DEPARTMENTAL OFFERINGS
All courses in the Department are graded with the exception of Education 42-44 and 46-48, which are Credit/No Credit.
1. The Learning Brain: Introduction to Child Development and Education
09F, 10F: 10A
How does a child’s brain develop and learn? How do the answers to this fundamental question impact the way we educate children? This course will investigate these issues by exploring child development and its relationship to education from a number of perspectives, including developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and education research. The course will investigate the development of a number of key cognitive, social, and emotional understandings from all these perspectives. The fields of child development and education are undergoing revolutions as our understanding of the mind and the brain are applied to the field of education. This course will serve as a building block to introduce you to and help you evaluate the exciting research coming out of this movement. Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Temple.
7. First-Year Seminars in Education
Consult special listings
10. Experimental Curriculum Courses
10S, 10F: 12
History and Theory of Human Development and Learning. In this course we will learn about the major theories that have influenced the study of human development throughout history. Readings and discussions will provide an in-depth historical lens onto the major conceptual approaches to the study of human development and learning including Freud, Piaget, Vygotsky, Behaviorism, Connectionism, Nativism and Neuroconstructivism, and Mind, Brain and Education. The course aims to explain the historical origins of current trends in the study of human development, learning and education.
Open to all classes. Tully Tine.
11. Methods of Development and Neuroscience Research in Education
Not offered in the period from 09F through 10S
If you had a question about what children know and how children learn, how would you go about answering that question? This course introduces students to both traditional behavioral methods and new neuroscientific methods used to answer questions about developing infants and children. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies, the design of experiments, the interpretation of research results, and how data and theory interact. Students have the opportunity to pose a research question about children and to design a study to answer that question.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC.
16. Educational Psychology
10S, 11S: 2
How do we learn? How can modern educational settings harness recent innovations about the essence of human learning? Educational psychology provides a foundation for applying the psychological principles that underlie learning in both formal and informal educational settings. In this course, we will explore the multitude of ways that people learn, the effects of different types of teaching strategies on learning, and the impact of individual differences on learning. We will also explore assessment, creativity and problem solving, as well as cultural and motivational influences on learning across diverse educational situations. Underlying the course will be an account of the way the human mind works, changes, and adapts in different settings. This includes the home, the school, the university and any context in which explicit or implicit education takes place.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Tully Tine.
29. Policy and Politics in American Education
10W, 11W: 2A
The course will examine political issues in American education, past and present, at the local, state, and national levels. Students will analyze school desegregation, busing, charter schools, standards, and changing state and federal educational priorities and policies relating to issues of equity and excellence, among other issues. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which educational policies are formulated and to the constituencies and actors involved in the policy process.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Harris.
50. The Reading Brain: Education and Development
10S, 11S: 9L
The majority of children entering first grade do not know how to read; the majority of children leaving first grade do know how to read, at least at a basic level. What is involved in the amazing development of the ability to make meaning of marks on a page? What goes on in the brain during reading and learning to read? We explore answers to these questions and more in this introduction to reading as we investigate the roles of orthography, phonology, semantics, syntax, and comprehension in reading. We focus on the development of reading behaviors, the brain bases of reading skills, and how scientific discoveries can inform educational practices.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Coch.
52. The Mathematical Brain: Education and Development
10W, 11W: 2A
How do we understand quantity, number, and mathematical concepts? What brain function may underlie these understandings? Can education help support these brain systems? This course will explore how we understand mathematics through discussion and analysis of psychological, neuroscience, and education research. The course begins with research on fundamental understanding of quantity and progresses through early mathematical concepts and continues up to higher math through an integration of different research perspectives and possible implications for education.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Temple.
54. Moral Development and Moral Education
09F, 10F: 2
How have moral development and moral behavior been looked at in psychological literature? Are there sex differences in moral development? Drawing primarily on the work of Piaget, Kohlberg, and Gilligan, this course will explore changing concepts of morality in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Morality as justice, represented in the work of the former two, will be contrasted with the concept of morality as care, represented in the recent writings of Gilligan. Research that investigates real life problem-solving as well as hypothetical problem-solving will be examined as will different educational programs in the U.S. and elsewhere that have attempted to foster moral development.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Kay.
56. Science, Education and the Scientific Mind
10W, 11W: 2A
How do we learn, understand, and teach science? Clearly, people need to acquire knowledge of the content of specific scientific disciplines, but also the thinking strategies that are used in science such as formulating theories and designing experiments. How do we learn these different aspects of science? What sort of a mind is capable of learning scientific concepts and methods? We will explore these issues by investigating the development of the scientific mind, gender and science, the thinking skills involved in science, how we formulate theories, design experiments, and how these skills are taught.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Kay.
58. Language Acquisition (Identical to Linguistics 10)
10W, 11W: 10A
Human language is one of the most spectacular of the brain’s cognitive capacities, one of the most powerful instruments in the mind’s tool kit for thought, and one of the most profound means we as a species use in social, emotional, and cultural communication. Yet the breakneck speed and seemingly “effortless” way that young children acquire language remain its most miraculous characteristic. We will discover the biological capacities and the important social, family, and educational factors that, taken together, make this feat possible and establish the basic facts of language acquisition, involving children’s babbling, phonology, early vocabulary, morphology, syntax, semantics, and discourse knowledge, as well as their early gestural and pragmatic competence. Prevailing theoretical explanations and research methods will be explored. We will dispel the myths of how bilingual children acquire two languages from birth. We will leave our hearing-speaking modality and explore the world of language acquisition in total silence—regarding the acquisition of natural signed languages—as an innovative lens into the factors that are most key in acquiring all language. Crucially, we will evaluate the efficacy of how language is presently taught to young children in schools in light of the facts of human language acquisition.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Kay.
60. Learning and Education Across Cultures
10S, 11S: 2
The idea that learning and development are universal is challenged through detailed examination of the role that culture plays in these processes, including study of cross-cultural accounts of learning, intelligence, competence, and socialization. We examine how culture and biology interact to structure learning and development in different cultural populations. International comparisons of literacy, mathematics, and science achievement are reviewed. How classrooms and teaching differ across cultures and how learning occurs in informal and culturally-specific contexts are examined. Whether “culture” is uniquely human, and the ways that the evolution of culture may have shaped uniquely human learning processes are also explored.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Kay.
62. Adolescent Development
10S, 11S: 10
Should we expect adolescence to be a period of stress and turbulence, painful but necessary, or a period of clarity and increasing integration? In this course we will reexamine these key questions as we explore how the onset of physical maturity and the capacity for reflective thought that herald adolescence reshape the adolescent’s self-conception and understanding of relationships. Drawing primarily on the work of Piaget, Kohlberg, Gilligan, and Perry (cognitive-developmental) and of Freud, Anna Freud, Blos, Sullivan, and Erikson (psycho-dynamic), we will address critical areas and markers—biological, psychological, cultural, and gender—of adolescence; and we will assess what educational implications we can derive from theory. In addition to theoretical readings, we will utilize research findings, case studies, literature, and films as ways of enhancing our understanding of adolescent girls and boys, adolescence, and ourselves.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Kay.
64. Development in the Exceptional Child
10W, 11W: 9L
What is an “exceptional” child? How might an exceptional child think about and experience the world? What is happening inside the brain of an exceptional child? We will learn about specific types of exceptionality likely to be encountered in the classroom, including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, depression, dyscalculia, specific language impairment, dyslexia, and dysgraphia. In exploring exceptionality, we will focus on behaviors that define the exceptional child; different approaches to learning, viewing the world, and interacting with others that characterize exceptional children; the brain bases of atypical or exceptional development; and how scientific knowledge affects educational practice.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Coch.
SEMINARS
85, 87, 88. Seminars in Education
Open by permission of the designated instructor. For details concerning individual seminars, consult the Department. Dist: SOC.
85. Independent Reading and Research
All terms: Arrange
This course offers an opportunity for a student to do independent reading and research under the guidance of a full-time faculty member of the Education Department. Independent Study proposals that have been approved by a faculty member are due for final approval by the Department Chair no later than the third day of classes for the term. A form outlining the requirements for proposals is available from the Department and is posted on the Education Department webpage under “Courses.” Prerequisite: permission of the Chair.
86. Independent Reading and Research: Research in the Schools
All terms: Arrange
This course offers an opportunity for a student to conduct a specific research project of particular interest to the local schools with which the Department works closely. Topics are determined each year by the current interests of the schools and are posted in the “Courses” section of the Department website. To enroll, students must choose a topic from the list, speak with a potential advisor (any full-time faculty member in the department), and submit a proposal (proposal form also available on the website) by the end of the term preceding the term in which the project will be undertaken. The Department will review proposals after provisional approval by the advising faculty member. Prerequisites: Education 1 and permission of the Chair.
87. Thinking, Learning and Knowing in Education
Not offered in the period from 09F through 10S
How do different cognitive abilities such as reading, writing, mathematics and spatial abilities change over development? How can we use what we know about the brain to inform the way in which we teach children and develop educational programs? This seminar seeks to critically discuss these questions by comparing and contrasting the way in which development is construed across multiple disciplines (education, neuroscience, psychology). We will critically evaluate what convergences and divergences exist across these disciplines that might be exploited to gain new insights into aspects of cognitive development that are critical to educating children in schools (such as thinking, learning, knowledge and skill acquisition). This will enable a discussion of how such an integrative approach may help to structure better educational programs for typically developing children and intervention programs for children with atypical development.
Prerequisite: permission of the Department. Dist: SOC.
88. Human Development and Education
10W, 11W: 3A
This course addresses the most modern advances in human development related to perception, attention, learning, memory, executive function, emotion, and language, drawing across multiple disciplines and technologies. There is a strong emphasis on educational implications. Open to senior minors in Human Development and Education.
Prerequisite: permission of the Department. Dist: SOC. Coch.
TEACHER EDUCATION COURSES
Note: These courses form the student teaching sequence, and are open only to students who have consulted with the Elementary or Secondary supervisor. All teacher education courses are by permission only, and admission to any of these classes should be arranged with the appropriate staff member by the third week of the winter term preceding enrollment in Education 41 or 45.
41. Principles of Teaching and Learning in the Elementary School: Theory and Practice
10S, 11S: 10A
This is a course designed to prepare Dartmouth undergraduates for an immensely challenging, rewarding and powerful undertaking: teaching children. It comes from the foundational belief in the importance of theory informing the practice of teachers and the equal importance of practice informing exploration of theory. This course is designed to meet professional elementary certification requirements in the field of general methods. Field work includes 6-10 hours a week in an assigned local elementary school where students observe different teachers, interact with children, teach 3-5 lessons in their classrooms and, ultimately, analyze their own videotaped teaching.
Prerequisite: Education 1 and 29 for students completing the Teacher Education Program (enrolling in Education 42, 43, 44), and permission of the instructor. Dist: SOC. Zullo.
42. Advanced Principles of Elementary Teaching
09F, 10F: MTh 4-6PM
Education 42 is designed to continue the synthesis of theory and practice begun in Education 41 the previous spring. For elementary student teachers, this is a seminar in advanced pedagogical issues. The course explores curriculum planning and implementation, classroom management, assessment, identifying ways of learning, and professionalism through a variety of methods. Education 42, 43 and 44 are inextricably linked; as a unit, the three courses comprise the culminating experience for candidates for NH State Certification as public elementary school teachers. The culminating project is a competency-based portfolio reflecting the breadth and depth of preparation for teaching certification.
Prerequisite: Education 41 and permission of the instructor. Zullo.
43. Practice Teaching I—Elementary
09F, 10F: MTh 4-6PM
The centerpiece of the student teaching experience, Education 43 is a fifteen-week teaching practicum that places students in area host schools every day, all day, from late August through early December. Student teachers participate in all regular faculty duties, meetings and activities. Under the supervision of a mentor teacher at the school and the Dartmouth instructor, student teachers gradually assume planning and instructional responsibilities culminating in “Solo Week” ideally in November, when s/he takes responsibility for all of the mentor teacher’s classes for five consecutive days, gaining a more accurate perspective on the rhythms and responsibilities of a teacher’s week.
Prerequisite: Education 41 and permission of the instructor. Zullo.
44. Practice Teaching II—Elementary
09F, 10F: MTh 4-6PM
As American schools become ever more diversified, beginning teachers must seek as broad an understanding as possible of the needs of students who are of different ethnicities, cultures, and learning styles. Education 44 is designed to provide an in-depth exploration of a focused set of issues that concern students who do not have the dominant culture or learning style of the mainstream student at our host schools. Student teachers participate in an overnight visit to an urban high school and elementary school, visiting classes, attending faculty meetings, spending the night in host student homes, and writing an in-depth analysis of their experience. Student teachers also conduct an extended in-depth study of a local elementary school student. The student teacher works with the chosen student, coordinates with the school’s resources and designs and implements accommodations that address the individual learning needs of the student.
Prerequisite: Education 41 and permission of the instructor. Zullo.
45. Principles of Teaching and Learning in the Secondary School: Theory and Practice
10S, 11S: 10A
This course is designed to prepare Dartmouth undergraduates for an immensely challenging, rewarding and powerful undertaking: teaching adolescents. Students will consider the multiple roles of the high school and middle school in contemporary society and will examine the variety of influences that shape the behavior of teachers in classrooms. The course seeks to create a synthesis of theory and practice, drawing on a variety of resources: readings, class discussion and role-play, a range of written exercises, and fieldwork in a secondary school setting. Fieldwork includes 8-10 hours per week in an assigned public school classroom observing and tutoring, and at least one week of teaching a section of the mentor teacher’s classes.
Prerequisite: Education 1 and 29 for students completing the Teacher Education Program (enrolling in Education 46, 47, 48), and permission of the instructor. Dist: SOC. Davis.
46. Advanced Principles of Secondary School Teaching
09F, 10F: MTh 4-6PM
Education 46 is designed to continue the synthesis of theory and practice begun in Education 45 the previous spring. For secondary student teachers, this is a seminar in advanced pedagogical issues. The course explores curriculum planning and implementation, classroom management, assessment, identifying ways of learning, and professionalism through a variety of methods. Education 46, 47 and 48 are inextricably linked; as a unit, the three courses comprise the culminating experience for candidates for NH State Certification as public secondary school teachers. The culminating project is a competency-based portfolio reflecting the breadth and depth of preparation for teaching certification.
Prerequisite: Education 45 and permission of the instructor. Davis.
47. Practice Teaching I—Secondary
09F, 10F: MTh 4-6PM
Education 47 is a fifteen-week teaching practicum that places students in area host schools for the full school day every day. Under the supervision of a mentor teacher at the school and the Dartmouth instructor, students teach two of their mentor teacher’s courses and share responsibility for a third. Student teachers participate in all regular faculty duties, meetings and activities, and also take responsibility for all of the mentor teacher’s classes for five consecutive days during a “Solo Week” in November.
Prerequisite: Education 45 and permission of the instructor. Davis.
48. Practice Teaching II—Secondary
09F, 10F: MTh 4-6PM
As American schools become ever more diversified, Education 48 is designed to provide an in-depth exploration of issues that concern students who do not have the dominant culture or learning style of the mainstream student at our host schools. Students participate in an overnight visit to an urban high school, visiting classes, attending faculty meetings, spending the night in host student homes, and writing an in-depth analysis of their experience. Students also conduct an extended in-depth study of a high school student who qualifies for the assistance of the Learning Center and/or Special Education assistants in the student’s school. The student teacher works individually with his or her student, coordinates with the school’s Learning Center and the student’s other teachers, and designs and implements a tutoring strategy that addresses the individual learning needs of the student.
Prerequisite: Education 45 and permission of the instructor. Davis.