Global Perspective: Teaching, Curriculum, and Learning Environments

In an increasingly interdependent world well prepared educators will move beyond nationalist perspectives to deeply examine global perspectives about how to be an effective teacher, what constitutes a valued and engaging curriculum, and how learning occurs across environments. This course will challenge students to move beyond what is familiar to consider and perhaps adopt new perspectives that will benefit the learners they serve.

Curriculum Theories, Practice, and Designs

The overarching objective for Curriculum Theories and Practice is to help course participants develop and clarify their philosophy of education, in particular, their beliefs regarding the purposes and processes of effective and equitable curricular organization. To do so, the class explores varied ways of conceptualizing a school curriculum, drawing on insights from major curriculum designers, both past and present, U.S. and international. So students appreciate the ever-evolving nature of effective teaching practices and related school curricula, they will assess their own experiences with educational and institutional change processes writ large. Aiming to help course participants to thrive in the current, volatile educational and political climate, students will consider various approaches to multicultural education, anti-racist education, and inclusion practices that aim to transform the curriculum, attending to the needs of all students and overtly promoting equitable outcomes. In doing so, students will enact alternative strategies for assessment that provide multiple and authentic measures of student learning. Ultimately the course intends to help students consider how school curricula can be structured to promote social justice.

Globalization, Mobility, and Education

This course address political economic issues related to migration and education. Drawing on the anthropology of globalization and sociology of immigration, the course reviews major theories of immigrant incorporation and exclusion processes in schools, examines case studies of im/migrants, refugees, and displaced persons and their adaptation processes in countries in the Global North and the Global South, and considers educational practices and policies that develop to address mobility in diverse contexts. The course asks how cultural, social, political, and economic factors influence im/migrant incorporation, and how educators can facilitate im/migrant students' opportunities for learning through changes in policies, pedagogies, and curricula.

History of Jesuit Pedagogy

This three-credit, graduate-level online course examines the distinctiveness of the Jesuits' approaches to teaching and of their philosophy of education that have propelled their schools to unprecedented success over the centuries. One key to the unprecedented success of Jesuit education has been the tension between the recognizable mark of uniformity that long distinguished the methods, contents, and practices of Jesuit schools and their ability to adapt to different contexts and times. Both aspects—the uniformity and the adaptability—were explicitly supported by the "Ratio studiorum", the Jesuits' foundational plan of studies issued in 1599, which, despite the schools' many variations and complexities, has retained some influence over time. With the "Ratio" discarded, Jesuit schools had to clarify what made them distinctively Jesuit, reconciling their mission with the contemporary world. This three-credit, graduate-level class sketches the developments of Jesuit educational endeavors by focusing on both the permanent and changing traits of its distinctive pedagogy.

Social Justice in Jesuit Contexts

The Social Apostolate of the Society of Jesus has developed in a variety of ways over the centuries according the diverse contexts where Jesuits have operated as agents of "social justice." This class offers students both a broad and deep understanding of: (1) How the Society of Jesus developed its mission in support of creating a "preferential option for the poor"; (2) How the Society understood its role to promote liberation from oppression in diverse social environments; (3) What kind of services have been activated by the Society of Jesus in order to fulfill its core values of "the service of faith and promotion of justice"; and (4) How social justice is pursued through pedagogy and practices by Jesuit and Ignatian schools today, given the significant involvement of the Jesuits with formal education on a global scale. The course is designed to foster deep and meaningful conversation among students. It will include individual and collective readings and video-conferences with leaders and teachers of Jesuit schools around the world, deepening students' knowledge of current practices and stimulating dialogue.

Models and Theories of Instructional Design

Now well into the twenty-first century, schools struggle with the challenge of offering a high quality education for all learners regardless of race, family status, national origin, language, or ability. Increasingly, curriculum is accessed digitally and student work is generated and exhibited using technology tools. The once familiar artifacts of classrooms are rapidly giving way to radically new forms of teaching and learning. Within this context of change, this course reviews the evolution of theories of learning and instruction and then critically examines a range of contemporary models and theoretical frameworks. Learning activities in the course will allow participants to develop their own personalized framework for planning and implementing instruction.

Family & Community Engagement

This course will explore the theory and practice of family-school-community relationships with a particular focus on the role of school leaders in enacting organizational models, educational programs, and political strategies designed to increase authentic parent and community participation in schools and other educational organizations.

Language Learners in Global Perspective

This course provides an overview of language learning and the situation of second language learners in schools. First, we review processes of language learning and the challenges language learners face when they must simultaneously learn a language and learn subject matter in that language. We do this from a socialcultural perspective, exploring language learning as embedded in sociohistorically situated activities. We develop and account of how learning language is also learning culture. Second, we study how these processes vary across cultural contexts. Because language learning is woven into social and historical contexts, processes of language learning and schooling vary around the world. The course develops several case studies from different areas of the globe in order to illustrate how language learning and schooling can intersect in different ways.

Perspectives on Disabilities and Special Education Practices

In the modern world there are many differing perspectives about the significance of disabilities. In this course we examine both "medical model" perspectives on the origin and nature of disabilities, as rooted in the scientific method, and post-modern critical perspectives. Cultural influences on how those perspectives are valued will also be considered. Differing approaches to special education practice—both service delivery systems and interventions—will be critically compared to the thought traditions. The ethics and social value of special education will also be considered.

Designing Learning Environments in a Social and Digital World

In today's society, what counts as knowledge and expertise has changed considering the global shifts in interconnectivity, social interactions, and technology. Previous models of learning focused on knowledge as a collection of facts within curriculum and learning environments helping individuals obtain those facts. However, today technology can enable all individuals to quickly obtain facts. Instead, expertise requires deep knowledge in which ideas are applied across multiple contexts in particular contexts with people and tools. These shifts in knowledge as well as technological advances have significant implications for how we design curriculum and other learning environments. In this course, we will examine different learning environments as well as various aspects within those environments. For example, we will examine curriculum to evaluate the scaffolds to support student learning, analyze digital learning environments for professional development to support teacher learning and critique video of classroom discourse to examine student interactions and community development. In this course, we will consider the environment both as conceptualized by its designers (the design) and as it is experienced by participants as learning interactions unfold in particular settings (the enactment) to evaluate the effectiveness of those learning environments.

Preparing the Whole Person for Global Citizenship

The course will focus on the development of individuals and their role as global citizens. We will explore the whole person development of adolescents and emerging adults in the digital age—one marked by a participatory culture. We explore these questions while foregrounding the different strategies and methodologies of counseling, developmental, and educational psychology.

A History of the Jesuits

For nearly five centuries, the Society of Jesus has been one of the most successful and, at times, most controversial religious orders in the Catholic Church. A History of the Jesuits offers an introductory survey to this rich and varied past with particular attention, following the Jesuits' suppression in 1773, to various enterprises and enterprisers in the Americas. The course seeks to answer these questions: What have been the characteristics of the Society of Jesus and its associated works? And how and why have those characteristics remained the same or changed? Complementing the other courses in the Certificate program, the course traces the development, expansion, suppression, restoration, and recent developments of the Society of Jesus by closely examining the historical contributions of significant Jesuits.

Discernment and Prayer in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius

A study of the spiritual doctrine of St. Ignatius Loyola as articulated in the text of the Spiritual Exercises, but with reference to other texts such as Ignatius' Testament, letters, and the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. The focus is how Ignatius' treatment of prayer, discernment of spirits, and discernment of God's will, work together to form a "contemplative in action."

Emerging Leaders in Action*

Course information will be added as it becomes available. 

*Hybrid course which includes a one-week intensive at Boston College.

In the Footsteps of Leaders**

This course considers the distinctive methods of Jesuit leadership by situating them in their historical and geographic context. The course begins with ten days of experiential learning in Spain and Rome where students immerse themselves in the key places that became the roots of the Society of Jesus using primary sources to critically examine the decisions and actions of the early Jesuits. The course continues at Boston College with lectures, discussions, and case-study analyses moderated by distinguished leaders of Jesuit apostolates. Students will consider contemporary topics such as the challenges and opportunities experienced by administrators and teachers at secondary and higher-education schools. Coursework features selected readings, workshops, and projects to be completed in small groups. Through this course, students will gain an understanding of the Jesuits' early vision of leadership and of the ways that vision has both changed and remained constant.

**Hybrid course which includes a two-week immersion experience in Italy and Spain.

Action Research in Education I

Students will learn how to conduct action research, including the development of a positionality statement, writing a researchable question, conducting literature review, identifying relevant data sources (including the use of an educator journal on their own learning), and developing an intervention. Students will review examples of action research studies conducted in and outside their country or origin.

Action Research in Education II

Students will implement their own action research study, action cycle #1. They will collect, organize, and analyze data on pupil learning and their own learning, identify key findings, and revise their intervention based on findings.

Action Research in Education III

Students will implement action cycle #2, collect and analyze data on pupil and their own learning, identify key findings, and disseminate findings to their peers or a larger audience.

Master's Comprehensive Exam

In order to ensure that all students graduating from the master's program have a fundamental understanding of the field which they are about to enter, they are required to take a written comprehensive examination covering the broad areas of the core courses.