Educational Philosophy:
I cannot simply teach you what you need to know about early childhood and elementary school curricula, social studies content and instructional methods. In order for you to effectively learn this material you must be willing to be an active participant in the learning process; constructing an understanding of this material that is personally relevant and meaningful. Therefore I see my role more as that of a facilitator and a co-learner than as a lecturer. What I will do is provide you with a variety of resources that can assist you in learning and your job will be to work with your peers, utilize these resources, ask questions, and help me to know what you do and do not understand. I have set aside time for office hours so that I can help. You may also drop in unannounced any time I am in the office. Furthermore, I have included my email address in order to encourage your questions and comments, and my home phone number in case you encounter pressing questions or problems. The bottom line is that the amount you learn in this course will be directly proportional to your level of involvement, both temporal and cognitive.

Course Description:
This two-part course is designed to guide aspiring teachers of learners from ages 3-13 and it is framed around the fundamental value of teaching for social justice. The first part of the course takes place during the fall. We will develop skills for designing and organizing units and lessons that: involve students in appropriate and authentic learning activities; require thinking at a range of levels; encourage the sensitive and individualized treatment of students of all cultures, abilities, and backgrounds and; utilize a variety of appropriate assessment methods. Course content will include an examination of curriculum foundations, a variety of specific curricular models, instructional skills and strategies, assessment methods, and classroom guidance approaches. Particular emphasis will be placed on transformative curricular approaches that empower traditionally margalized students. Throughout this course, social studies concepts will serve as the content and provide a context around which treatments of general methods will be organized. . The integrating essence of the course will be a focus on issues of educational equity and social justice. Another important element will be observations and experiences with children and teachers in the Early Learning Community.The first part of this course will be structured to utilize a student-centered, collaborative, guided discovery approach. Each week we will address questions central to the study of educational methods and together we will seek out resources, learn the material and share what we have found with each other. Because of the nature of this course I have already compiled many resources that will assist the process, but these are to be viewed as a starting point.
The course will extend into the first 3 weeks of January. This short 3 weeks is structured to help us better understand how to design, write, and implement a unit of learning. The focus will not be on reading someone else's work and discussing it in class, but instead will be on helping you to think about, plan, write, critique, rewrite, and finalize your own unit.
.By the end of this 3-week unit, students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of how to design an authentic and thematically integrated unit, by submitting a work sample that contains all the elements addressed in the guidesheet.
The authentic assessment of this objective and this course will be submission of a first draft of a work sample.

Tentative Course Goals and Objectives
As a result of participating in this course, prospective teachers will be able to:
• demonstrate a functional understanding of the fundamental elements of curriculum for early childhood through elementary school.
• formulate educational goals and objectives that are appropriate and require working at higher cognitive levels.
• experience a variety of instructional strategies, including cooperative learning, and identify appropriate application for early childhood, and elementary school classroom.
• become familiar with a number of student-centered learning strategies including the project approach and emergent curriculum approach.
• prepare lessons and units that use a variety of instructional strategies and skills, incorporate learning theory, Bloom's taxonomy, learning styles, and multiple intelligences, and are appropriate to developmental levels, goals and objectives.
• design lessons with activities and learning centers that allow children to move at their own pace in acquiring important skills in all developmental areas-physical, social, emotional, and intellectual.
• use effective instructional practices in the design of lesson plans.
• understand a variety of foundational early childhood and elementary curricular models and appropriately incorporate aspects of these models into curriculum design.
• explore classroom management/guidance systems.
• use a variety of methods for assessing student learning and performance.
• explore a variety of new ideas in education and analyze their effectiveness in the early childhood and elementary school settings.
• consider child developmental theory and the principles of educational psychology when making curricular decisions.
• identify appropriate social education and social studies goals and use as a guide to select content that teaches social understanding and civic efficacy.
• evaluate one's own classroom instruction through micro-teaching and peer coaching experiences.
• recognize fundamental social studies concepts and benchmarks, and demonstrate the ability to integrate them into lessons and thematic units.
• investigate alternative methods for teaching social studies content
• explore social studies content, reflecting on historical and political accuracy.
• explore issues of social justice and educational empowerment, and discuss their relevance in ece/elem classrooms
• demonstrate the ability to include parents and family in their classroom and develop ideas for involving the students in the community.
• examine methods for structuring one’s time in and out of the classroom
• develop a library of relevant pedagogical resources
• examine learning from and with each other in a fun and creative atmosphere
• demonstrate the ability to design contingency plans that can serve as alternatives or extensions for planned activities
• design a modified work sample for early childhood and elementary learners that incorporates an understanding of best practices for teaching these age groups, includes a variety of appropriate learning experiences & instructional models, and utilizes authentic performance tasks and scoring guides
In the spirit of student-centered learning, we will begin the course by discussing the goals you have for this course and make sure that these are integral to our class together.

Course Requirements
This course will utilize only a few formal requirements. It is expected that you will attend class, help to design and complete suggested readings and outside readings and contribute to class and small group discussions and projects. Suggestions will be made regarding observations in your early childhood placements. There will be at least seven concrete assignments: an analysis of the cultural context of your placement, a rewrite of your philosophy of education, a lesson plan, your WS rationale, a podcast, an emergency curriculum box, and a polished draft of your work sample.

Attendance. You are expected to attend each class. Because some materials that will be presented and discussed in your small group and in class are not contained in the listed resources, and because of your role in your small group, it is important that you attend every class. Please contact me prior to class if you will be absent for any reason.

Reading Assignments. This is a student-centered course, which means that each class will revolve around the interests and ideas that you bring to the class, and the work you do outside of class. Therefore it is important that you come prepared to contribute to discussions. You are expected to read whatever material you feel is necessary to come to class prepared to contribute to the small group and class discussions. Sometimes this will be assigned work, sometimes the topics will necessitate independent readings. I have compiled readings that are on reserve in the library and will list suggested chapters in the textbooks and provide URLs that will be helpful for your work. Reading carefully and thinking about the material before class will give you time to formulate questions and ideas that you may have about the readings and allow you to more fully participate during that class period.

Observations and Journal - Throughout the semester I will encourage you to make specific observations or gather specific data in your placements. This information may be discussed during class so please come prepared. The length of your observations and notes may vary depending on the nature of the observations or the level of your participation. I encourage you to continue the journal that you were asked to begin during the summer and to keep your observations and reflections in this journal.

Writing Assignments. All writing assignments will be assessed on three criteria:
1. Clarity of expression. It is expected that papers and projects will be well written following the guidelines for appropriate grammar and style. Papers should be double spaced and printed using a #12 font.
2. Level of critical analysis and depth of thought. It is expected that your papers, projects and presentations will go beyond simply describing and applying information, and will include analytical thinking and the synthesis of ideas. This will be especially important when you are developing lesson plans and your work sample.
3. Specific assignment criteria. Each assignment has specific criteria and papers will be evaluated on how well those criteria are met.
All writing should be considered a work in progress. After I have assessed and returned any of your work, you have the option of making whatever changes that you would like and resubmitting your paper for a new assessment. When you resubmit a paper please be sure to submit your original version along with the new version.

A. Cultural Contexts: Getting To Know Your Placement Activity. [Optional] Please select one of your placements, complete the 3 Parts for this activity (in assignment linked below), self-evaluate your work, and then bring your work to class for discussing in small groups (keep in mind, this is not a paper). At the end of the small group work you will be asked to hand in your materials. Download Assignment as Doc or view as PDF. A positive application of this work would be utilizing these data by writing a letter describing this context to your supervisor. I will provide assistance to all who work on this assignment, it is recommended that you complete this by the end of October.

B. Philosophy of Education. [Optional] I strongly encourage you to rewrite your philosophy of education (please include your previous drafts!). I expect that everyone who rewrites their philosophy will have at least one or two peers read and evaluate it this semester prior to submitting it to me. In this manner, not only will you receive feedback from a couple of peers, presumably you will have the opportunity to read and review the philosophies of a couple of your peers. I believe this structure will benefit everyone. You are encouraged to submit your philosophy by Oct. 16th however I will accept revisions at any time.

C. Lesson Plan. [Required] The object of this project is to allow you to select some component of the ece/elem social studies curriculum that interests you, investigate it more fully, and design a lesson plan around this component. You are free to select any social studies component and design any curricular application that interests you and that is relevant. You may pick any level: age 3 through grade 8. I expect your work to be founded on theory and research, and references to scholarly work are required. This first lesson plan will be a bit different in that rationales are expected to be included for each individual element of your plan. You may work collaboratively with a peer, however your work should reflect twice the effort. Lesson Plans are Due Oct. 30th

D. Rationale - [Required] A draft of your rationale is due in class on Nov. 13th. To support this work you must speak with your mentors and confirm the topic of your first work sample by October 23rd. We will use this topic for an inclass brainstorm for your unit and rationale. The rationale you design should be written in keeping with the work sample scoring guide and will be evaluated based on that scoring guide.

E. Podcast -[Required] Each of you will work in teams of two* to research, design and produce a podcast describing the life and work of an individual who devoted their life to the struggle for equity and social justice. These podcasts will be posted on the web and will become part of a growing collection of resources. Please be professional in your work on them as they can be a project that you can refer to in a job interview and list on your resume. Podcasts should be about 10-15 minutes long. A rubric for their assessment is included at the end of the project description.

F. Resource Boxes. [Required] On Wednesday December 12th, each student is expected to come to class prepared to share the resource box that they have developed over the course of the semester. This is a box that will contain materials appropriate to coping in the classroom with a range of emergency or stressful conditions that could develop. We will spend time in class on the 8th discussing appropriate teaching strategies and reviewing materials that might be useful in challenging classroom situations.

G. Work Sample - [Required] The final authentic assessment of this course will be the submission of a complete first draft of a work sample. This work sample draft must contain elements A through H, as they are described in the scoring guide. Elements I through L must also be present, however instead of describing what you DID do to differentiate, adapt or design instruction, describe how you PLAN to do these things. Elements M through O do not yet need to be addressed (they will be in your final draft). I would like you to reflect some on your planning and to provide a bibliography (P and Q), and of course to present a well-written worksample as described in R. For this draft of your worksample none of the elements should be evaluated lower than a 3 or they may need to be rewritten. This draft is due on or before Wed. January 17th. As a means of pacing this requirement, on January 3rd you are required to come to class with parts A-E completed for review by your peers during the two hour period.
The final draft of this WS will be submitted to your University Supervisor after you have taught the unit. It must contain freshly printed pages so that any comments that I have made on previous versions are manifest in changes incorporated in your new version. It is recommended that you speak with your supervisor and work closely with him/her during the final writing and teaching of your unit so that there are no surprises in your WS’s final evaluation. Your supervisor will be evaluating your WS using the Description sheet and scoring guide that is posted on my website and that I will hand out as part of the WS packet. For this evaluation of your WS, you must have an average rating of a 4 and none of your individual elements can be lower than a 3. While the same evaluative standards will hold for your second WS (which you will write on your own with assistance from your mentor), when you submit this to your supervisor in May, you must also submit a thorough self evaluation of the WS using the same assessment sheet and scoring guide that your supervisor will use.

Assessment:
Your grade in the course will be based on a final assessment on your work throughout the fall term, and an evaluation of the worksample as an authentic assessment of your synthesis of the course materials. You will be expected to submit a reflective self-assessment of your work throughout the course that is due on January 17th. Throughout this course I encourage you to embrace the power of being a mastery-based learner focused on learning goals rather than performance goals. Work hard to challenge yourself and let go of any ego involvement in grades. What is important is your level of learning and understanding in this course: the more the better. In this framework, grades are not the criteria by which you should evaluate your value as a student (in terms of self concept or self esteem), but simply a metric by which to mark your process in meeting the goals of becoming a professional educator. Disequilibria are the catalyst for new learning, embrace them and challenge yourself to do and learn great things. “Beware the A, it says that you have made it, that you are done...”

There will be two different assessment options from which you are welcome to choose this semester. Option 1 is a more holistic approach and involves ongoing narrative self-assessment, Option 2 is a more concrete approach and involves finite point totals for specific assignments. You are required to email me your assessment option selection for this course no later than Oct 2nd. If you would like to explore some of the reasons for using an alternative method of grading, please see Alfie Kohn's treatise on grading.

Throughout the course, assessments will be based on rubrics that we will develop and some that are already published online. A basic guideline for evaluation is as follows.

A score of 5 will be given when the work is thorough, insightful, and demonstrates a comprehensive understanding.
A score of 3 will be given when the work is adequate, accurate, and demonstrates a basic understanding.
A score of 1 will be given when the work is inadequate, demonstrates misunderstanding, and is lacking in effort.

Option 1.
Throughout the course, assessment will be based on a rubric developed for that specific assignment. Each submitted assignment will be accompanied with a brief self-assessment based on that rubric. A basic guideline for assessments can be found above.

On Nov. 6th you will submit a midsemester personal evaluation indicating how you are progressing in meeting the course goals and objectives, and noting progress on course assignments. On January 17th, you will submit a final evaluation of your progress in meeting class goals and objectives. This one page document will include reflections on the student and professor feedback you have received on your assignments as well as a indepth reflection on the objectives. This evaluation will include a final grade for yourself based on this self evaluation. Where in most cases this will be the final grade you will receive for this course, I reserve the right to submit an alternative final grade if I believe there is a lack of veridical connection between the work completed and your self-evaluation.

Option 2.
Throughout the course all assessments will be based on rubrics developed for that specific assignment. Scores will be totaled at the end of the semester to determine semester grade.
On Nov. 6th you will submit a midsemester personal evaluation indicating how you are progressing in meeting the course goals and objectives, and noting progress on course assignments. On Jan 17th, you will submit a final evaluation of your progress in meeting class goals and objectives. This one page document will include reflections on the student and professor feedback you have received on your assignments as well as a indepth reflection on the objectives.

Required Assignments:
1. Lesson Plan (30 points)
2. Podcast (20 points)
3. Rationale Draft (10 points)
4. Work Sample Draft (40 points)

Special Needs:
It is our intent to fully include persons with special needs in this course. Please let us know if you need any special accommodations in the curriculum, instruction, or assessment to enable you to participate fully. We will make every effort to maintain the confidentiality of any information you share with us.

University and College of Education Policies
Be aware of the Pacific University Code of Academic Conduct and the College of Education policies for professional behavior and the competent and ethical performance of educators. In this course students are expected to demonstrate behavior consistent with the Professional and Academic Standards in the College of Education. Pacific University Professional Programs Course Catalog.

Students With Disabilities
In general, the University will work with students to improve conditions that may hinder their learning. The university requires appropriate documentation of a disability in order to enable students to meet academic standards. It is the responsibility of each student to inform the Director of Learning Support Services of his or her disability. Students are encouraged to work with faculty proactively in developing strategies for accommodation. This policy is described at Pacific University Professional Programs Course Catalog.

Incompletes
Instructors may issue a grade of incomplete only when the major portion of a course has been completed satisfactorily, but health or other emergency reasons prevent the student from finishing all the requirements in the course. The instructor and the student should agree upon a deadline by which all work will be completed, with the following guidelines:
1. Incompletes given for Fall and or Winter III terms must be completed by the following April 15.
2. Incompletes given for Spring semester must be completed by the following November 15.
Instructors will issue the grade the student would have earned by not completing the course, preceded by an "I". This grade is determined by including a failing grade for the missing assignment(s) in the calculation of the final grade. If the agreed upon course work is not completed in the period allotted and an extension has not been granted, the grade issued will be permanent. The contingency grade will be used in the computation of the GPA until such time as a new grade is recorded. See the Pacific University Professional Programs Course Catalog.

Grade Changes
Once a grade is submitted to the Registrar it shall not be changed except in the case of recording errors. Grade changes will be approved by the appropriate Dean. See the Pacific University Professional Programs Course Catalog.

Safe Environment Policy
Pacific University's Rights and Responsibilities policy seeks to maintain conditions favorable to learning. Students have the right to pursue an education free from discrimination based on gender, religion, marital status, age, sexual orientation or handicap. Students have the responsibility to conduct themselves, both individually and in groups, in a manner which promotes an atmosphere conducive to teaching, studying and learning. This policy is described in detail in Pacific University Professional Programs Course Catalog.

Academic Integrity
Honesty and integrity are expected of all students in class preparation, examinations, assignments, practicums and other academic work. Misconduct includes, but is not limited to cheating; plagiarism; forgery; fabrication; theft of instructional materials or tests; unauthorized access or manipulation of laboratory or clinic equipment or computer programs; alteration of grade books, clinical records, files or computer grades; misuse of research data in reporting results; use of personal relationships to gain grades or favors or other attempts to obtain grades or credit through fraudulent means; unprofessional conduct related to student care; threats to University personnel and conduct inconsistent with academic integrity. The complete policy, definitions and appeal procedures are described Pacific University Professional Programs Course Catalog.
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References & Readings

Bill Bigelow, Linda Christensen, Stan Karp, Barbara Miner, & Bob Peterson, (Eds.) (2007) Rethinking our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Social Justice. Vol. 1 (2nd Edition). Rethinking Schools: Williston, VT.

Bill Bigelow, Linda Christensen, Stan Karp, Barbara Miner, & Bob Peterson, (Eds.) (1994 or 2001) Rethinking our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Social Justice. Vol. 2. Rethinking Schools: Williston, VT.

Brewer, J. (1995). Early Childhood Education: Preschool Through Primary Grades. Simon and Shuster: Needham Heights, MA.

Brophy, J, & Alleman, Janet (2006) Powerful Social Studies For Elementary Students (2nd Ed.). Wadsworth: Belmont, CA.

Christine Chaillé (2008). Constructivism Across the Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms: Big Ideas as Inspiration.

Chard, S. C. (a) (1998). The Project Approach: Developing the Basic Framework. Scholastic: New York.

Chard, S. C. (a) (1998). The Project Approach: Developing Curriculum with Children. Scholastic: New York.

Goffin, S. G. (1994). Curriculum Models and Early Childhood Education: Appraising the Relationship. Merrill: NY.

Jacobsen, D. A. , Eggen, P. & Kauchak, D. (2002). Methods for Teaching. Merrill.

Kagen, S.. (1997). Cooperative Learning.

Kohn, A. (1996) Beyond Discipline, From Compliance to Community. ASCD, Alexandria, VA.

Krough, S. L. (a) (1994). Educating Young Children. McGraw Hill: New York.

Krough, S. L. (b) (1995). The Integrated Early Childhood Curriculum (Second Edition). McGraw Hill: New York.

Marzano, R. L. (2007) The Art and Science of Teaching. ASCD: Alexandria VA.

Marzano, R. L., Yanoski, D. C., Hoegh, J. K., and Simms, J. A. (2013) Using Common Core Standards to Enhance Classroom Instruction & Assessment. ASCD: Alexandria VA.

Ann Pelo (2008). Rethinking Early Childhood Education.Rethinking Schools: Williston, VT.

Peterson, E. A. (1996). Early Childhood Planing, Methods, and Materials. Allyn and Bacon: Boston.

Pucket, M. & Black, J. (1994)Authentic Assessment of the Young Child. Merrill: New York, NY.

Spodek, B. & Saracho, O. (1994). Right From the Start. Allyn & Bacon: Boston, MA.Special Needs.

Zinn, H. (2007) A Young People's History of the United States V.1 & V.2.