1 Course Unit
Basic concepts, theory, and research in cognitive science, problem- solving, psycholinguistics, memory, perception and social cognition. Special topics may include reading, bilingualism, computer modeling, and cognitive theory applied to education and non-education settings. 1 Course Unit
EDUC 7566Advanced Professional Counseling Interventions
This course will focus on advanced issues in the clinical practice of professional psychology with children, adolescents and adults where students will practice clinical skills in role-played therapeutic situations Students will be using this class as preparation for the formal clinical examination required by all Master of Philosophy in Education students prior to graduation from the Professional Psychology and Counseling program. Prerequisite: Admission into Professional Counseling M. Phil.
EDUC 7585Selected Topics in Professional Psychology
Consideration of research and theory, on selected advanced topics. Professional Counseling M. Phil, Program Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
Admission to Counseling & Mental health Services or
EDUC 7665Introduction to Causal Inference for Educational Research
Offers applied introduction to methods of causal inference for evaluation research; introduces students to statistical models for causal inference based on randomized controlled trials and observational studies; includes discussion of special topics such as replication and generalizability that touch upon issues related to implementation and implications of experimental/quasi-experimental research.
Theory and application of means modeling and longitudinal analysis through structural equations, including observed variable regression with multiple equations simultaneously estimated, confirmatory factor analysis measurement models using multiple observed indicators to define sets of latent variables, and regression relationships among multiple latent variables; advanced applications for repeated measures and multilevel growth modeling in educational and social science research. Prerequisite: Introductory Statistics
As teachers are the largest determining factor to a student's success in school, school districts set goals that all students have access to an effective teacher. This course will examine the local, state, and federal policies that can impact and/or support this goal. The course will review policies as seen through the life cycle of a teacher (recruitment through retention and retirement), including policies such as certification, evaluation, and tenure, as well as issues that impact retention such as compensation and work rules. Taught by a former district administrator who has worked on these issues directly with multiple large urban school districts, this course places teacher policy at the intersection of research and practice, using a policy lens.
EDUC 7771The Intersection of Leadership Theory and Practice
With a growing recognition of the complexities that face leaders in education and other social organizations, understanding the work of leadership is paramount. Theoretical and practical scholarship has provided insights and guidance about different lenses on leadership and how these understandings can help leaders develop more functional, resilient, and productive professional environments. This seminar will examine the major theories of leaders and bridge leadership ideas with practical application through case studies of leadership in different context. It will introduce students to the perspectives, typologies and conceptual frameworks that situate and guide current and future leadership in organizations.
Covers selected topics in the economics of higher education, including investment and consumption theories, cost functions, university investment practices and principles, and academic labor markets.
EDUC 7815Case Studies in Higher Education Administration
This course is designed to enhance understanding of decision making in higher education administration. Based on case studies, students will analyze, propose policies, generate action plans and implementation procedures, and assess the potential consequences of their administrative decisions. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
EDUC 7828Advanced Public Policy Seminar in Higher Education
Students explore higher education in one state and collaboratively develop a case study to understand the relationship between state policies and higher education performance. Through readings, interviews and student presentations, students learn about the context, the performance, and the public policies influencing higher education performance.
EDUC 7844Building Inclusive Communities in Higher Education
This course provides students an opportunity to apply their knowledge related to the practice of higher education administration. The goal of the course is to advance students' understanding of climate on today's campuses and to utilize diverse methods to create inclusive spaces on campus for all institutional stakeholders.
Network analysis aims to find structure among a variety of connections/ settings. This course highlights the inferential/statistical aspect of network analysis which overcomes its main limitation of being depicted as a descriptive tool. Since applications of network analysis to education research are emerging, course participants will gain a competitive job- market advantage.
Despite the vast availability of data that can be linked to earth’s surface (AKA geo- referenced or geo-located), most research continue to ignore or omit the influence of location on the outcomes of interest. For example, assume one is interested in measuring the impact of an intervention taking place in some school districts across a given state. Assume further that a variety of school-level administrative indicators are readily available for model inclusion, whereas other place-based indicators require extra data gathering, management, and methods before they can be statistically accounted for. In scenarios like this, researchers typically proceed to model the intervention effects without considering other place-based variables that surely impact students’ performance over and above their within school experiences. That is, given that where individuals experiences life transcends school boundaries, the omission of out-of-school localized factors such as neighborhood-level poverty, crime, or unemployment levels, equates to ignoring and/or assuming that those factors bear no effect on such individuals’ prospects of success. The overarching purpose of this course is threefold. First, it discusses the most recent theories on neighborhood effects, equality of opportunity and environmental determinism as the foundations for the applications and methods covered in the course. Second, the course moves to introduce a survey of geolocated data sources that can be incorporated in traditional socio-econometric research. Third, the course provides participants with tools and methods to visualize and model datasets with spatial elements in order to reach conclusions and offer recommendations that consider the relevance of place and space. It is hoped that the incorporation of these place-based indicators may provide more robust and precise evidence, (as) compared to evidence reached with methods that ignore such a structure contained in places where units of analyses are spatially situated.
EDUC 7849Modeling Leadership Resilience through Chaos, Crisis
Calamity, Calumny, and Catastrophe All institutions are vulnerable to disruptions that can escalate rapidly to truly catastrophic conditions. Local, national, and international events can pose serious threats to the health and wellness of individuals and cohort groups of community members and to the normative functioning of institutional entities. Contemporary leaders model resilience through these crises through their imaginative and agile stewardship. Core goals of the Modeling Resilient Leadership through Catastrophe course are to help students understand: categories of crises endemic to institutions, agencies, and systems; the importance of crisis mitigation advance planning including the elements of a crisis management plan and the value of “tabletop” practice, and those leadership styles and characteristics that contribute to highly-effective leadership resilience in catastrophic events from incidence through to recovery.
A weekly seminar that seeks to consolidate, broaden, and deepen knowledge of the main themes, trends, issues, and practices in the field of TESOL. Students will demonstrate their ability to observe, analyze, and reflect upon their teaching as they make connections between theory and practice, all critical skills for ongoing professional development which relate to the students' final project, a reflective-analytical or actio research paper. The project is based on a thirty-hour teaching internship completed during the semester in which the students are enrolled in EDUC 563. The project is individually designed and subject to the instructor's approval. All students in the M.S.Ed./TESOL and Language & Literacy must submit a proposal for the internship in the semester before they take the Seminar. Prerequisite: Permission needed from the department. Fall, Spring, and Summer Terms 3 Course Units
Prior to enrolling in this course, all students in the M.S.Ed LGIS program must conduct ethnographic (participant-observation) fieldwork in the context of a supervised internship of at least 160 hours, usually during the summer between the first and second year. The supervised internship, involving placement of the student in an approved field site, is individually designed and is subject to approval; students must submit a Proposal describing their ethnographic project in the semester prior to undertaking fieldwork as a requirement of EDUC 7220: Seminar in Microethnography. This course offers guidance as students complete the portfolio or reflective paper, which is based on their experience and the ethnographic data they collected during their fieldwork placement. Through this course, students in the M.S.Ed. LGIS program will discuss ways to conceptualize their fieldwork experience, situate it meaningfully within the field of Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies, locate and analyze relevant research literature, and prepare the portfolio or reflective paper, with an overall goal of developing the ability to communicate clearly and effectively for an academic and/or professional audience. Prerequisite: Eight or more courses toward M. S. Ed. degree in Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies. Permission needed from department.
EDUC 8336Issues in Instructional Leadership in Reading and Writing
Participants will consider current critical issues in Reading, Writing, and Literacy, such as: improving accountability and assessment; approaches to professional development and curriculum development; and the use of scientifically "valid" research to advance literacy learning.
This doctoral level course will introduce students to a conceptual language and theoretical tools for analyzing and explaining the complex intersection of racialized, ethnic, gendered, sexual, and classed differences and asymmetrical social relations. The students will examine critically the interrelationships between culture, power, and subjectivity through a close reading of classical and contemporary social theory. Emphasis will be given to assessing the power of various theories for conceptualizing and explaining mechanisms of social stratification as well as the basis of social order and processes of social change. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 7040, URBS 7060 1 Course Unit
This seminar explores, in some linguistic detail, how narrators can partly construct their selves while telling autobiographical stories. The seminar addresses three questions: What is the structure of narrative discourse? How might we construct ourselves by telling stories about ourselves? If narrative is central to self-constructions, what is "the self"? Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
This course is designed to follow after Ethnographic Research Methods (EDUC 7468). In the introductory course, students learned how to use qualitative methods in conducting a brief field study. This advanced level course focuses on research design and specifically the craft of ethnographic research. Students will apply what they learn in the course in writing a proposal for a dissertation research project. Prerequisite: Must have completed EDUC 7468 or equivalent introductory qualitative methods course. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 7070 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26
EDUC 8480International Educational Development Doctoral Proseminar
The IEDP Doctoral Proseminar covers the broad arena of international educational development. Drawing on the research experiences of the faculty and of the enrolled doctoral students, the course allows for the analysis of intellectual and technical challenges of working in international education and development, especially around issues of social and public policy.
This course gives students the opportunity to better understand their own psychological development and how this interacts with their scholarship and professional development. Required course for ISHD students.
Study of the roles of scientific inquiry in development and assessment of contemporary educational and social policy. Analysis and application of foundational research, statistical and psychometric methods to inform a variety of policy topics and related issues and problems encountered in policy formation and evaluation.
EDUC 8681Classifications, Profiles, and Latent Growth Mixture Models
Multivariate strategies for prediction of binary, ordered and categorical outcomes and for classification accuracy and hypothesis testing; finite mixture modeling for discovery, validity and explanation of latent subgroups of profiles and change trajectories. Methods include multiple logistic and multinomial logistic regression, Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analysis, multiple discriminant analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, multidimensional classification analysis, latent profile analysis, latent transition analysis, and latent growth mixture modeling.
EDUC 8710Advanced Analysis in the Economics of Education
This course will review current papers in the economics of education, with a focus on policy research related to the provision and regulation of publicly provided education. The course pays special attention to: i) the use of causal research designs in answering questions relevant for policy, and ii) the application of economic principles to issues in education. The course is designed as a seminar for Ph.D. students to build skills in critiquing studies that employ experimental and quasi-experimental methods, such as randomized control trials, regression discontinuity, instrumental variables, etc. The papers covered in the course will examine questions in education policy through the perspective of economics and issues related to trade-offs, incentives, the analytic process, and the distribution of costs and benefits. Students will also be asked to consider applications of these methods and their related assumptions, in their own work. The course is intended for students who have a solid understanding of methods typically used in econometrics or statistics to estimate causal effects. Prerequisite: This course is primarily intended for Ph.D. students who have taken or who are currently taking a course on experimental and quasi-experimental methods of causal inference and who have had an introductory course in economic perspectives in education research. 1 Course Unit
Hands-on experience presenting applied research. Students will be guided through a research project of relevance to education or social policy chosen by the student, with assistance from the instructor. The course entails presenting findings from the analysis of one or more data sets of the students' choosing. The students will present work based on journal-length paper expectations based on their research and respond to the reviews of classmates and the instructor. Prerequisite: Competence in basic statistics and computer literacy.
EDUC 8930Literacy Studies Research Advisory Committee
This seminar is designed to enable and mentor doctoral students at Penn GSE to understand the diverse field of educational research. The seminar seeks to encourage an engaging community among doctoral students across Penn GSE divisions and programs and to build familiarity with professional norms and expectations. 0.5 Course Units
EDUC 9205Research Seminar: Language Policy and Education
Seminar participants are introduced to concepts, theories, and methods in the field of language planning and policy, which they then apply in developing their own library-based research on specific language planning cases from around the world. Cases may include: official language decisions, instructional medium choices, literacy initiatives, gender-neutral language reforms, foreign/heritage/second language pedagogy and policy, indigenous language revitalization efforts, or other language-related decisions and policies at international, national or loca levels. Prerequiite: Permission needed from instructor. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
EDUC 9215Genealogies of Race and Language in Educational Research
This course explores the historical and contemporary co-construction of race and language in educational research. As opposed to treating race and language as self-evident and universal concepts, the course adopts a genealogical perspective that examines their historical development within the context of European colonialism and critically analyzes the legacy of these colonial ideologies in contemporary educational research, policy and practice. Students engage with a range of foundational theoretical and methodological texts to develop a robust understanding of the historical and contemporary relationship between race and language. Students also read, analyze and critique educational research that has sought to apply these theoretical and methodological insights. The course will culminate in students undertaking genealogical research projects on questions of race and language connected to their own educational research interests.
The course examines the relationship between language, meaning and power in their social context. The course is organized around a number of core themes; Language studies rooted in Critical Discourse analysis; The application of Bourdieu's concepts to this field; multi modality; the growing concern with 'Superdiversity' that links Local/ Global; academic literacies, with particular reference to the writing required in students' own contexts; and methodological issues in researching language and power; and we then bring all of this to bear on our own context under the heading 'language in education'. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit
EDUC 9580Mixed Methods Research: Counseling & Development
This course is designed to position students to acquire a more sophisticated understanding of research methods in order to conduct and critically evaluate empirical research in applied and clinical settings. Not Offered Every Year l 1 Course Unit
