Course Descriptions
EDUC 153 Intro to Teaching (1 Credits)
This course is intended for students who do not plan to become certified teachers. It is an introduction to curriculum design, assessment, and practices that support student engagement. The course is ideal for students considering teaching in private schools, non-school environments (libraries, museums, outdoor education programs) and considering programs like Teacher for America. Through a combination of readings, lesson planning exercises and multiple reflections on teaching and the type of teacher students would like to become, the course will serve as excellent preparation for teaching in a variety of contexts. The course is not open to students who took EDUC 250 or who plan to take EDUC 250. 100 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 173 Childhood & Education of Children (1 Credits)
FALL 2020: IN PERSON ON CAMPUS COURSE. Childhood and the Education of Children This course we will explore philosophy of and for children; literature written for children and about childhood; and books on early childhood education and policy. A guiding assumption of our exploration is that philosophical attentiveness to children and their educations can teach us a great deal about what we should hope for from educational reform, and what it means to be an educated person. The course does not have prerequisites, but it is reading intensive, and students will be expected to develop a final project that blends themes from the course with their own interests. 100 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 203 Contemporary Issues Education (1 Credits)
This course introduces students to the range of current and critical issues in American education. In this course, we will consider how political, ideological, social and cultural forces shape schooling. Through class discussions, assignments, and other class activities, students will explore current, overarching questions in education including: What is the purpose of schooling? Who benefits/suffers from these purported ideals and goals? Are schools designed to equalize society? Or do schools further reproduce societal norms and social class? Should schools play a role in challenging the status quo? How are social constructs such as race, class, and gender reproduced in the classroom? How do capitalism, globalization, and democracy play out in education? Further, what is the teacher's role and responsibility for educating students within the political and historical context of schooling in America? Course Goals. To develop a foundational perspective on schooling in America through examining the political, ideological, social and cultural forces that shape schooling. To examine various stakeholders' perspectives on the purpose, practices, and contexts of education. To critically engage with current issues related to education. . To understand the complexity of education as an institution influenced by capitalism, globalization, and democracy. Fulfills SS Distribution. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 206 Intro Language & Education in Eastern Africa (1 Credits)
The course will examine multilingualism, language policy, and education in Africa with a focus on language and identity, the role of colonial and national languages in education, community, and global spheres, national curriculums, and teaching methods and educational resources, particularly in East Africa. Students will apply critical thinking and writing skills through opportunities to engage with Kenyan and Rwandan teachers and learners and through digital narrative projects that combine critical theory with practical considerations. Also offered as AFS 206/LANG 206 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 225HU Rhetoric & Community Peer Mentors (1 Credits)
This course is designed to train students who will work as rhetoric and communication mentors in the University's WORD Studio. Permission of instructor required. Fulfills HU Distribution (2013 curriculum). PERMISSION ONLY COURSE. Also offered as PCA 225HU. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 236 Education & Society (1 Credits)
This course provides a critical examination of the structure and consequences of one of our society's major institutions: the formal system of education. It is through participation in this institution that individuals access societal rewards. The course examines the structure of the formal system of education, the processes that maintain this structure, and the consequences both for individuals and for larger society. Fulfills SS Distribution (2013 curriculum). Counts toward EDUC minor. Also offered as SOC 236. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 245SUST Approaches to Sustainability (1 Credits)
FALL 2022: 1-4PM Weds, Sustainability Site. PERMISSION ONLY COURSE. The approach to sustainability in Fall 2022 is solving issues through environmental teaching and experiential education. Through philosophical exploration of this approach to educating people about a more sustainable community environment, students will read John Dewey and David Kolb on experiential and aesthetic learning, exercise different epistemologies of outdoor learning and indigenous ways of knowing as applied to food and landscape and debate the pros and cons of sustainable pedagogies like place-, problem-, project- or nature-based learning. Students will study and discuss these methods of education and then engage in hands-on, sustainable projects using the Sustainability Farm Site as our case study. Students may also apply their learning to the wider world by writing grant proposals to supplement future experiential learning projects at the site. Counts as an ENVS elective Must register for ENVS 3035SUS: Farming Practicum concurrently." Also offered as ANTH 3078. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 253 Contemporary Education Policy (1 Credits)
In this course, students will learn about contemporary educational policy by looking closely at one or two policy issues that are being hotly contested when the course is offered. For 2023 Fall, topics covered will likely be the resurgence of the parents' rights movement and the school board wars. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 255 Why Identity is Important in Higher Education (1 Credits)
Depending on where you're from, you may or may not have been surrounded by people from different backgrounds before. In order to effectively engage across differences, you must know yourself and be open to knowing one another. As such, we will be engaging in two main activities in this course: 1) critically examining our own identities (who am I?), and 2) actively listening to others when they share their identities with us (who are you?). We will be reading several different accounts about identities (e.g., race, gender, sexual orientation, class, ability, mental health, etc.) that help us with both of these tasks. As well, we will be reading some educational research that will help us contextualize why these tasks are important and how we can continue this work at St. Lawrence University and beyond. Fulfills the DIV13 requirement (2013 curriculum). Also offered as GNDR 255. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 270 Character Education in School (1 Credits)
This course will examine the role character education plays in shaping both student and faculty experiences in schools. Particular attention will be paid to the impact of character education on building positive school cultures. Students will be exposed to a wide variety of topics that range from self-improvement, positive psychology, and research related to character strengths and school leadership in an attempt to construct an integrative approach to understanding character and culture. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 273 Teaching and Teachers (1 Credits)
The main goal of this course is to ask two related questions. What is good teaching? Can good teaching be taught? Using a variety of sources-novels, film, educational research, philosophical inquiry, autobiography-we will think together about the complexities of teaching and the variety of (often conflicting) visions of what good teaching is. By the end of the semester, you will develop your perspective on what good teaching looks like, and you will determine if-and possibly how-it can be taught. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 309 Feminist Learning Theories (1 Credits)
This course, multi-listed with the Education and Philosophy departments, is an interdisciplinary examination of three complementary theoretical approaches: feminist philosophy, feminist epistemology, and feminist pedagogy. Together we will ask how minority perspectives on the world such as those defined by critical theory, gender, (dis)ability, intersectionality, indigenous ways of knowing, and postmodernist theory demand new methods of learning and teaching in the 21st century. Course readings will come from book and article selections by Deloria, hooks, Freire, and Wilshire among others. Also offered as PHIL 309. 300 level
Requisites:
Pre-req: any PHIL, EDUC, or GNDR course - Must be completed prior to taking this course.
EDUC 325 Sexuality Education (1 Credits)
The field of sexuality education can be examined through various disciplinary lenses, including but not limited to, law, medicine, journalism, religion, literature, and sociology. As such, this course will look at an array of sources, both scholarly and popular, to make sense of debates in the field. Students will deeply engage with issues of disability, heteronormativity, stigma, patriarchy, and morality, as they relate to sexuality education, from a variety of perspectives. Sexuality education is more than just learning about our body's biological and anatomical systems; there are deep historical, social, and cultural factors that influence this area of public health. Issues of diversity, equity, and positionality have profound effects on who is included and excluded from conversations about sexuality education. This course will push back on the status quo of sexuality education that has long excluded marginalized groups (e.g., the LGBTQ community, women, people with disabilities) in harmful, dehumanizing ways. Counts as a Public Health elective. Also offered as DMF 325 & GNDR 325. 300 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 325SPK Sexuality Education-Speaking Intensive (1 Credits)
Speaking Intensive. The field of sexuality education can be examined through various disciplinary lenses, including but not limited to, law, medicine, journalism, religion, literature, and sociology. As such, this course will look at an array of sources, both scholarly and popular, to make sense of debates in the field. Students will deeply engage with issues of disability, heteronormativity, stigma, patriarchy, and morality, as they relate to sexuality education, from a variety of perspectives. Sexuality education is more than just learning about our body's biological and anatomical systems; there are deep historical, social, and cultural factors that influence this area of public health. Issues of diversity, equity, and positionality have profound effects on who is included and excluded from conversations about sexuality education. This course will push back on the status quo of sexuality education that has long excluded marginalized groups (e.g., the LGBTQ community, women, people with disabilities) in harmful, dehumanizing ways. Also offered as GNDR 325SPK. 300 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 353 American Philosophies Education (1 Credits)
This course will examine how American thinkers and writers describe the struggle to become an educated person. The authors that we will read together this semester all come to a point where they ask: Why does the world seem to conspire against individuals who aim to become educated? Each of our authors see the struggle for education in different ways, describing it as a struggle: against the old (world); against our self and our self-conceptions; against injustice; against our language; against our forms of thinking and ways of knowing; against racism and other forms of prejudice; against our limitations (real and perceived). Together we will witness the struggles for education that our authors manage to (beautifully) express, and we will work together to discover what lessons these expressions hold for our understanding of education and our own struggles to become educated. Also offered as PHIL 353. 300 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 3058 Collegiate Athletics: Good Bad & Ugly (1 Credits)
From ESPN'S College GameDay, to prime-time sporting events, Saturdays are for college sports. We buy fan gear on Fanatics. We wait 365 days for March Madness, The FBS National Championship Game, The Women's College World Series and The Men's Lacrosse National Championship. Why? Because we love college sports. But, aside from fandom, what do we really know about collegiate athletics? Title IX? The NCAA? Are we aware of who is leading our athletic departments? Who is coaching our teams? This class will examine the past and current state of collegiate athletics. By using course text, readings, and discussion, the class will truly help students understand the good, the bad, and the ugly, of collegiate sports. 200 Level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 3060 Special Topics in Educ Policy (1 Credits)
This course will explore current educational policies, tracing the roots of these policies back to historical developments over time. Topics may include debates over charter schools, neoliberal education reform, efforts to desegregate schools, and efforts to improve teaching and learning. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 3062 SophSem: Research &Purpose: Lesson Ancient Greece (1 Credits)
SOPHOMORES ONLY. In this course, we will build essential academic skills around close reading and writing, while also building essential life skills related to building resilience and finding purpose. The readings for the course will be challenging-Homer, Sophocles, Aristotle-but my focus will be on making sure that each student experiences success. So, expect to read, but also expect a lot of support from me. Additionally, students will receive mentoring on everything from studying abroad to career exploration to selecting internships and other educational opportunities. This course counts towards the educational studies minor and fulfills the HU general education requirement. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 3063 From Athens to AI (1 Credits)
First-Year Students Only From Athens to AI: Visions of Freedom and Flourishing This course looks at AI through the lens of competing visions of the good life. In a recent paper, Luke Burgis discusses what he identifies as the "Three-City Problem of Modern Life." The three cities are Athens, Jerusalem, and Silicon Valley. Burgis discusses how each of these cities has its own vision of the good life for humans, and each city shapes the desires of its citizens. In this course, students will study the ethical frameworks of these cities-reading texts from Aristotle to primary texts from the Judeo-Christian tradition to John Stuart Mill to recent works written by technologists and entrepreneurs-and we will use the three-city framework to critically reflect on what it means to live a good life in a world of emerging AI. By the end of the course, each student should have a better understanding of themselves and how ethical frameworks shape freedom and how knowing what one takes to be a good life will help one interact wisely with AI and get the most from one's liberal education. Importantly, the course's key texts-Aristotle, the Christian New Testament, John Stuart Mill-are championed by partisans on all sides of the political spectrum, and so we will also learn what it is like to practice pluralism in a polarized world. Fulfills HU distribution. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 3082 LS: Growing Up Star Wars (1 Credits)
Anakin Skywalker. Padmé Amidala. Jin Erso. Han Solo. The names of STAR WARS characters infiltrate modern American culture. But have you thought about what it really means to grow up as a Jedi knight? Or to study at a political academy so that you can become queen by age fourteen? Or, more extreme still, to enlist for military service when you're not yet sixteen? The STAR WARS galaxy offers may routes to children and young adults to educate themselves in a chosen profession, exploring the positive and negative impacts that such an education can create for a society. In this way, STAR WARS participates in the genre of the bildungsroman, a story about the formative years shaping a person as they grow up. In this class, we will focus on the coming of age stories for characters in the STAR WARS galaxy, both reading novels and watching films, to emphasize how psychological, moral, ethical, and spiritual developments shape these characters on their journeys into maturity, on their journeys to becoming forces on their own planets and in the galaxy at large. On the way, we will also tackle questions of gender, race, equality, environmentalism, and age, studying how these issues contribute to the personalities that the STAR WARS universe creates. Weekly writing assignments, presentations, and a final project will comprise the majority of work for this class. Also offered as ENG 3082. 200 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 4001 Your Life's Calling (1 Credits)
In this course, we will learn how to listen deeply to what our lives are trying to teach, and-in the process-we are going to make attempts to determine what our purpose-or our calling-in life might become. To guide our reflections, we will read work from a variety of disciplines-religion, philosophy, psychology, literature-as a way of discovering how to lead a life worth living. Each of our books will offer a different-sometimes even competing-perspective on finding-or creating-meaning in life. There are no prerequisites for this course, but students will be expected to read difficult texts and be ready to let these texts challenge their settled views and assumptions. One important goal of this course is to give students an appreciation for pluralism and a way to think about how we might appreciate perspectives that we don't agree with. Another important goal is to think about how our liberal education can prepare us for lives of purpose and meaningful work. Authors read may include James Baldwin, Erich Fromm, Jonathan Lear, Elaine Scarry, and Kate Braestrup. 300 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 4014 Great (S)expectations (1 Credits)
Traditionally, sex education stresses monogamy, marriage, and procreation. Rarely, however, does the curriculum go into depth on what these societal expectations entail or what their alternatives are. Furthermore, students are made aware of the changes their bodies go through during puberty. But what about the other changes one's body goes through during the rest of one's life? This course will address these gaps. Why might one choose monogamy versus polyamory? What are the alternatives to marriage? What happens when you get married and it doesn't work out? Is a life without children meaningful? And if you do have children, how should you parent them? If you want children, but find yourself struggling to conceive, what happens then? What happens as you get older? What bodily changes might you expect? The status quo of sex education presents students with a "master design" for their lives. This class will help students question if that design is right for them, why it's presented as the only right way to live, and what the actual execution of a particular design entails. 300 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 4015 Ancient Approaches to Mental Health (1 Credits)
Freud developed some of his key concepts from close readings of ancient texts. In this course, we will read texts from the ancient world to discover what they can teach us about mental health today. Readings will be drawn from Sophocles, Aristotle, Aurelius, and the Hebrew Bible. There are no prerequisites for the course, but the course will be reading-heavy. Students will also be expected to complete a final project where they connect their understanding of the ancient texts to a contemporary mental health problem or issue. 300 level
Requisites:
None
EDUC 4016 Philosophy of Environmental Education (1 Credits)
NO FIRST YEAR STUDENTS-This advanced undergraduate seminar explores philosophies and historical pedagogies of environmental education. We begin broadly discussing the disciplines of philosophy, environmental philosophy, then narrowing our focus to environmental education. Within environmental education, the course will address experiential learning and education, critical place-based education, education for sustainability, and nature-based education. We will ask questions of each theorist such as: Where and how does learning occur in different environments? What philosophies of education do we exercise at SLU? What are the strengths and weaknesses of different learning approaches? And how ought we teach environmental and social issues? Expect challenging theoretical readings and to write a culminating paper on problems posed in the course. 300 level
Requisites:
Pre-req: Any EDUC or ENVS or ODST course - Must be completed prior to taking this course.