A HH6577
From Studyplace
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Teachers College • Columbia University | |||||||||
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9/6 • 1 |
Introductory | ||||||||
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- Robbie McClintock, Instructor
- Office hours @ 322 Thompson Hall, Wednesdays 3:00-6:00 p.m. (To reserve a specific time slot, call Chaney Matos at 212 678 3344 or email matos@tc.edu)
- Office hours @ 322 Thompson Hall, Wednesdays 3:00-6:00 p.m. (To reserve a specific time slot, call Chaney Matos at 212 678 3344 or email matos@tc.edu)
During the 2007/08 academic year, participants in the History of American Educational Thought will concentrate on ideas about the historical role of education in the 20th century. Social and educational critics often advance views about what will prove educative, or fail to do so, within the context of the prevailing historical circumstances. At any historical juncture, no one knows for sure what will effectively educate persons and groups as they cultivate their capacities to cope with unfolding historical circumstances. Much criticism, reflection, and speculation sets forth ideas about what knowledge, skills, and values will prove most effective or worthwhile as people pursue their fulfillment in the face of uncertainty.
In the face of historical uncertainty, people must continually make judgments about what knowledge, skills, and values will best enable them to solve their vital problems and affirm constructive possibilities in their pursuit of fulfillment in their lives, both personal and collective. Currently, such discussion has narrowed markedly in American thought to a very limited concern about the learning outcomes schools should produce as measured through short-term tests. No child will be left behind, but no one is saying anything about where they might be going. But "the vision thing," competing assertions about educational purposes that can and should infuse the public with a sense of meaning and urgency, has energized democratic aspiration and effort up until our recent history. What will educate us, as we would wish, as we seek to shape a contingent future according to our intention? We will call attempts to answer this question, historical pedagogy, and in this course we will sample the main currents of historical pedagogy in 20th-century American thought.
We will engage historical pedagogy in 20th-century American thought through a set of humanistic studies in a digital commons, a group inquiry structured by short weekly readings and driven by independent research and writing within a digital commons, www.studyplace.org. It is an open wiki where anyone who is interested can join to respond in diverse ways to the question, What educates? Each week participants in During the 2007/08 academic year, participants in the History of American Educational Thought will start off discussing an article by or about someone who has contributed in interesting ways to thinking about historical pedagogy in the American context. We will group these around six significant challenges, long-term historical contingencies that carry in them both opportunities for meaningful betterment and for vital degradation. Historical pedagogy has an urgency because people suffer and enjoy its consequences.
Course grading
History of American Educational Thought is a 'pass/fail course; if you want a letter grade, take some other course. I am not interested in how participants perform relative to each other or relative to some abstract norm of expectation. Participants will pass the course by constructively engaging in the work of building a digital commons – reading reflectively, discussing thoughtfully, and contributing effectively to the StudyPlace wiki.
As graduate students, participants should rely on their capacities for self-evaluation. Evaluative grades may make modest sense as useful feedback in courses through which one acquires certain structured skills, say how to do factor analysis, yet even with such skills, actually using them effectively for significant purposes is the best feedback. In actuality, evaluative grades probably have more to do with motivating students to overcome their recalcitrance in working through material they perceive to have little intrinsic interest. Participants in History of American Educational Thought should anchor their work in their personal academic interests, bringing those to bear in advancing collaborative inquiries. Students interested in the instructor's basic expectations about graduate work should read "Some thoughts on graduate study" by Robbie McClintock (http://studyplace.org/files/transfer/2003_on_doctoral_study.html)This course does not offer a variable point option.
Meetings
1 • 9/6: Introductory
- If you have a chance prior to our Introductory session, spend some time exploring the StudyPlace site, getting a general sense of each of the major pathways. If you are not familiar with the basics of composing and editing material for MediaWiki (aka Wikipedia, StudyPlace, and other wiki sites), please start learning to do so. Begin by introducing yourself on your user page, with some special attention to explaining what most interests you in the question, What educates?
Introductory session:- What is and is not on StudyPlace?
- Of what is there, what would you like to work on to develop further?
- Of what is not there, but should be, what would you like to initiate and why?
- What is and is not on StudyPlace?
2 • 9/13: What educates in historical life?
- Assigment 2
3 • 9/20: Meeting 3
4 • 9/27: Meeting 4
5 • 10/4: Meeting 5
6 • 10/11: Meeting 6
7 • 10/18: Meeting 7
8 • 10/25: Meeting 8
9 • 11/1: Meeting 9
10 • 11/8: Meeting 10
11 • 11/15: Meeting 11
12 • 11/29: Meeting 12
13 • 12/6: Meeting 13
14 • 12/13: Meeting 14
15 • 12/19: Meeting 15
16 • 1/17:
17 • 1/24:
18 • 1/31:
19 • 2/7:
20 • 2/14:
21 • 2/21:
22 • 2/28:
23 • 3/7:
24 • 3/21:
25 • 3/28:
26 • 4/4:
27 • 4/11:
28 • 4/18:
29 • 4/25:
30 • 5/2:
The grade of Incomplete is to be assigned only when the course attendance requirement has been met but, for reasons satisfactory to the instructor, the granting of a final grade has been postponed because certain course assignments are outstanding. If the outstanding assignments are completed within one calendar year from the date of the close of term in which the grade of Incomplete was received and a final grade submitted, the final grade will be recorded on the permanent transcript, replacing the grade of Incomplete, with a transcript notation indicating the date that the grade of Incomplete was replaced by a final grade.
If the outstanding work is not completed within one calendar year from the date of the close of term in which the grade of Incomplete was received, the grade will remain as a permanent Incomplete on the transcript. In such instances, if the course is a required course or part of an approved program of study, students will be required to re-enroll in the course including repayment of all tuition and fee charges for the new registration and satisfactorily complete all course requirements. If the required course is not offered in subsequent terms, the student should speak with the faculty advisor or Program Coordinator about their options for fulfilling the degree requirement. Doctoral students with six or more credits with grades of Incomplete included on their program of study will not be allowed to sit for the certification exam.
The College will make reasonable accommodations for persons with documented disabilities. Students are encouraged to contact the office of Access and Services for Individuals with Disabilities for information about registration (166 Thorndike Hall). Services are available only to students who are registered and submit appropriate documentation.
