Education affects the lives of everyone in this country. As future professionals, voters, teachers, parents, and leaders, students at the University of Michigan will help shape the quality of life in the United States, and education will matter – a lot. This course will introduce students to the role of education in today’s world. Topics will include the implications for schooling our increasingly diverse population; principles of how kids learn; ways schools facilitate student achievement (or not); and the changing nature of literacy in the information age. In addition to readings and discussions, there will be opportunities for hands-on experience and interactions with K-12 students in schools.  

EDUC 118 is an approved course to satisfy the LSA Race and Ethnicity Requirement.

This class meets the Race & Ethnicity requirement.

Education Policy in a Multicultural Society explores policy and school improvement, and focuses in particular on the U.S. public school system, with an emphasis on both equity and access. In this course we begin by asking: what is public education for, and then consider how schools can be improved so that educational outcomes are ambitious and equitable. We build on students' understandings of the practice of teaching, developed in ED118, to investigate the dynamics of education reform.

We closely examine authentic texts – including artifacts from our own experiences in schools, as well as mandates and legislative texts, policies, data on school improvement, and other resources designed for the improvement of schools. We critically examine each of these, looking for assumptions about teaching and learning and their improvement, assessing the key levers for improvement that they provide, and extrapolating implications for the design and valuation of change. In so doing students will develop critical skills of analysis and interpretation that will enable them to (1) better understand and evaluate efforts to improve schooling in the United States, (2) collaborate substantively, (3) and write and speak about educational policy persuasively. Given the courses strong focus on equity and access, issues of inclusion, voice, and rigor will be consistent through-lines.

Service-Learning in Mathematics Tutoring

Addresses questions about how literacy develops in young children and what can teachers do to foster that development. Launches by considering the history of literacy in the U.S. and modern-day literacy demands. Then addresses several major constructs in early literacy development—concepts of print, phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, phonics, spelling, word recognition, and reading fluency in grades PK-6.

Offers an introduction to the processes of reading and writing development, emphasizing methods and materials for teaching literacy skills in elementary and junior high schools (K–8).

Credit Hours: Undergraduates 3; Graduates 0.5-3

Addresses effective teaching of reading comprehension across PK-6. Focus is on the skills, strategies, knowledges, and motivations that support the development of reading comprehension, how to assess comprehension, and how to design and enact a range of instructional strategies and routines to support students in becoming skillful and engaged readers across subject areas.

Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites
This course introduces participants to the field of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL*). The course is designed for people who may wish to teach English abroad or to tutor language learners in the US. Participants will build a foundation in English pronunciation, lexicon and grammar so that they understand the particular challenges English language learners face. They will learn how to design lessons for children and young adults that use a communicative, interactive approach and will micro teach those lessons in class. They will investigate, critique and use a variety of EFL materials. They will explore opportunities for teaching EFL as well as the international role of English and sociopolitical factors that affect English language learning in other countries. They will have a weekly practice-teaching experience with non-native English speakers. Finally, upon successful completion of the course, they will receive a certificate that documents what they have accomplished in the course.

* EFL is different from ESL (English as a second language). EFL involves teaching English in countries where English is a foreign language (such as Japan or Brazil). ESL involves teaching English in countries where English is the main language (such as the US or Australia.)

Addresses the design and enactment of engaging literacy instruction that advances the literacy learning of children in grades PK-6. Building on the work of EDUC 401 and 403, this course focuses, in particular, on building students’ speaking, listening, language, and composition skills and knowledge.

Prerequisites: Must be elected concurrently with EDUC 307, 391, and 401.

Studies elementary schooling in relation to learners, teaching, curriculum, and the professional responsibilities and obligations of teachers. Contemporary issues affecting the elementary classroom teacher serve as the specific focus. Taken in conjunction with 307, facilitates the integration of theory and practice by providing students with the opportunity to work with learners and teachers in classrooms.

Revisits core literacy teaching content in prior courses to deepen and hone literacy teaching practices. The focus is on teaching children and adolescents how to learn academic language and content while they are developing academic English language proficiency. Emphasis on teaching multilingual learners.

Studies the history of approaches to children’s oral and written language learning, with particular focus on literacy (reading, writing, and other symbolic systems), and the psychological and social/cultural development of young children. Explores the history of systems of teaching literacy, with emphasis on formal schooling, and the social/cultural underpinnings of classroom instruction. Contemporary trends in literacy and language arts instruction affecting the elementary classroom are emphasized.

This course explores objectives, methods, and content in PK-6 mathematics instruction, emphasizing concept development in several areas of PK-6 mathematics; refers to pertinent contributions from research, provides opportunities for engaging in core teaching practices around discussion-based mathematics lessons.

Examines content, methods, and instructional materials for middle and junior high school mathematics (grades 5-9); reviews pertinent research; gives special attention to recently designed curricula, to individual differences, and to classroom management plans.

Prerequisites: Concurrent or previous election of EDUC 391 or equivalent.

Discusses pertinent aspects of recent pedagogical and research literature, as well as new instructional materials, methods, and curricular trends and regarding procedures useful for constructing and improving curricular units.

In this course, interns will learn how to design a classroom culture and community (their sphere of influence) where their relational, instructional, management and “discipline” practices don’t reproduce, but rather disrupt patterns of punishment and erasure of minoritized students, and support a culturally responsive, culturally competent approach to instruction, discipline and management. Attention will be paid to meeting the needs of the whole child through a strengths-based versus deficit model.