Course Description
Exploring the communities where Pre-K-5th grade students and their families live and work. Developing habits of mind for viewing children, families, and communities with empathy and curiosity. Locating resources in children's lives, which can then be drawn on in classroom teaching and learning.
Athena Title
Orientation to EDEL Lab
Non-Traditional Format
This course is field-based.
Prerequisite
Permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall and spring
Grading System
S/U (Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory)
Course Objectives
Students will practice general strategies that could be applied in nearly any community to learn about the lives of the people there. Students will collaborate in learning about local communities. Students will develop a multi-disciplinary unit plan that explicitly draws on community knowledge.
Topical Outline
•Conducting mini-ethnographies •Virtual resources for learning about communities •Examining bullying and considering vulnerable students •Families’ and preservice teachers’ experiences with public transportation •Diverse families’ access to food •Libraries as community resources •Community institutions as resources for information, education and entertainment •Community study •Community-based multidisciplinary unit planning
Syllabus
Public CV