ED 800: Concepts of Educational Inquiry -- Spring 2011
Instructors: Steven Weiland ([email protected]) & Nathan Clason ([email protected])
Reflection: ED 800 provided many of the foundational concepts that frame the MAED program: the role of the learner, the role of the teacher, the process of inquiry, research, participant observation, and the nature of current education debate. Reading the work of important figures such as John Dewey, Howard Gardner, and Vivian Paley helped me re-examine my teaching philosophy and think of my classroom as an educational laboratory where best practices can be developed.
Course Description: A foundational course in the MAED program, this course provides an opportunity to think and exchange ideas about our beliefs regarding education and the many forms of inquiry related to it. It is organized around four domains of educational inquiry, interpretation, and criticism: classroom-based or teacher research, theories of intelligence and the curriculum, history and biography, and ethnographic participant observation and reflection.
Unit 1 Assignment
Write an essay of approximately 500 words explaining the conflict of ideas in this unit about; a) the nature of the child and b) what he or she needs to be a successful learner. Be sure that Dewey is represented in your paper with ideas from a selection of other writers.
Unit 2 Assignment
Write a paper of approximately 500 words about the feature (or features) of Vivian Paley's way of inquiry you believe to be most important. Your paper should display attention to: a) An episode, relationship, encounter, or some other significant element of The Girl with the Brown Crayon. Be sure to do more than simply describe it--explain what it reveals about Paley's way of inquiry; and b) An example of Paley's thinking about what is characteristic of her work as she explains it in one or more of the Unit's online resources (her essays and interviews). Again, do more than summarize such an example,--show what it tells us about Paley's way of inquiry.
Unit 3 Assignment
Write a paper of approximately 500 words on the film Spellbound explaining how it represents key themes in Howard Gardner's The Disciplined Mind we have encountered in Unit 3, that is, in the first half of the book. You might begin with an account of some points about cognition and related themes Gardner explores, and then turn to one or two (or more) of the spellers to illustrate them. Or, you might begin with accounts of one or two (or more) of the spellers and move from there to an explanation of what we see of their learning and experience in the context of our mental processes and influences on them of most interest to Gardner.
Unit 4 Assignment
Unit 4 addresses one of the most vexing questions of educational inquiry: What's worth knowing, or how should the curriculum be specified, organized, and taught? In Howard Gardner and E.D. Hirsch, Jr. you've encountered two very different approaches to the question. Write an essay of approximately 500 words explaining the primary reasons why each believes his approach is best. Note: There is no need in this essay to indicate any way of reconciling the two approaches. The goal is to make as clear as possible the terms of the disagreement in curriculum inquiry.
Unit 5 Assignment
Choose one of the biographical subjects of A Passion for Learning and make your own inquiry into how his or her education is represented in the Web resources in 5.12 dedicated to the figure you select. Write an essay of approximately 500 words explaining how features of the Web resources contribute to your understanding, for the biographical subject you chose, of one of the "pillars" proposed at the end of a Passion for Learning.
Unit 6 Assignment
Using any two chapters from Mary Catherine Bateson's Peripheral Visions, and the experiences they present, write an essay of approximately 500 words explaining what "learning along the way" means as a form of inquiry.
Unit 7 Assignment
Few of us have the opportunity for ethnographic inquiry in a remote setting. But Whale Rider, and its setting among the Maori of New Zealand, offers a chance to simulate it. We can practice inquiry as if (to a degree) we are "participant observers" with access to important public events and perhaps even some private ones. Before beginning work on the writing assignment be sure that you have considered carefully what 7.5 offers on "participant observation." The goal is to write from the perspective of a visitor to the village we see in Whale Rider, looking and listening in order to better understand local thinking and behavior (like what you found in Mary Catherine Bateson's Peripheral Visions). Write an essay of approximately 500 words on the significance of what takes place in one of these scenes (identified by the chapter titles in the DVD):
Unit 8 Assignment
Write an autobiographical essay of approximately 1,500 words exploring key events in your own story of learning to live and work with the new information and communications technologies. In effect, your essay is an exercise in autobiographical inquiry, or reflection on what technology means in an educational career. Be sure that your essay: 1) Is specific in exploring how you learned to do new things, with educational significance, enabled by technological innovation; 2) Employs Unit 8 resources in explaining the evolution of your thinking about significant questions of technology; and 3) Expresses your understanding of the uses and limits of autobiographical inquiry in relation to other forms we have studied.
Write an essay of approximately 500 words explaining the conflict of ideas in this unit about; a) the nature of the child and b) what he or she needs to be a successful learner. Be sure that Dewey is represented in your paper with ideas from a selection of other writers.
Unit 2 Assignment
Write a paper of approximately 500 words about the feature (or features) of Vivian Paley's way of inquiry you believe to be most important. Your paper should display attention to: a) An episode, relationship, encounter, or some other significant element of The Girl with the Brown Crayon. Be sure to do more than simply describe it--explain what it reveals about Paley's way of inquiry; and b) An example of Paley's thinking about what is characteristic of her work as she explains it in one or more of the Unit's online resources (her essays and interviews). Again, do more than summarize such an example,--show what it tells us about Paley's way of inquiry.
Unit 3 Assignment
Write a paper of approximately 500 words on the film Spellbound explaining how it represents key themes in Howard Gardner's The Disciplined Mind we have encountered in Unit 3, that is, in the first half of the book. You might begin with an account of some points about cognition and related themes Gardner explores, and then turn to one or two (or more) of the spellers to illustrate them. Or, you might begin with accounts of one or two (or more) of the spellers and move from there to an explanation of what we see of their learning and experience in the context of our mental processes and influences on them of most interest to Gardner.
Unit 4 Assignment
Unit 4 addresses one of the most vexing questions of educational inquiry: What's worth knowing, or how should the curriculum be specified, organized, and taught? In Howard Gardner and E.D. Hirsch, Jr. you've encountered two very different approaches to the question. Write an essay of approximately 500 words explaining the primary reasons why each believes his approach is best. Note: There is no need in this essay to indicate any way of reconciling the two approaches. The goal is to make as clear as possible the terms of the disagreement in curriculum inquiry.
Unit 5 Assignment
Choose one of the biographical subjects of A Passion for Learning and make your own inquiry into how his or her education is represented in the Web resources in 5.12 dedicated to the figure you select. Write an essay of approximately 500 words explaining how features of the Web resources contribute to your understanding, for the biographical subject you chose, of one of the "pillars" proposed at the end of a Passion for Learning.
Unit 6 Assignment
Using any two chapters from Mary Catherine Bateson's Peripheral Visions, and the experiences they present, write an essay of approximately 500 words explaining what "learning along the way" means as a form of inquiry.
Unit 7 Assignment
Few of us have the opportunity for ethnographic inquiry in a remote setting. But Whale Rider, and its setting among the Maori of New Zealand, offers a chance to simulate it. We can practice inquiry as if (to a degree) we are "participant observers" with access to important public events and perhaps even some private ones. Before beginning work on the writing assignment be sure that you have considered carefully what 7.5 offers on "participant observation." The goal is to write from the perspective of a visitor to the village we see in Whale Rider, looking and listening in order to better understand local thinking and behavior (like what you found in Mary Catherine Bateson's Peripheral Visions). Write an essay of approximately 500 words on the significance of what takes place in one of these scenes (identified by the chapter titles in the DVD):
- "Our Ancestors" (16:25-19:38).
- “The Sacred School of Learning” (34:13-41:13). Add to this chapter what we can also see of the Sacred School in the chapter titled “Fathers and Sons” (49:35-52:00).
- “Speech of Love and Respect.” Begin your viewing of this scene in the previous chapter (“Guest of Honor”) as the people of the village set up the auditorium for the students’ program. The full scene runs from 67:00-76:00.
Unit 8 Assignment
Write an autobiographical essay of approximately 1,500 words exploring key events in your own story of learning to live and work with the new information and communications technologies. In effect, your essay is an exercise in autobiographical inquiry, or reflection on what technology means in an educational career. Be sure that your essay: 1) Is specific in exploring how you learned to do new things, with educational significance, enabled by technological innovation; 2) Employs Unit 8 resources in explaining the evolution of your thinking about significant questions of technology; and 3) Expresses your understanding of the uses and limits of autobiographical inquiry in relation to other forms we have studied.
