From Disney films to Nickelodeon cartoons to Newberry award-winning texts, popular children's media offers us the opportunity to analyze how complex issues of identity are represented in cultural productions aimed at a young audience. This course takes, as a site of analysis, media aimed at children to investigate the lessons imparted and ideologies circulate in popular films and books. How is class drawn in Lady and the Tramp? What are the politics of language at play in Moana? What are the sounds of masculinity in Beauty and the Beast? How does Mulan construct gender, race, and militarism? Using an intersectional frame of analysis, we will trace popular tropes, identify images of resistance, and map out the more popular messages children receive about difference in our world.
This course is intended to provide a supportive learning community for first-generation college students. Students with questions about the course should email the instructor prior to registering.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 10 2Y
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Schools have historically been a point of public fascination. Consequently, debates on equity, diversity, and social justice have played out in the TV- and film-inspired hallways and classrooms of K-12 schools. What do these popular portrayals of school and society teach us about teaching and learning and the role of public education in a pluralistic society? How does Abbott Elementary reinforce and challenge our conceptions of under-resourced urban schools? How does race impact teacher heroism in Freedom Writers? What do documentary films like The Lottery teach us about education policies related to school choice and charter schools? In this course, we will integrate an analysis of popular media representations of education with examinations of education policy, research, and practice to delve into some of the long-running debates about schools and society.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course introduces students to the central themes and big questions in education. What is the purpose of education? For whom are schools and teaching methods imagined? What is the role of family and communities in the experience and process of teaching and learning? How should we structure schools and classrooms? What are the political controversies, challenges, and issues of power facing young people and schools? A case study format that focuses on past and current events will allow students to tackle these complex questions in a transdisciplinary way with concrete examples that aid in the development of critical inquiry skills. Together, students will develop informed opinions, make sense of their own educational journeys, and learn the reflexivity necessary to enter the field of education.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years, Sophomores and Juniors.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Starting with a broad, historical overview of child development and developmental theories, we will connect ideas about children's learning with teaching practices and current perspectives on early childhood education. We will focus on recognizing changing needs and developmental differences in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers as they grow in all skill areas-motor, cognitive, social emotional, and language and communication. Through readings, observations, writing assignments, and reflective discussion, students will learn to integrate developmental understanding and appropriate curriculum planning in an Early Childhood setting.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Meets one of the course requirements toward Department of Education and Care Teacher Certification.
We will study characteristics of young children with disabilities and examine supportive programs, practices, and services. We will focus on theoretical and applied knowledge about disabilities, including communication disorders, sensory impairments, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders, autism spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities, giftedness, and physical and health related disabilities. We will discuss screening, assessment, early intervention, individualized education programs, inclusive education, community resources, family issues, and the requirements of various state and federal laws that impact children and students with disabilities. Students will learn how programs make accommodations, structure modifications, and differentiate instruction based on young children's needs.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Some coursework in child development or by permission of the instructor. Open to First-Years, Sophomores, and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Rooted in Afro-centric principles, the course explores the foundations of Black Pedagogies and examines the ingenious ways enslaved Africans and their progeny tapped into their sacred cosmologies, wisdom and memories, and devised emancipatory strategies of learning and passing on information during the period of enslavement and its aftermath. Through the enactment of violent slave codes and anti-literacy legislation, enslaved Africans were prohibited to read and/or write in the language of the enslaver-colonizer. Moreover, they were not allowed to freely access or openly express an education that reflected their dynamic history or heritage, which was later enforced by discriminatory Jim Crow and colonial laws. In this way, the course dismantles the intended-ills and history of Western Eurocentric curricula, religious instruction, and media. It unearths and underscores Black pedagogical tools, intellectualism, institutions, and creative expressions as redemptive, remedial, and inclusive pathways for diversifying and humanizing the education curriculum. We will peruse the wide breadth of languages and cultural modes of knowledge production and transmission that emerged during the harrowing passages of the trans-Atlantic trade of captured Africans and their subsequent enslavement and oppression in the Americas. Central themes and areas of study include: the praxis of love, sacred science, oral and literary traditions, memory, storytelling, nature and communal engagement, community, quilt-making, food-ways, dress, art and artifacts, religion, ritual, trauma, resilience, black talk/black text, interjections, body language/gesticulations, theatre, music, dance, genealogy, ancestral reverence, graveyards, schools, and other sites of knowledge creation, expression, and preservation. The course will be aided by a wealth of lively and interactive lectures, discussions, documentaries, literature, works of art, oral tradition and first-hand testimonies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 20 5
Prerequisites: None.
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In this class, we will look at several forms of knowledge production that have historically emerged behind the walls of U.S. prisons. These have included captivity narratives, disciplinary regimes, formal university-funded humanities education and, most importantly, self-organized political education and study groups. Moments of the latter have caused some political and politicized prisoners to refer to prisons as “universities of revolution.” In today’s prison abolitionist movement, inside-outside study groups serve as social hubs, political workshops and cultural anchors. By looking closely at the history of imprisoned intellectual production (writing, radio, artwork, etc), we will see how imprisoned people and their supporters theorize, understand, and struggle against the prison regime through organic and mutual forms of political education
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 20 6
Prerequisites: None
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Does education in the United States encourage social mobility or help to reproduce socioeconomic inequality? What is the hidden curriculum—the ideas, values, and skills that students learn at school that are not in the textbook? Who determines what gets taught in school? How do schools in the US compare to school systems in other countries? What makes school reform so hard? Questions like these drive this course which offers students an introduction to the sociology of education including topics such as schools and communities; student-centered pedagogies; the role of teachers, students, parents, mentors, and peers in producing and addressing educational inequalities (including tracking and measures of achievement); school violence, school reform, and knowledge production. We also look comparatively at education systems across the world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 20 7,EDUC 20 7
Prerequisites: None.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This introductory seminar engages students in a series of explorations that illuminate the field of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), which is one of the most exciting areas of teaching and learning in U.S. schools and around the world. Students explore how social, emotional, and academic learning can be interwoven with what we understand about child and youth development, and how these ideas can inform pedagogy (teaching) in k-12 settings. Students also uncover how social and emotional learning is bound together with struggles for youth civic participation, social justice, and efforts to dismantle structural oppression in a range of educational sites and in society. Through a variety of different activities and learning structures the course provides students with multiple opportunities to explore their own social emotional educations and participate in the creation of new ways to engage young people and adults in joyful learning, celebrating identities, emotional and physical thriving, social justice, and healing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Not open to students who have taken EDUC 313.
School-age children and youth are often understood through the complex lives they lead in schools--academic achievers, behavioral misfits, and rebellious adolescents. Beyond the routine analyses of behavior, test scores and curriculum, what else can the lives of youth tell us about educational change? And who has power and agency to be part of educational decision-making? This course seeks to explore education by looking outside of schools: What are the experiences of students’ families and what do they want for their children? How do relationships with peers influence a student’s concept of self and sense of belonging in school? How do historical, political, and social encounters with race, class, and inequality shape families’ interactions with schools? Through an exploration of research, memoir, children’s literature and film as well as interactions with the course’s community-based educators (caregivers, parent organizers, and community leaders), this course seeks to understand young people through their complex relationships and encounters within families, peer groups and community institutions, all the while interrogating the ways schools can integrate the holistic lived experiences of children and youth into theories of educational change.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 22
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years, Sophomores and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In this course students will engage with a spectrum of historic and contemporary school reform efforts across different contexts in the United States. Making use of a diverse array of texts from articles to podcasts and videos, students will struggle with both the promise of education as a tool for remedying race- and class-based inequalities and the stubborn reality that too often schools reflect and reproduce injustice. The structure of the course session and activities prompts students to learn about and experience alternative educational possibilities. Working in groups, pairs, and as individuals, students will explore scholarship and cases in educational anthropology, sociology, history, and critical theory, while questioning the purposes, processes, and products of schooling. Central to the course is the community students create with the instructor for mutual learning support and debate. All members of the course are engaged in a learning stance that centers a discipline of hope and engages with the proposition that communities can organize their own struggle to define and demand a humanizing and liberatory education. Students also have multiple opportunities to explore their own educational experiences and design their own research or educational initiatives to act on their learning.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 22
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 215
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years, Sophomores and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In this course, students will learn to encounter, deconstruct, analyze, and put into relation a range of ancient, modern, and contemporary educational philosophies. Students will learn how educational practice has been guided by philosophical ideas and experiment with their own educational philosophies. The course is guided by questions such as: What is a good education? How do an individual's own efforts to make sense of the world, and to guide her life, relate to schools and academic work? What should the aims of education be? How should education embody intersectional experiences and cultures? The focus will be on perspectives and processes of learning and teaching. We will use the works of earlier writers (for example, Confucius, Plato, Dewey, Neill, Buber, Freire, Baldwin, and Noddings) and a wide range of diverse contemporary writers as starting points in our investigation as students build unique creative projects that express their learning in different media/forms, and explicitly practice the use of social justice, equity, and culturally sustaining pedagogy lenses.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: One previous course in the education department.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Uses a microeconomic framework to analyze important questions in education policy about school finance, organization, efficiency, and equity. Is education a private good? What are the costs and benefits of expanded education for individuals, communities, and countries? What are the consequences of more widespread early childhood education and college attendance? What is the role of teachers, peers, and families in education? Does school choice promote student achievement? Applies concepts such as comparative statics, subsidies, externalities, perfect and imperfect competition, cost-benefit analysis, and welfare analysis to these and other questions. Each semester includes one or two policy discussions on contemporary issues in education.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 226
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P. ECON 102 or ECON 102P and ECON 103 recommended.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Children’s literature has a transformative effect on student learning. We will examine, review, and critique children’s literature, as well as the theory, research, and application that supports our understanding of its impact on learning. In this course, we will apply criteria for the selection of children’s texts, and analyze them for bias. We will learn how children’s literature can foster the development of empathy and identity by affirming the voices of marginalized and/or under-represented groups and creating windows of awareness for others. We will also learn how children’s literature can strengthen vocabulary, language fluency, comprehension, and higher-order thinking. We will use a variety of texts from children’s picture books to middle-grade chapter books that reflect the developmental range of school-age children.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites:
This course is an examination of education policy in the 20th and 21st century and the social, political, and economic forces that have shaped these policies over the years. We will analyze the different-and sometimes conflicting-goals, motivations, and outcomes of educational policies at the national, local, and school level. Central questions to this course are: who designs educational policy and for whom? Whose interests are served and whose interests are unmet? Using an interdisciplinary approach and case exploration, we examine the ways education policies and practices have responded to or been shaped by social issues such as immigration, poverty, racism and urban development. We will integrate theoretical and conceptual learning with an understanding of cases through both group and individual analysis. In doing so, students will develop critical skills of policy analysis that can allow them to better understand current trends and develop alternative solutions to questions of educational dilemmas and practices. Units: 1 Max Enrollment: 30 Prerequisites: One education core course - EDUC 120, EDUC 214, or EDUC 215. Not open to students who have taken EDUC 216. Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis Typical Periods Offered: Spring Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring Notes:
For students interested in current best practices in active learning and inclusive teaching, this course provides a unique experience to learn, teach, and change the physics curriculum at Wellesley. Students will read and discuss current literature in physics education, gain practice in supporting inclusive group work, refine their own physics knowledge, and do hands-on projects to improve the studio physics experience at Wellesley College. Students must complete this course prior to working as Physics Learning Assistants.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 239H
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course examines the historical development, contemporary function, and societal role of higher education in the United States. By analyzing the evolving purposes of universities, the institutional structures that shape them, and their relationships with broader society, students will explore critical questions regarding the obligations of higher education institutions. Topics include the impact of universities on social mobility, knowledge production, and civic engagement; the tension between academic freedom and social responsibility; and the historical shifts in access, governance, and institutional priorities. Through engagement with primary and secondary sources, policy debates, and case studies, students will develop an understanding of how higher education both shapes and is shaped by social, political, and economic forces.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: One previous EDUC course.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The United States is multilingual. Since before colonization, many Indigenous languages circulated as well as the languages of the colonizers and the languages brought by enslaved Africans. Today, there is incredible linguistic fluidity and diversity across the country. However, linguistic pluralism in schools has traditionally only been extended to the elite, making language a battleground for anti-Immigration, anti-Indigeneity, and anti-Blackness. In this course, students will unpack the linguistic ideologies that have been operationalized in schools and what these have meant for the experiences of multilingual learners. Students will learn about the history of multilingualism in schools, its current political landscape, and how grassroots efforts have imagined and pushed for linguistic justice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 22
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 244
Prerequisites: None.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 5
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 3
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
As popularly narrated, African Americans' modern freedom struggle is a social movement beginning in the mid-1950s and ending in the late-1960s, characterized by the nonviolent protest of southern blacks and facilitated by sympathetic (non-southern) whites. In this course, we explore the multiple ways-beyond protest and resistance-that blacks in the twentieth-century United States struggled for their rights and equality using resources at their disposal. This exploration will take us out of the South and consider actors and activities often neglected in the narrations of the struggle. Throughout, we will return to the following questions: What defines a movement? What constitutes civil rights versus Black Power activity? How and why are people and institutions-then and now-invested in particular narratives of the black freedom struggle?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 252
Prerequisites: None
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The Psychology Practicum in Child Development allows students to gain hands-on experience in the field of psychology and acquire course credit through their participation in non-paid teaching internships at the Child Study Center. Students are expected to spend 4-5 hours per week teaching at the Child Study Center, do periodic readings, keep a weekly journal, and attend three, mandatory supervision meetings. Does not count toward the minimum major or minor in psychology.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 298H
Prerequisites: PSYC 101. Permission of the instructor is required.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: This course may be repeated once for credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This seminar engages students directly with the exciting work of teaching, curriculum development, and working with youth in middle and high school classrooms. Explorations of vital areas of education are joined with discussions of important contemporary issues facing youth, teachers, and our school systems. The development of engaging and creative learning environments is a central focus, as are teacher practices which support the academic, social, emotional, and identity strengths and needs of youth. This course is accompanied by registration in EDUC 398H which includes working with youth in middle school and high school classrooms. This course is designed for seniors in the Wellesley Secondary Teacher Education Program.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Acceptance into the Wellesley teacher licensure program and permission of the instructor. Co-requisite EDUC 398H.
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is only open to students admitted into the Wellesley Teacher Scholars program.
This course supports the supervised teaching internship and related curriculum development that is a required part of the Wellesley Teacher Scholars program. Participation in a full-time practicum at an appropriate school placement is required, with regular observations and conferencing between the student, faculty supervisor, and supervising practitioner.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: This course is open only to students enrolled in the Wellesley Teacher Scholars program.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This seminar will focus upon children and youth as both objects and subjects within societies. Beginning with consideration of the social construction of childhood, the course will examine the images, ideas, and expectations that constitute childhoods in various historical and cultural contexts. We will also consider the roles of children as social actors who contribute to and construct social worlds of their own. Specific topics to be covered include the historical development of childhood as a distinct phase of life, children's peer cultures, children and work, children's use of public spaces, children's intersectional experiences of inequality, and the effects of consumer culture upon children. Considerable attention will be given to the dynamics of the social institutions most directly affecting childhood today: the family, education, and the state.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 30 8
Prerequisites: Any 2 courses at the 200-level or above in either SOC or EDUC.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
An introduction to the theory and practice of grassroots organizing for social change. Learning will take two concurrent paths. In class, we will examine what organizing is and how it has historically played a role in social change. We will ask how organizers: use storytelling to motivate action; analyze power, devise theories of change, and craft creative strategies; develop capacities, resources, relationships, and institutions to build collective power; and facilitate diverse groups in contexts marked by entrenched histories of oppression. Outside class, students will engage in a hands-on organizing project of their own choosing in which they must organize a group of people on or off campus to achieve a common goal.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 311
Prerequisites: One course in political theory or significant coursework related to grassroots politics, social movements, or social change.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This seminar engages students in a series of explorations that illuminate the field of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), which is fast becoming one of the most exciting areas of teaching and learning in U.S. schools. Students explore how social, emotional, and academic learning can be interwoven with what we understand about child and youth development, and how these ideas can inform pedagogy (teaching) in k-12 settings. Students also uncover how social and emotional learning is bound together with struggles for civic participation, social justice, and efforts to dismantle structural oppression in a range of educational sites and in society. Through many different activities and learning structures the course provides students with multiple opportunities to explore their own social emotional educations and participate in the creation of new ways to engage young people and adults in joyful learning, celebrating identities, emotional and physical thriving, and justice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 200 level education course or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken EDUC 213.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Making scientific discoveries is clearly important, but it is also vital to be able to communicate science effectively to non-expert audiences. How do people learn? And in particular, how do inquiry-based learning techniques improve the learning experience? This course provides students the opportunities to explore and apply current research on learning and instructional strategies by developing a series of hands-on in-class chemistry activities. Students will read primary literature on pedagogical approaches from a range of sources, including chemical education journals. Students will synthesize and apply numerous chemical concepts that they have learned in-depth in previous chemistry classes in order to design and teach chemistry lessons at a local elementary school. Additionally, students will communicate and teach chemistry to non-expert audiences at a science cafe. This class will be useful to students considering careers in the medical profession, so that they can clearly explain science to their patients; careers in research science, so they can inform the public of their discoveries; and careers in education, so they can teach science in an exciting and meaningful fashion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 317
Prerequisites: CHEM 205 or CHEM 120.
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
We hear calls from around the world to make universities, libraries, and museums more diverse by including ideas and objects from outside North America and Europe. If everyone agrees that changes are needed, why is progress so slow? This course takes up these questions in four ways: (1) We engage with ways of thinking, researching, and analyzing from Latin America, Africa, and Asia, (2) We examine how cultural and intellectual institutions, like libraries, botanical gardens, archives, and museums both contribute to and disrupt the inequality pipeline which marginalizes creators and creations from outside traditional centers of power, (3) We explore how students and faculty in places such as Taiwan, Argentina, Morocco grapple with similar questions of unequal access and power by discussing them together over Zoom, and (4) we learn not just to deconstruct but to reconstruct by experimenting with how to create new spaces and ways to learn, display, and classify ideas and culture.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 312,EDUC 321
Prerequisites: At least two 200-level or above courses in the social sciences including Peace and Justice Studies.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Thoughtful communication about adolescents’ sexual health is a complex and often fraught issue. Many people have strong feelings and deeply held beliefs about what is right and wrong, what should be taught, and why. In this Calderwood Seminar, we will utilize small groups and collaborative editing to tackle how to communicate effectively with a wide range of audiences. We will explore ways to translate evidence-based research for a general population. All course assignments will consist of writing for public audiences, such as an op-ed, newspaper article, a blog for a teen or parent magazine, and an interview profile of a professional in the field. Students will learn about psychological research and evidence-based practice in health-promoting and developmentally appropriate communication with adolescents about sex and relationships.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 324
Prerequisites: This course is limited to Juniors and Seniors. Students must have completed at least two 200-level courses in Psychology, Education, or Women's and Gender Studies.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Students will examine current research and practice in the teaching of English Learners, with a focus on secondary education. Students will explore challenges facing this diverse group of learners and how to build on the assets they bring to their classroom communities. Students will develop skills necessary to plan and promote discussion, engagement, and content mastery while supporting continued language development. Lesson planning will prioritize culturally relevant and responsive teaching while acquiring skills to analyze and adapt required teaching materials. Limited fieldwork observations are required either online or in person; more extensive fieldwork can be arranged. The course is structured to support students pursuing middle school and high school teacher licensure and meets requirements for a MA Department of Education endorsement in Sheltered English Immersion when MA Secondary Education certification requirements are completed. It is also applicable to students considering teaching abroad, teaching in urban schools, or pursuing any other work with emerging bilingual youth.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to students who have taken at least one education course and permission of the instructor.
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: The course is taught at MIT in the Spring semester.
Adolescents are developing socially, cognitively, and civically in their online and offline worlds, transforming how formal and informal learning takes place. Students in this course will digest research findings and reflect on their own experiences about how social technologies (e.g., Instagram, gaming, mobile phones) can influence wellbeing during the tween and teen years. Harnessing personal narratives that appeal to different stakeholders, we will develop timely and accessible strategies to inform adolescents, educators, families, youth workers, and policymakers about the implications of these findings. This interdisciplinary course spanning education, psychology, media studies, and health communication fields involves transforming research into digestible, brief, non-academic pieces intended for the general public and provides opportunities for students to explore their own interests. Sample assignments include a policy brief, op-ed, e-newsletter, 2 minute podcast, social media messaging campaign, and strategic writing for UX design. Each week, fellow classmates critique each other’s work in a friendly, constructive environment while guest writing coaches and industry professionals provide useful tips to hone each piece to its creative potential.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: PSYC 322
Prerequisites: Open to Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar examines narratives of immigrant youth and families to understand ways in which race, culture, and migration shape educational experiences. Using ethnography as a methodological lens, we will develop in-depth analyses of research on global migration and immigration to the U.S, examining the influence of policy, public perception, xenophobia, and historic racism. We will explore the role of borders—physical, symbolic, or ideological—to understand how our conceptions of the border and our cultural and physical policing of these borders impact the everyday lives of immigrant families as well as the formation of self, identity, and community. Central to these narratives will be the forms of refusal and resistance that have historically shaped immigrants’ encounters with exclusion and marginalization. Students will also design inquiry-based research projects informed by our study of ethnography in education and that contributes to our understanding of the interplay between race, culture, ethnicity, and migration.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Intended for EDUC majors or minors in Junior or Senior year.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
First and foremost, this seminar explores urban schools through an examination of research and practice. We study the educational experiences of students, families, and educators shaped by the social, political and economic contexts of urban communities. Students investigate recent educational policies such as school closures and school desegregation through the political and cultural forces that shape policy creation, implementation, and community impact. Students examine policy and practice as distinct forces that profoundly shape the other and yet often exist in conflict and tension. Voices of traditionally marginalized yet profoundly impacted communities frame course discussion of urban education, and students learn to discuss education policies and practices dynamically through an analysis of power, race, and agency. To complement their study of urban education, students will explore the role of emancipatory educational research and decolonizing research methodologies and will demonstrate their learning through the implementation of an original field-based research project.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Intended for EDUC majors or minors in Junior or Senior year.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Since the 1990s, Critical Race Theory scholars in education have asserted that as long as race remains undertheorized, antiracist change in education will conveniently remain elusive. In this course, students will study texts that theorize race while engaging in their own collective and individual theory-building around the role of race in education. These two activities together will represent student praxis for social change; that is, students will enter a dialogic relationship with existing scholarship while theorizing it forward. Methodologically, this course centers counternarrative/storytelling as an inquiry method for students to explore the role of race in their lives, in their many endeavors (e.g., as researchers, teachers, and policymakers), and to surface new antiracist and liberatory ideas in education.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Intended for EDUC majors or minors in their Junior or Senior year.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In education, research plays an important role in identifying problems, understanding how those problems and issues play out in schools, and exploring the possibilities for change. In this course, students will understand the process of qualitative research and explore different approaches to qualitative inquiry in education: narrative inquiry, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case study. Students will also examine the ways in which qualitative research can be designed to interact with communities of practice through action-oriented, community-engaged, and participatory models of inquiry that lead to educational change. Students will design a qualitative research proposal that explores a question in education--from the conceptualization of a problem to the development of research questions and on to the processes of data collection. They will incorporate their learning of key methods such as interviewing, participant observation, document analysis as well as their examination of key dilemmas such as researcher positionality.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Intended for EDUC majors or minors in their junior or senior year.
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This seminar engages a community of students in the study of teaching in all its dimensions and serves as the core seminar for students admitted into the full-time spring practicum of the Wellesley Teacher Scholars program. EDUC 340 and EDUC 341 are the co-requisites for this class. Weekly sessions allow students to explore the role of the teacher, the nuances of classroom interactions, individual and group learning, and building pedagogical relationships with students to support their academic, social, emotional, and identity strengths and needs. Careful examination of curriculum materials and classroom practice in specific teaching fields is included, as are methods for promoting student engagement and culturally responsive and sustaining practices in education. Students also learn about teacher research and the process of gathering data and acting to improve learning.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: EDUC 300 and permission of the instructor. Co-requisites EDUC 340 and EDUC 341.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is open only to students admitted into the Wellesley Teacher Scholars program. Students must successfully complete EDUC 300, EDUC 398H, EDUC 399H, and the required Gateway Assessment for the Teacher Scholars Program to confirm their enrollment in EDUC 339.
This course is an advanced teaching methods practicum for students admitted into the practicum phase of Wellesley’s teacher certification program. The course is designed to guide and oversee the teacher candidate’s proficiency in curriculum development, planning, and assessment throughout their full-time practicum in the classroom. The student will work with the faculty instructor and the supervising practitioner in the school placement to develop their skills in curriculum planning and assessment during the 100 hours of required lead teaching during the practicum experience.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Successful completion of EDUC 300 and permission of the instructor. Co-requisites EDUC 339 and EDUC 341.
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is open only to students admitted into the Wellesley Teacher Scholars program. Students must successfully complete EDUC 300, EDUC 398H, EDUC 399H, and the required Gateway Assessment for the Teacher Scholars Program to confirm their enrollment in EDUC 339.
This course is an inquiry-based and field-centered research practicum for students admitted into the practicum phase of Wellesley’s teacher certification program. The course is designed to guide and oversee the teacher candidate’s knowledge and implementation of action-oriented, inquiry-based fieldwork throughout their practicum experience. The course is guided by DESE’s Standards of Effective Teaching Practice and focus on a teacher’s ability to teach all students, engage families and communities, and engage in a professional culture shaped by reflective practice, collaborative decision-making, shared responsibility, and professional growth.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Successful completion of EDUC 300 and permission of the instructor. Co-requisites EDUC 339 and EDUC 340.
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is open only to students admitted into the Wellesley Teacher Scholars program. Students must successfully complete EDUC 300, EDUC 398H, EDUC 399H, and the required Gateway Assessment for the Teacher Scholars Program to confirm their enrollment in EDUC 339.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
In this field-based seminar, students will explore the inner workings of schools and classrooms through their experiences across two contrasting environments: a dual-language school in Boston and elementary and secondary schools in Seoul, South Korea. Throughout the experience in Boston classrooms, students will examine the ways in which schools intentionally address students’ diverse linguistic and cultural experiences. By exploring how their own personal experiences interact with students’ language and culture, class participants will engage in their own investigations of self and identity as it relates to student culture. Throughout the course, students will learn about school-community relationships in culturally and linguistically diverse school communities. Students will also learn about participatory and action-oriented research in classrooms, and work towards designing and implementing their own inquiry-based practice as aspiring teachers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 1
Prerequisites: One Education class, and permission of the instructor required. Students must complete an application to enroll in the course.
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this field-based seminar, students will explore the inner workings of schools and classrooms through their experiences across two contrasting environments: a dual-language school in Boston and elementary and secondary schools in Seoul, South Korea. Throughout the experience in Boston classrooms, students will examine the ways in which schools intentionally address students’ diverse linguistic and cultural experiences. By exploring how their own personal experiences interact with students’ language and culture, class participants will engage in their own investigations of self and identity as it relates to student culture. Upon conclusion of the spring semester, students will continue this exploration by visiting classrooms in Seoul. Throughout the course, students will learn about school-community relationships in culturally and linguistically diverse school communities. Students will also learn about participatory and action-oriented research in classrooms, and work towards designing and implementing their own inquiry-based practice as aspiring teachers.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 6
Prerequisites: One Education class, and permission of the instructor required. Students must complete an application to enroll in the course.
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: EDUC 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
In this course, students will pursue a research question that addresses an issue of their interest in education. The course is designed for education studies majors in their senior year who have previously completed one of the education studies capstone courses (EDUC 334, EDUC 335, or EDUC 338) and are familiar with research methodologies in education such as ethnography, portraiture, participatory/action research, and case study. Students will design and implement an original research project that builds upon previous research in a capstone course or that addresses a new question. The course offers more sophisticated training for data collection methods such as interviewing, participant observation, child study, and narrative inquiry while also introducing students to data analysis skills such as coding through the use of qualitative data analysis software. Students may choose to incorporate fieldwork in a school- or community-based setting. Students will present their research in a senior symposium at the conclusion of the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One of the following education capstone courses - EDUC 334, EDUC 335 or EDUC 338. Education Majors and Minors only.
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is designed to allow students enrolled in Wellesley’s teacher certification program to begin their pre-practicum placement in a public school classroom. The course requires simultaneous enrollment in EDUC 300. Students must complete a minimum of three hours each week in their public school field placement and participate in weekly teaching lab sessions. During lab sessions, students will reflect on their field experiences and present teaching lesson plans. In the field, students will be supervised by a Wellesley faculty member who serves as the Program Supervisor for their fieldwork. This course is accompanied by registration in EDUC 300.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Acceptance into the Wellesley teacher licensure program and permission of the instructor. Co-requisite - EDUC 300
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is designed to allow students enrolled in Wellesley’s teacher certification program to finish their teaching pre-practicum and begin their official practicum during the winter session. The course will allow student teachers to begin their five day a week placements in sync with the public school schedule in January. Students will be supervised by the director of secondary teacher education. Students will be expected to put in full school days as well as attend to after-school responsibilities five days a week. Enrolled students will complete weekly reflections and participate in a reading group focused on a text which explores aspects of pedagogy, youth development and teacher development/well-being. This course will lead directly into EDUC 303, the Massachusetts state mandated teacher education practicum and EDUC 339 the weekly reflection seminar that accompanies the state practicum in the spring semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: This course is restricted to members of the teacher education program cohort.
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Winter
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.