Office: Taylor 312A; Phone: 215-572-4476; email: appelbaum@arcadia.edu

Course website: http://my.arcadia.edu ; use your student account to access our course on Blackboard™.

ED 502 on-line office hours: Wednesdays 3:30-4:00 pm (I will always check our course site and my email during these times)

 

 

From our course catalog: Introductory course for classroom teachers and others interested in understanding major American curriculum movements and their underlying philosophies.

 

This course may help you to meet certain requirements!

  1. It counts as a “Foundations Course.” Most of our master’s degree programs require students to complete at least two of ED 502-510.
  2. This course helps students in the counseling and/or supervision programs to meet certain state standards for certification:

I.H.  School curriculum design including:

·         operational components of the school system,

·         elementary or secondary education curriculum program design,

·         graduation requirements, operation of child study and other support services

II.B.  Constructing alternative methods of providing services

II.C.  Evaluating program effectiveness

II.F.  Integrating pupil services into the instructional program

III.A.  Professional organizations, journals, conferences and other sources of professional development

III.C.  Cultivating professional relationships and collaborating with school colleagues, organizations and other community agencies to improve student learning

 

Naturally, this course does a whole lot more than meet the minimal requirements!

This is an on-line introduction to Curriculum Studies, a vibrant and provocative realm of educational inquiry and practice. We will be challenging every assumption we have about what is educative, mis-educative, and non-educative, and we will develop multiple visions of what it means to work in the field of curriculum development and design. We will be challenging ourselves to use new languages, to comprehend initially hard-to-understand theories, and to apply what we are learning to our own professional contexts. We will seek to use everything at our disposal to think creatively about curriculum. What is curriculum? We will complicate and embrace this seemingly innocent question as we do the work of curriculum theorists.

 

Required Texts:

Purchase these books in our campus bookstore or on-line.

Anderson, M.T. 2002. Feed. Candlewick Press. ISBN 0763622591.

Jardine, David, Sharon Friesen, and Pat Clifford. 2003.  Back to the Basics of Teaching and Learning: Thinking the World Together. Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN 0805839801.

Flinders, David & Thornton, Stephen (eds). 1997. The Curriculum Studies Reader. Routledge. ISBN 0415916984.

Perry, Theresa,  Steele, Claude, and Hilliard, Asa. 2003. Young, Gifted and Black: Promoting high achievement among African-American students.

Tyler, Ralph. reprint 1969. Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. University of Chicago Press; ISBN: 0226820319.

 

Assignments & Grading:

Your grade will be based on THREE MAIN COMPONENTS:

1.                                          Participation and leadership in class discussions. This is a critical feature of our on-line course. More details are found in the separate document, “A Note on Participation and Contributions.”

2.                                          Personal Action Research Project. We will each develop our own personal inquiry related to our own professional work context. In this way we will each have the opportunity to directly apply the abstract theories that we are reading. The semester progresses so rapidly that this project needs to be started from the very beginning; as we move along you will be able to better clarify what you think you can and should do for this project. The project will also change as you are influenced by the new topics that we read about and discuss. You will maintain a thread devoted to the documentation of your project development and progress as part of a discussion board forum titled, “Action Research Projects.” You are required to schedule at least one telephone call or campus visit to my office to discuss your project and the course. There will be one official checkpoint for additional guidance on how you are meeting the criteria of this assignment, and a final progress report turned in at the end of the semester. Additional information can be found on the separate, “Project Specifications Sheet.”

3.                                          Curriculum Theory Papers. Twice during this semester, you are asked to interpret the literature that we are reading for our course. Each time, you will have the opportunity to integrate this more academic work with your personal inquiry project, so that we can emphasize the ways that curriculum theorizing grows out of our professional practice and helps us to redefine the questions that drive our professional action. Each paper will be 3-5 pages long.

 

Participation and leadership

30%

Personal Action Research Project 

30%

Curriculum Theory Paper I

20%

Curriculum Theory Paper II

20%

 

 

Tentative Schedule (subject to change as needed):

 

Week

Topics

Reading Assignment

Action Research Project

Inquiry into Curriculum Studies

 

1: Jan 16-23

What is Curriculum Studies? Cultures of Curriculum

Syllabus J

What are our professional questions?

Interpreting anything through a curriculum studies lens

 

2: Jan 23-30

Fundamental Milestone: The Tyler Rationale

Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction

Personal agenda list due

What techniques from Tyler can we use in our projects?

Opening

3: Jan 30 – Feb 6

Historical Precursors to Tyler

Flinders & Thornton, Part I

Initial Inquiry Statement due

Be ready to discuss:

-Can curriculum content be scientifically determined? If so, how? If not, why not?

-What are the effects of basing planning on objectives?

-Who should be involved in curriculum decisions? Who is often left out who shouldn’t be? 

 

4: Feb 6 - 13

Reactions to Tyler

Flinders & Thornton, Part II

 

 

Developing

5: Feb 13-20

Reconceptualizing Curriculum Theory

Flinders & Thornton, Part III

Schedule phone/office visit

 

Projects

6: Feb 20-27

Action Research Project “Workshops”

 

 

Curriculum Theory Paper I due

Doing

7: Feb 27-Mar 6

Contemporary Theorizing: Post-Reconceptual Theory

Jardine, et al., , Part I

Workshops

Postmodern “basics” – process and complexity

 

8: Mar 6-11

Contemporary Theorizing: Refraction over method

Jardine, et al.,, Part II; Doll in Flinders

 

 

 

 

Spring Break

 

 

 

Projects

9: Mar 20-27

Really grappling with post-modernism

Jardine, et al.,, Part III

Checkpoint due

 

Work

10: Mar 27- Apr 3

Contemporary Theorizing: Change and Continuity

Flinders & Thornton, Part IV, a

Putting work out into world

 

Out

Tuesday April 4th

“Special invitation”

Arcadia Graduate Colloquium: School Daze: What’s Rock and Roll Got to Do with Educational Theory?

Elijah Mirochnik, George Mason University

Castle Mirror Room

7:00 – 9:00 pm

 

11: Apr 3-10

aera/aaacs 7-11

Contemporary Theorizing:: Change & Continuity

Flinders & Thornton, Part IV, b

Putting work out into world

 

 

12: Apr 10-17

Special Topic: Successful Diversity

Perry, Steele, & Hilliard

 

 

Arch-

13: Apr 17-24 1

Special Topic: Technoculture & Consumer Culture

Anderson

 

 

aeology

14: Apr 24-May

Discussion of Special Topics as related to our curriculum theory papers and progress reports

 

 

Curriculum Theory Paper II due

 

15: May 1-8

 

 

Progess Report due

 

 

 

 

Useful Websites:

Pennsylvania Department of Education http://www.pde.state.pa.us/

See especially Curriculum and Instruction, including the State Standards.

 

American Counseling Association. http://www.counseling.org

See especially the Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice

 

American School Counselor Association. http://www.schoolcounselor.org.

See especially the National Model and RAMP

 

Assocation for Supervision and Curriculum Development. http://www.ascd.org/

Note the on-line Curriculum Handbook  demo.

 

UNESCO Task Force on Education for the 21rst Century http://www.unesco.org/delors/

At Arcadia, we encourage an global/international approach.

 

American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies: http://aaacs.info.

 

The Curriculum and Pedagogy Group: http://www.curriculumandpedagogy.org/

 

American Educational Research Association, Division B: Curriculum Studies: http://www.aera.net/divisions/?id=67

 

War and Peace in Children’s Literature http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/lit_resources/diversity/War_Peace/war_and_peace.html

A teacher’s webpage.

 

Azine: Asian American Movement Ezine. http://www.aamovement.net/

Asian-American Movement E-Zine Website

 

Gulf War Curriculum Guide. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/teach/gulfguide/

On-line supplement to PBS Frontline program.

 

JCT The Journal of Curriculum Theorizing. http://www.jctbergamo.com

State-of-the-art , cutting edge work in curriculum theory and classroom practice.

 

Journal of Critical Inquiry into Curriculum and Instruction. Excellent journal designed for graduate students in curriculum, no website.

 

Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies: http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/jaaacs/ Review essays of interest to everyone in curriculum.

 

Journal of Curriculum Studies. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/00220272.asp (including an on-line sample copy)

Canadian website: http://www.edu.uwo.ca/jcs/

International journal of curriculum theory, with a broad range of topics and types of articles.

 

Transnational Curriculum Inquiry. http://www.deakin.edu.au/tci/ Journal of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies.

 

Pedagogy, Culture & Society http://www.triangle.co.uk/cus/

New journal in educational theory

 

Curriculum Inquiry http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~ci/

Classic journal of curriculum theory.

 

Mid-Atlantic Curriculum Studies Project. http://gargoyle.arcadia.edu/appelbaum/curriculum.project.proposal.draft.1.12.05.htm Local and in-progress.

 

LSU Curriculum Theory Project http://asterix.ednet.lsu.edu/~lsuctp/

Often has resources, and information of help to graduate students specializing in curriculum theory.

 

Curriculum Theory and Practice http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm

Mark Smith’s categorization of curriculum approaches to informal learning.

 

Nailing Jello to the Wall: Pinpointing Aspects of State-of-the-Art Curriculum Theorizing, by Handel Kashope Wright http://35.8.171.42/aera/pubs/er/arts/29-05/wright01.htm decent article in Educational Researcher, which prompted some interesting responses.

 

History of Education, entry on Ralph Tyler http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~daniel_schugurensky/assignment1/1949tyler.html

The man to whom we all owe our commonsense notion of curriculum development.

 

Jim Sears’s Syllabus, Turning Points in Contemporary Curriculum Theory http://www.jtsears.com/sylT111.htm ; William Wraga’s syllabus, Curriculum Foundations and History http://www.coe.uga.edu/adminpolicy/faculty/wraga/8010.pdf

You can compare our course to these.

 

TIP: Theory into Practice, database on learning theories http://tip.psychology.org/

For those of us who need a psychological theory to back up our opinions.

 

A Brief History of Theater of the Oppressed http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/theater.html

For those of use who want a transformative social action perspective to inform our work.

 

The Catalyst Center: Online journals, papers, and kits. http://www.catalystcentre.ca/Resources/online.htm

On-line resources in eighteen categories.

 

Center for the Study of Technology and Society -- Education page http://www.tecsoc.org/edu/edu.htm

Do we know where we are going? Where we have been?

 

The Three Little Pigs in a Post-modern World, http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed98/drader.html

By Dennis and Jan Rader. One approach to understanding postmodern curriculum theory

 

Integrating Disability Studies into Existing Curriculum: http://www.mc.cc.md.us/Departments/dispsvc/diversity.htm by Rose Sachs

 

Incorporating Disability Studies into American Studies. http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/interests/ds-hum/thomson.html by Rosemarie Garland Thomson

 

Postmodern Curriculum Research and Alternative Forms of Data Presentation http://www.quasar.ualberta.ca/cpin/cpinfolder/papers/slattery.htm

By Patrick Slattery. A friendly introduction to Patrick’s ideas.

 

A Dictionary of Postmodern Terms http://www.california.com/~rathbone/lexicon.htm

On-line dictionary to help you turn jargon into theory

 

Cultural Studies Central http://www.culturalstudies.net/index.html

Name says it all

 

Popcultures.com http://www.popcultures.com/

Another useful site that can direct you to other places.

 

Soundout. http://www.soundout.org/ student voice is the missing piece in the school improvement puszzle.

 

John Dewey’s Democracy and Education http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/socl/education/DemocracyandEducation/toc.html

The Classic work in its entirety

 

APA Cheat Sheets: http://www.wvu.edu/~physed/sportpsych/watson/apacheatsheet.htm ;

http://www.wooster.edu/psychology/apa-crib.html;

http://www.br.cc.va.us/library/new%20and%20improved/apa%20cheat%20sheet.htm

Good guides when you are not sure how to cite/reference things in your papers