Science - Secondary Education

Units: 2

Designed to enable students to understand and use appropriate classroom assessment practices by applying knowledge of pedagogy and development to high-quality strategies for formative and summative assessment. Students will explore best practices using developmentally-appropriate assessment strategies including authentic assessment, portfolios, and electronic portfolios, real-time feedback, open-and closed-ended formal assessments, and standardized testing. Particular attention will be paid to examining the rationale for assessment, and the implications of assessment.

Offered in Fall Spring Summer

Units: 3

Students will explore and apply the major philosophical and historical influences to current educational context as they relate to issues of diversity. Focus will be placed on theoretical and practical issues of diversity in classroom settings, especially related to culture, race, gender, ethnicity, language, and socio-economic levels. [Field-based experiences will be required].

Offered in Fall Spring Summer

Units: 3

To increase students' knowledge of persons with high incidence disabilities [i.e., learning disability, mild intellectual disability, and serious emotional disability], and how to manage the behavior of all pupils in educational environments. Characteristics of students with high incidence disabilities will be emphasized , as well as strategies to reduce the likelihood of problem behavior of all pupils in the classroom.

Offered in Fall Spring Summer

Units: 4

A supervised teaching experience requiring a minimum of 10 consecutive full-time weeks in an appropriate school classroom. Designed to develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for teaching at the elementary, middle and/or secondary level. Includes regularly scheduled clinical observations and conferences. Requires successful completion of at least 21 hrs. in the MAT program and approval by specialty area faculty. Student responsible for transportation to placement site.

Offered in Fall and Spring

TYPE: Internship Course

Units: 3

Graduate students new to science teaching will read current research literature that defines best practices and incorporate these practices to lesson planning that enhances student learning. Classroom, laboratory, and school-based experiences in middle and secondary science classrooms and instructional laboratories will help students to effectively prepare, plan, and assess learning environments. Emphasis placed on the development of knowledge, skills, and dispositions for inquiry-based learning environments. Underlying theoretical framework is constructivism, and experiences will be discussed using current learning theory. PBS or Graduate Standing.

Offered in Spring Only

Units: 3

This course is designed to provide graduate-level pre-service teachers with meaningful and practical learning experiences that will prepare them to create effective science learning environments for secondary school age students and to construct a vision of themselves as a teacher of secondary science. In the course, pre-service teachers will have opportunities to apply research-supported best practices to planning and enacting science lessons and to critically analyze current trends, issues and problems in science education.

Offered in Fall Only

Units: 3

The course aims to develop: familiarity with research related to the teaching and learning of STEM content within technological learning environments, advanced knowledge of the ways technology can support teaching and learning in STEM, and the ability to design technology-enabled learning experiences. Course activities are designed to enhance understandings and applications of technological tools within and across STEM disciplines.

Offered in Fall and Spring

Units: 3

Introduction to science education research, within two focal areas. One focus is to learn to read, understand, evaluate, and apply published educational research in your own practice, with scaffolding to support your understanding of techniques and designs specific to and/or in the context of science education research. Another focus is to learn to conduct research in order to improve your effectiveness as an educator or solve educational problems. You will learn about ethics connected with research and will perform and interpret quantitative and/or qualitative analyses commonly used in science education research while carrying out a research project that you designed. You will learn about how research papers are structured and organized, and communicate your research findings in both oral and written form.

Offered in Spring Only

YEAR: Offered Alternate Odd Years

Units: 3

Study and analysis of philosophical, historical, sociological, political and economic factors affecting science education in schools of the U.S. Implications for science education of various learning theories along with models for curriculum development and program planning.

Offered in Spring Only

YEAR: Offered Alternate Years