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 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.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 10 2Y,EDUC 10 3Y
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Mata
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. Registration in this section is restricted to students selected for the Wellesley Plus Program. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Schools have historically been a point of public fascination. Consequently, societal debates on inequality, pluralism, and social movements 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 our societal values 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 saviorhood lie at the root of teacher heroism in Dangerous Minds? 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. Only open to First-Years who are part of the Wellesley Plus program.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
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: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Morgan
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.
Instructor: Morgan
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.
Instructor: Fitzpatrick
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
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
Instructor: Alexander
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Does education in the United States encourage social mobility or help to reproduce the socioeconomic hierarchy? 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 to do?
Questions like these drive this course. It offers students an introduction to the sociology of education by broadly exploring the role of education in American society. The course covers key sociological perspectives on education, including conflict theory, functionalism, and human and cultural capital. Other topics include schools and communities; the role of teachers, students, parents, mentors, and peers in 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
Instructor: Levitt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course engages students in a series of explorations that illuminate the field of social and emotional learning, 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 the pedagogy and practices of caring in schools. Students also uncover how social and emotional learning is bound together with the struggle for civic participation and issues around structural oppression. Making use of a great variety of sources from articles to podcasts, novels, and films, students debate the critical role educators play in the development of emotional intelligence and resilience in K-12 students. Through their engagement with many different activities and learning structures, students make the connection between social-emotional skills and school climate, and explore the distinguishing features of positive cognitive, social, and emotional development at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Students debate historic and contemporary cases of evidence-based social-emotional practices and programs in a range of urban and suburban schools. Students also have multiple opportunities to explore their own social emotional educations and design their own initiatives to act on their learning.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rubin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Summer 2020 is the last term this course will be taught. The course will become a 300-level seminar.
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: 20
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years, Sophomores and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
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: 20
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 215
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Intended for First-Years and Sophomores, and Juniors/Seniors fulfilling major or minor requirements.
Instructor: D'Andrea Martinez
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
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: 22
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Intended for Firstyears and Sophomores, and Juniors/Seniors fulfilling major or minor requirements.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and 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.
Instructor: Werkema
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course is designed to examine interdisciplinary theories, methods, and analytical approaches to define and study of Black girlhood. We will explore Black girlhood as a developmental period, a public and private performance, and a source of identity and agency. Students will discuss the duality of Black girlhood, risk versus resilience, to understand how Black girlhood is enacted and evaluated in families, schools, communities, mass media, and the larger society. The cultural, social, psychological, and political constructions of Black girlhood in the U.S. context will be interrogated by analyzing academic texts, film, media, poetry, novels, art, and music focused on Black girls.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 227
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Lindsay-Dennis
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
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: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Tutin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
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,EDUC 239H
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
The United States is multilingual. Since before colonization, many Indigenous languages have 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: 18
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Martínez
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
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: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 3
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
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
Instructor: Greer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
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 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Morgan
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: This course is repeatable once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This class is designed for students who are already working and/or plan to work at an afterschool program or youth program for the duration of the Spring semester. Students who are volunteering or working in a program through Wellesley's Civic Engagement partnerships are encouraged to take this course. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This seminar engages students with the work of curriculum development and teaching in middle and high school classrooms, joined with discussion of important contemporary issues in education. We will focus especially on classrooms as learning environments and on teacher understanding of student academic, social, and emotional development. Additional laboratory periods for teaching presentations and an accompanying field placement are required. This course is designed for seniors in the Wellesley Secondary Teacher Education Program, and for others who do not plan to complete teacher training at Wellesley, but who want to teach after graduation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One of EDUC 102, EDUC 117, EDUC 212, EDUC 213, EDUC 214, EDUC 215, EDUC 216, PSYC 248, PSYC 321, or MIT 11.124, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rubin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Open to all students, mandatory for those seeking middle school or high school certification; students should contact the instructor either before or soon after registration to plan their field placement.
This course is supervised student teaching, and curriculum development in students' teaching fields throughout the semester. Attendance at an appropriate school placement is required, with regular observations and conferencing. Students interested in working with middle or high school students should enroll in section EDUC 303-01; students interested in working with elementary or preschool students should enroll in section EDUC 303-02.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Students seeking teacher certification must apply to the department for admission to this course in the semester before it is taken; other students should contact the instructor either before or soon after registration to plan their field placement.
Instructor: Rubin, Tutin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Open to students seeking substantial observation and teaching experience in a school, mandatory for students seeking teacher certification. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
In this seminar taught by a team of expert teachers and guided by experienced faculty, students will engage with the work of curriculum development, planning instruction, and assessment in elementary school classrooms through investigations on various topics highly relevant to current teaching practices. Recent studies have included: Methods for Ethnic Studies with children, Social Justice and Antiracist Pedagogy, Science across elementary grades, Classroom Community building, Trauma Informed practice, Design Thinking, Museum Education, Family/School Connections, and the Reading/Writing Connection. Additional laboratory periods for the presentations of lessons engage students in practice teaching and a limited accompanying field placement are required. Remote options will be offered as necessary should COVID interfere. This course is designed for seniors in the Wellesley Elementary Teacher Scholars Program and other juniors and seniors who do not plan to complete teacher training at Wellesley, but want to teach after graduation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Pre/Co-requisite - EDUC 310 or EDUC 314 or by permission of the instructor. Open to all Juniors and Seniors. It is recommended that students who take this course have at least one previous education course. Students should contact Professor Noah Rubin and/or Professor Diane Tutin for registration permission and to plan a field placement.
Instructor: Rubin, Tutin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory only for Seniors seeking elementary education certification through the Wellesley Elementary Scholars Program.
This seminar is taught by a team of expert teachers and guided by experienced faculty, A continuation of EDUC 304, this course engages students in curriculum materials and instructional methods used in elementary school classrooms. Students will learn about Relationship Building and Classroom Management, Special Needs and Disability, Family/School Connections, Social Studies, English Learners and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies, and Classroom Design. An accompanying field placement is required. This course is designed for seniors in the Wellesley Elementary Teacher Education Program and other juniors and seniors who do not plan to complete teacher training at Wellesley, but want to teach after graduation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: EDUC 304 or by permission of the instructor. Open to Juniors, Seniors and post-baccalaureate students. It is recommended that students who take this course have at least one previous education course. Students should contact Professor Noah Rubin and/or Professor Diane Tutin for registration permission and to plan a field placement.
Instructor: Rubin, Tutin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory only for Seniors seeking elementary education certification through the Wellesley Elementary Program.
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: Open to Juniors and Seniors with one 100- or 200-level sociology course, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rutherford
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course
Students will examine how children acquire reading, writing, listening, and oral language skills, and how this relates to cognition, with a focus on current research and practice in literacy development for elementary-age children. Oral language and reading processes, assessment using a variety of techniques, phonics, and comprehension strategies are addressed and lessons are constructed. Integrated throughout this learning is an exploration of culturally diverse and relevant children's literature. Teaching strategies that address the needs of a diverse population of learners, including at-risk students, English Language Learners, and students with special needs will be studied. A weekly 1.5-hour field placement experience at a nearby elementary school is required. An online option will be available if COVID protocols interfere. This course is structured to support students pursuing elementary education certification, but is open to all students and also highly applicable to students considering teaching abroad or in urban schools. Offered during the spring semester and required for elementary teaching certification, it is strongly recommended that the course be completed before student teaching begins.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Open to students who have taken at least one education course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Tutin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
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.
Instructor: Rubin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Students in this course will strengthen their own understanding of the principles and concepts underlying fundamental mathematical content, specifically number and operations, functions and algebra, geometry and measurement, and statistics and probability. At the same time, students will learn to develop meaningful and inviting approaches to teaching mathematics classroom settings, with an emphasis on student-centered learning. This course is team taught by Wellesley College faculty with a background in mathematics and quantitative reasoning and an elementary school teacher and mathematics specialist. Weekly fieldwork of 60 minutes in an elementary classroom is required. This course is structured to support students pursuing elementary education certification, but is open to all students.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One education course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Haskell, Staff
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
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 a chemistry lesson at a local elementary school. Additionally, students will communicate and teach chemistry to non-expert audiences at a museum or 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.
Instructor: Stanley
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Observation and fieldwork in educational settings. This course may serve to complete the requirement of documented introductory field experiences of satisfactory quality and duration necessary for teacher certification. Arrangements may be made for observation and tutoring in various types of educational programs; at least one urban field experience is required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: EDUC 300 or EDUC 304. Open only to students who plan to student teach. Permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Hawes, Rubin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
Cultural and intellectual life is still dominated by the West. Although we recognize the importance of globalizing scholarship, our research and teaching still prioritizes western canons and frameworks. Cultural and intellectual inequality are part and parcel of socioeconomic inequality. If we don’t do better at one, we will not do better at the other. We need to master a broader range of methods, tools, and ways of knowing. In this class, Wellesley College students work with students and faculty from Latin America, Asia, and Africa to explore what it means to produce, disseminate, teach about, and act upon knowledge more equitably in different parts of the world. Our goals are to (1) learn to read power in physical, intellectual, virtual, and cultural spaces by witnessing, evaluating, and then acting, (2) gain exposure to ways of asking and answering questions outside the West, (3) reread classical theories in context to explore how we can reinterpret their usefulness and meaning, (4) understand and develop new engaged and critical pedagogies and forms of education, and (5) promote a decentered attitude, that charts more equitable and inclusive forms of intellectual engagement and collaboration.
This course may serve as a capstone seminar for Peace and Justice majors and minors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 321,PEAC 312
Prerequisites: At least two 200-level or above courses in the social sciences including Peace and Justice Studies.
Instructor: Levitt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
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.
Instructor: Grossman
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 Language 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, in urban schools, or pursuing any other work with emerging bilingual youth.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Open to students who have taken at least one education course and permission of the instructor. Spring semester course taught at MIT.
Instructor: Tutin (Fall), Palaia (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
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 be digesting research findings pertaining to how social technologies (e.g., Instagram, 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 will involve transforming research into digestible, brief, non-academic pieces intended for the general public. Sample assignments include an educational policy brief, op-ed, e-newsletter, 2 minute podcast, social media messaging campaign, and researcher interview profile. Each week, fellow classmates critique each other’s work in a friendly, constructive environment while professional guest speakers provide useful tips to hone each piece to its creative potential.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Open to Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors.
Instructor: Charmaraman
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:
From early settlement houses and freedom schools to the creation of YMCAs, 4H clubs, and 21st Century Community Learning Centers, community-based afterschool and youth programs have an important history in the United States and are part of the fabric of childhood and adolescent experiences. In this seminar, students will learn about the history, policies, theories, and practices that have shaped youth work practice and the out-of-school (OST) time field. Students will be introduced to the diverse landscape of OST programs, engage in research on issues of equity and access to program opportunities, examine relevant youth development theories, and wrestle with key promises and dilemmas of policy and practice that these educational contexts pose for children, youth, families, and educators.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: One 200 level Education course.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
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.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
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.
Instructor: Hong
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.
Instructor: Martínez
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
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: One course in education.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This small seminar engages students in the study and observation of teaching in all its dimensions, including the role of the teacher, the nuances of classroom interactions, and individual and group learning. Careful examination of curriculum materials and classroom practice in specific teaching fields in order to guide practice and to develop students’ diverse perspectives. 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 or EDUC 304, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rubin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Open to students seeking substantial observation and teaching experience in a school, mandatory for students seeking teacher certification; students should contact the instructor either before or soon after registration to plan their field placement.
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: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
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.
Instructor:
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 332, 334, 335, or 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 332, EDUC 334, EDUC 335 or EDUC 338. Education Majors and Minors only.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: