Courses

I teach courses in the CTL department at both the preservice and graduate program level. The graduate level courses are offered online.

Graduate:
Constructive Learning and the Design of Online Learning Environments (CTL1608)
This course examines the theory and research that underlies constructivist learning and its historical and philosophical roots. Concepts including situated cognition, distributed cognition and constructivist learning theory will be examined. The educational applications that have developed out of these ideas, like problem based learning, collaborative learning and knowledge building will be explored in regards to how such concepts can inform and enhance the design of online environments and methods of teaching. We will look at different learning environments, both research projects and applications current in the field that instantiate various elements of these ideas. This will be a discussion-based course using online readings and resources in an asynchronous conferencing format. We will focus on the research and theoretical background of the concepts to be studied in the course, and the readings have been chosen as seminal works in their respective areas.
Link to course conference for Fall 2008: http://builder.ikit.org/loginok?DB=CTL1608F08

Educational Applications of Computer Mediated Communication (CTL1609)
This course involves an overview of the various uses of computers for human communication for educational purposes. Applications and issues of teaching and learning in the online environment, related to all levels of education, are examined.
This will be a discussion-based course using online readings and resources in an asynchronous conferencing format. Each year I set a theme for the course that emphasizes a particular aspect of online learning. Past themes include, for example collaboration, progressive discourse; and distributed communities.
Link to course conference for Fall 2008: http://builder.ikit.org/loginok?DB=CTL1609F08

Preservice:
Psychological Foundations of Learning and Development (EDU3506)
This course should be seen as a starting point for developing a conceptual understanding of adolescent psychological development and learning and the implications for effective teaching. There are three major underlying psychological themes to the course: Development, Learning and Identity. The course will examine how the psychological research on these themes informs teaching practice in the classroom. We will also be making deliberate efforts to reference and integrate ideas from your other Foundations courses to help you develop at a more coherent sense of how these ideas from different courses fit together and relate to your teaching practice.

Through the material, activities and discussions of this course you will be able to move towards the following goals:

• To see adolescent development as part of an overall life development process, with a pace unique to each individual although with common stages of growth.
• To see teaching and learning as processes of ongoing constructive mental activity that continue to develop throughout life.
• To develop a repertoire of teaching strategies that support students in understanding and taking control of their own learning.
• To identify relevant factors from students’ lives that impact upon their school learning and readiness to learn, and thereby develop a classroom that is respectful of individual needs and differences.
• To develop a model of continuous improvement towards your teaching practice and use collaborative technology to support you as well as to develop a set of educational psychology resources that will help you refine your teaching practice as you enter the field as a beginning teacher.

Each of our 10, 4 hour class sessions will have a number of components. I have tried to use many of the psychological learning principles we will be covering in the design and activities of this course, and part of our time will be spent identifying the challenges and advantages of these approaches as we experience them in the class.