This course examines the role and responsibility of the elementary educator as an advocate for, and educator of, students with diverse learning needs. Methods and structure to enable educators to understand, engage, and respond to the challenges presented within an academically diverse classroom are addressed. Special focus is given to research and applications for facilitating emergent literacies and social, emotional and behavioral development.

A life span perspective of the social, psychological, and physical characteristics of individuals with exceptionalities including intellectual, sensory, motor, health, and communication impairments. Includes implications for educational and human service delivery.

Emphasizes the development of understandings, dispositions, and skills necessary to effectively participate in P-12 reform discussion and decision-making. The course focuses on foundational issues related to a) the legitimacy of public education, b) accountability-based national reform efforts, and c) the goals and content of school curricula. This on-line course is required for the M.Ed. in Educational Studies or elective for other degrees.

This writing and reading intensive course is foremost intended to increase students' exposure to and appreciation of literature in its many forms. Students will therefore read and discuss the primary genres of poetry, the short story, drama, and the novel. The second goal of the course is to hone students' abilities to read, write, and think critically about the ways in which human experience itself is shaped by language in literary texts. Through the development of literary analysis skills and the practice of writing about literature, students will learn to communicate meaningfully about literature as an art form with aesthetic, social, cultural, and political significance.