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 Justive 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.

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.