Course Number: | EDU 5515 C41 |
Instructor: | Cookie Steponaitis & Pamela Taylor |
Location: | Online using Zoom videoconferencing & Google Classroom |
Dates and Times: | June 23 - August 5, 2020 |
Credits: | 2 credits |
Tuition: | $600 |
Note: Please register online. Purchase order or payment of $600, payable to CASTLETON UNIVERSITY, is due at the time of registration. Please mail the check to: Financial & Registration Services, Castleton University, 62 Alumni Drive, Castleton, VT 05735. To help us ensure that your payment is applied to the correct course, PLEASE WRITE “CFS” IN THE CHECK MEMO LINE.
No Place Like Home: Community & Culture is a unique two credit graduate level course opened to teachers from pre-K -grade 12. It allows each teacher to design a unit based on the value of community and the history and culture unique to their school and area. Emphasis is placed on creating multiple pathways for students to demonstrate diverse learning. Primary sources are collected in advance by class instructors for the identified town or area as a starting point. The three day (9 hours) Video Conferencing, (16 hrs) independent work, and (5) hours in person meeting culminates with sharing a completed unit, ready to use when the school year opens. Individual teachers or teaching teams are welcomed. The unit includes lessons utilizing the academic areas of mathematics, science, technology, fine arts, ELA, geography and history in an interdisciplinary approach. Discussion and reflection will focus on scaffolding learning for any age student.
Audience: All educators pre-K-12
Introduction
We have all seen the iconic moment in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy taps her red shoes together three times and chants, “There is no place like home.” In our own way, each of us are Dorothy and no matter where our lives take us we are grounded in the memories of the place we were raised. Today’s young people, perhaps more than ever, need that sense of home and self, and an understanding of being a part of a community. This course is unique because the curriculum is customized to your school, town or sending towns and the culture and history present in the lives of your students. Each teacher attending must convey ahead of time the town or towns that will be the focus of their unit. Using a Humanities lens and creating a scaffolded curriculum, the co-teachers of the course will research and collect ahead of time primary documents, videos, events and a list of possible guest speakers that can be the backbone of an interdisciplinary unit. Lists of activities, products and and approaches will be customized to each grade level, student needs, and teacher requests. The result will be a complete unit ready to teach upon returning to the classroom. Each unit will include ELA, Science, Math, Social Studies, Geography, Art, Music, and Technology learning targets. Open to teachers of grades Pre-K to 12.
Course Goals:
The course is designed to provide an enriched multi-disciplinary environment where educators will collaborate with the course instructors to create customized curriculum around the theme of No Place Like Home: Community & Culture and focus on learning standards and specific learning targets. Embedded within the unit will be activities that expose students to layers of local culture and history, while giving them ample choice and flexibility in how that learning is expressed. The unit will focus discussion around content, and best practices for creating an inclusive learning community where scaffolded learning is pursued meeting the learning styles of the students.
Course Objectives:
Assorted pieces of Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community, by Joe Lambert & Brooke Hessler, 5th Edition, Taylor & Francis, 2018. ISBN-13 9781351266345 ( Instructors will provide)
Assorted pieces of Bringing School to Life: Place Based Education Across the Curriculum, by Sarah K. Anderson, Roman & Littlefield, 2017, ISBN-9781475830606 (Instructors will provide)
Assorted Graphic Organizers for concept mapping, storyboarding, activity planning and defining of community.
For additional course information
Cookie Steponaitis
(802) 355-4254
(802) 425-2332
Bethany Sprague
(802) 468-1325