This page includes materials I’ve developed for courses I’ve taught.
EDUC-P251, Educational Psychology for Elementary Majors, Indiana University
- Fall 2012 syllabus is on its way!
- Spring 2012 syllabus
- Fall 2011 (online section) syllabus
Course overview: To teach effectively, teachers need to know a great deal about their students. In this course, we will focus on three core questions:
- How do children learn, and what influences how they learn?
- How does this affect how we approach classroom teaching?
- How can educational psychology help us better understand how to create effective learning environments?
This course aims to introduce you to some aspects of the nature of learning, and of the relationship between learning and teaching. While it is not meant to familiarize you with the “ins and outs” of classroom teaching, we will spend time in class discussing your practicum experiences in relation to theories of learning and will refer to recent research to guide your practice in classrooms.
EDUC-P254, Educational Psychology for High School Education Majors, Indiana University.
Special Section: Educational Psychology for gender and sexual diversity in the high school classroom. This is a hypothetical course that I have not yet taught.
View the course syllabus here.
Course description: This course is a special topics section of educational psychology for education majors. The course covers major theories of learning, motivation, classroom design, and assessment, but always with a focus on applications for educators interested in working toward a diverse, anti-bullying classroom that is welcoming to LGBTQ youth.
This course is designed as an introduction to some of the issues facing teachers who are interested in developing an LGBTQ-welcoming, diversity-friendly and antibullying classroom. You do not need to be gay or transgendered to be in this class; you do not need to know much, if anything, about the issues we will be exploring this semester to be in this class. You only need to be a preservice teacher who is interested in developing a classroom in which bullying is not acceptable and respect for all is the norm.
Though this course focuses primarily on the issues of LGBTQ youth, it is hoped that the principles discussed in this class can extend to a variety of equity issues in education. We live and teach in a world in which race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, and a range of factors outside of our control determine the quality of our education and our opportunity. In this class, we will start from the assumption that good teaching works to directly address all inequities, including but not limited to inequities based on sexual orientation.
EDUC-P250, General Educational Psychology
Spring 2012 syllabus here.
Course description: This course challenges the assumption that there is such a thing as “smart” or “dumb” people. It aims to prove that people are made to look smart or dumb (or somewhere in between) by context, by social structures that are designed to make some people look successful by making other people look like failures.
Some of the key questions that this course will address include:
- What are we talking about when we talk about intelligence?
- What motivates people to learn, know, and do?
- What types of intelligence are overlooked or ignored by our school system, and why? What might it mean to value alternative forms of intelligence?
- What social issues affect how, where, and why people learn, and what can we do about these issues? (In particular, we’ll focus on race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.)
- What opportunities to learn do non-school environments offer, and how are these environments designed? (In particular, we’ll take a look at video games, museums and similar informal learning spaces.)
