Course Orientation
Foundations of American Education
2:2:0 Fall, Spring, Summer
Prerequisite(s): Admission to Professional Education Program or Permission of Instructor
Provides a broad and comprehensive overview of American education. Facilitates the understanding of current educational practices in America as a result of the social, historical, economical, and political forces that have had influence on the education system. Provides opportunities for students to evaluate their own belief system concerning education.
Course Goals
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Discuss historic, philosophical, ethical, and current educational issues with an emphasis on the development of American education.
- Describe the governance, legalities, and financing of education in the United States.
- Explain current theory, research, and educational trends facing educators.
School of Education Goals / InTASC Standards
Upon completion of an education degree, students (as new teachers) will be able to:
- Understand how children learn and develop, recognizing that patterns of learning and development vary individually within and across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas, and designs and implements developmentally appropriate and challenging learning experiences.
- Use understanding of individual differences and diverse cultures and communities to ensure inclusive learning environments that allow each learner to reach his/her full potential.
- Work with learners to create environments that support individual and collaborative learning, encouraging positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.
- Understand the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) he or she teaches and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of the disciple accessible and meaningful for learners.
- Understand how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to engage learners in critical/creative thinking and collaborative problem solving related to authentic local and global issues.
- Understand and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to document learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s ongoing planning and instruction.
- Draw upon knowledge of content areas, cross-disciplinary skills, learners, the community, and pedagogy to plan instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals.
- Understand and use a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to access and appropriately apply information.
- Be a reflective practitioner who uses evidence to continually evaluate his/her practice, particularly the effects of his/her choices and actions on others (students, families, and other professionals in the learning community), and adapts practice to meet the needs of each learner.
- Collaborate with students, families, colleagues, other professionals, and community members to share responsibility for student growth and development, learning, and well-being.
Required Materials
Textbook
There is no textbook required for the course. You will be expected to complete reading assignments that are web-based.
UVU Electronic Reserve
A few of your reading assignments will not be directly available online but rather will be accessible through the UVU Library’s Online Electronic Reserve system. This system may be accessed by going to the UVU Library website and then selecting the “Electronic Reserve” option on the right hand side.
On this page you will enter the following:
| Instructor Name | Clark |
|---|---|
| EDEL Password | clarkedel3050 |
| EDSC Password | clarkedsc3050 |
This will allow you to access those readings that are held on electronic reserve.
Technology
You will need access to a computer and a reliable internet connection for this course, as it is an online course. With each module you will find links that will connect you to the appropriate technological tool or support to complete the assigned activities.
How This Course Works
This course will not be totally self-paced. In some online courses you may proceed at your own rate through the coursework. The model that we have chosen will have designated blocks of time that a module will need to be completed within. The course is designed this way to focus on interaction among classmates since we believe that learning is facilitated when you share your thoughts, defend your ideas, and challenge others’ thoughts. This method of a block of time designated for each lesson also provides motivation for you to complete work within an assigned time frame and not procrastinate the assignments related to this course.
Much of your learning will be done as you interact with your classmates. Each of you will be put into teams of about 4-5 members. Some of your learning will be as you read material or view video clips individually. Some of your learning will be as you formulate and share thoughts with your team members and also as you receive feedback and challenges to some of your thoughts. Some of your learning will occur as you submit your written responses to your professor and reflect on his/her feedback.
Lesson 11 and 12 are the exception to this approach. There are no required interactions with team members in these lessons and so you may complete them at anytime during the course.
As a school of education we feel that all of our students should have the experience of taking a course online for the reasons stated below. Education delivery systems are changing. The Utah State Office of Education is also strongly considering requiring all teaching candidates to have completed at least one course online to receive a teaching certificate.
- Many schools and districts are using online delivery systems for the following purposes:
- Credit recovery for students that have lost credit.
- Providing special courses to students living in rural areas.
- Alleviating overcrowded classrooms.
- Reaching different learning styles.
- Reaching out to home school students.
- Serving homebound students.
- You will have the experience of learning in a different style than you are accustomed to learning. Hopefully, this will increase your awareness of struggles your students may have in learning in a learning style other than their preferred.
- This course may also enrich your resume as a potential candidate. If you have experienced online learning and could help a school develop/implement online courses, it could help get you a job.
- This course provides a way for students who may often "sit and listen" but not become engaged in the learning process to engage in learning.
- As educators we desire our students to be lifelong learners. One of the ways we can become lifelong learners is through online education courses.
- Professional development
- Advanced degrees
Communication, Submission, and Grading Procedures
Communication
You will be expected to communicate often with your group members, your class members and your instructor. Communication with your group members will take place on your team discussion forum. If you have never been involved with a discussion board, we will provide an opportunity in the introductory module to help you with this. Communication with the entire class will occur through discussions dealing with the current educational issues portion of the course (outlined below). You are welcome to have communication with the professor but we would like you to use the “Ask 3, Then Me” approach that you may want to use later in your classroom. In this approach you are to ask three of your team members for clarification on assignments or concepts before asking the professor. If you still need additional help then definitely ask your professor. Note: You must set your personal preferences in Canvas to be able to receive information from your professor.
Submission
Quality of Work
Work will be graded according to rubrics or instructions provided by the instructor. Grades in the A and B range will only be accepted. Scores below that will be given a NY (not yet). The student must resubmit the assignment, both the new version and the old version within the time limit specified by the professor to receive credit.
Late Work
Discussions — Posting in a timely manner to the discussions is critical as your team members often will need to have your input to respond to. Your posts must be made by 5:00pm on the date due and responses must be posted by midnight. Posts made after that will receive a 20% grade reduction. If you miss a discussion it may be submitted up to one week after the due date.
Assignments — Individual assignments are due by midnight on the day assigned. Be aware that postponing completing your assignments until the last night may mean that technical support is not available. Technical problems will not be considered as an acceptable excuse for late work. Do your work early so that if you need tech support you may access it. Late assignments will be accepted up to one week after the due date and will also receive a 20% deduction.
Current Educational Issues — The current educational issues assignments will have the last date that they can be submitted listed. The first CEI will have a deadline of 8 weeks before the date designated as the end of classes for the semester since only one CEI may be submitted each week. The second CEI will have a deadline of 7 weeks before the end of classes. Therefore, no points deducted, the assignment simply will not be accepted.
Grading Procedures
| Grade | Percent |
|---|---|
| A | 95%-100% |
| A- | 90%-94% |
| B+ | 87%-89% |
| B | 84%-86% |
| B- | 80%-83% |
| C+ | 77%-79% |
| C | 74%-76% |
| C- | 70%-73% |
| D+ | 67%-69% |
| D | 64%-66% |
| D- | 60%-63% |
| F | <60% |
Table of Assignments and Assessments
| Activities | Points | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Current Educational Issues (8 @ 15 points each) | 120 | 15 |
| Discussions (16 @ 20 points each) | 320 | 42 |
| Survey / Social Contract | 30 | 3 |
| Papers (6 @ differing points) | 310 | 40 |
| MVP News Article | 40 | |
| Issues Papers (3 @ 50 points each) | 150 | |
| School Board Meeting Report | 60 | |
| PLC Paper | 60 | |
| Total | 760 | 100 |
Description of Assignments and Assessments
Social Contract
The Social Contract is a document that lays out your responsibilities as you take this course as well as what you can expect from your instructor. It is aimed to help you start out your course with specific goals and instruction on how to do well in this course and in your career. You must agree to this before the whole of the course is opened up to you.
Current Educational Issues (CEI's)
You will be writing eight Current Educational Issues. You should select at least one topic that you find on the TV newscast, in the local newspapers, from ASCD SmartBrief, or through Education Week that is of interest to you. Instructions are given in Lesson 1 telling how to get daily updates from ASCD and Education Week. The source needs to be documented. When selecting articles to report on, be sure select articles that deal with educational issues, not teaching strategies. Hopefully you will find that these sources will provide some good teaching ideas but the focus of this assignment is towards educational policies and decisions concerning education and their impact.
You may select which 8 weeks you would like to read and report on a current educational issue. This allows you to look at your workload in this class and other courses and decide what works best for you. You may only do one per week so do not procrastinate thinking you’ll do them all the last couple of weeks. You should read the postings each week and feel free to comment anytime even if you haven’t posted that week.
Discussions
You will be asked to participate in discussions throughout the course. The discussions allow you to interact with the new material that you have viewed or read and to interact with your team members regarding the new material. This is the part of the course that requires your most diligence as your efforts have an impact on the learning of your team members as well. This is not the area of the course to cut back in when you get busy. A portion of the grade for the discussions is timely submission of items. Your lateness in submitting inconveniences your team members. Start your lessons early and make sure that you give yourself enough time to explore the content that will be discussed, and post on your discussion boards in a timely manner. You will be added to a team automatically at the beginning of the semester and will discuss with them half of the semester; then, mid semester you will be automatically put into different teams.
Papers
Most of the papers you will write for this course will be position papers and will be about 1½ to 2 pages in length. They should be double-spaced and use APA format when citing any sources. Be sure to read through the rubrics that are provided for you within the assignment. You can always get help with your papers at the Online Writing Lab (OWL) or at the UVU Writing Center (LI208).
There is NO Final Exam for this course.