Inequalities persist at every level of education. Throughout this course we will study innovations designed to address these disparities. We will investigate the process by innovations are designed and will critically assess the efficacy of a wide range of innovations. The course will feature numerous guest speakers involved in innovation design and implementation, including leaders in the private, educational, and government sectors.

This introductory statistics course covers descriptive and inferential statistics for application in the health and social sciences. It provides a systematic development of the concepts, principles, and tools of statistics with an emphasis on representation, analysis, and drawing conclusions from authentic data grounded in the health and social sciences.

What are the makings of good research in youth development? How do our methods help us more clearly measure what matters in settings for youth? This course will provide an introduction to applied social-science research methods and design. Students will engage a hands-on semester research project while learning the foundations of ethics, method, and design for research in the field of youth development.

This survey course introduces several prominent theories of child development and explores the related empirical research. Emphasis is placed on applying developmental principles to parenting and professional practice. Major topics include: the historical basis of child study, the life cycle, maturational milestones, diversity in development, cognitive, emotional, moral development, and biological foundations.

Most college students have spent 16,000+ hours in educational settings. That's a lot of time devoted to learning new information. This course addresses questions such as: Why does learning take so long? What really happens inside the brain? What keeps people motivated to learn? Are some environments better than others for learning? What societal conditions impact learning? Are people similar or different in the way they learn?

Psychological and social development during adolescence are affected by multiple factors, such as biological, social and cultural changes, and larger macrosystem influences. We will examine how these influences shape development generally during the 2nd and 3rd decades of life. We will explore questions of identity, relationships, health and culture by considering key questions that adolescents explore such as "Who am I," and "Where am I going?"

In this course, we will explore the journey we all share, asking "How do individuals grow and change throughout life?" We will take a topical approach, with particular focus on biological, psychological, and social development from birth through older adulthood. We will seek to understand our own developmental processes, as well as the role of race, class, gender and culture on others,' and question our beliefs about what it means to "grow up."

In this course, we will explore whether innovations intended to improve outcomes for children and youth "work." How can we judge whether a particular approach is more effective, efficient, sustainable or just than present solutions? This class is a chance to better understand how to use evidence in the process of developing effective social innovations.

What is the purpose of your education? Why have you devoted so much of your life to it? This class explores opposing ideas about the aims of education. Should schooling prioritize skill-building, creativity, or reflection? Does education only reproduce social norms, or does it have the power to change society? We examine such questions in regard to our own education, philosophical texts, and efforts to promote schooling worldwide.

What does it mean to educate in and for a multicultural society? Using the U.S. as a case study, this interdisciplinary course looks at the ways in which education is shaped, enacted, and experienced by diverse communities both locally and globally. By exploring diverse knowledge bases that contribute to a multicultural society, students will critically examine educational practices and policies to reimagine the purposes and goals of education.

This course addresses the history, organization, finance, governance, leadership and symbolism of athletics as a key part of the political economy of the contemporary university. With student athletes as a primary unit of analysis we will review the history of intercollegiate athletic competition, the symbolic role of athletics in society and the future of athletics on post-secondary campuses.

This course will focus on the social and psychological factors related to participation in sport and physical activity over the life span. Personal factors that influence sport & exercise behavior (e.g., personality, self-perceptions, age, gender, race), situational factors (e.g., observational learning, motivational climate, socioeconomic level), and psychological methods for enhancing sport and exercise behavior will be reviewed.

This course is designed to examine how race/ethnicity, diversity, & identity matter in the lives of youth with a focus on educational settings. We will use theory and research to question stereotypes about youth achievement and will explore how individual, interpersonal, and structural factors help to explain associations between group membership & educational outcomes. Students should have previously taken an intro level social science course.

This course explores the history of hip-hop as an educational and social movement in the United States. The course explores the intellectual linkages between hip-hop and education; hip-hop as a tool for knowledge dissemination on a multiplicity of social issues; hip-hop as literacy, and hip-hop as a pedagogy of critical consciousness.

This course provides a historical overview of major social problems and the social contexts, policies, and programs developed in response. Attention is paid to the experiences of vulnerable groups and processes and contexts that facilitate or constrain social change. Using a historical analysis, students gain an understanding of how policies, institutions, and organizations shape and respond to complex human needs and issues of social justice.

Will civil discourse save democracy or deepen oppression? Why does speech matter so much to political struggles? What does it mean for political dialogue to be successful? This course integrates theory with practice as students engage in political dialogue, then draw on their experiences, primary source research, the popular press and political theory to analyze the relationship between political dialogue and democracy.

Topical offerings in educational leadership.

Front Lines of Social Change II explores gender equity and social justice theory. FLSC II provides the Women's Center internship cohort a structured classroom environment to actively reflect upon their experience; engage in professional development; and learn about the field, including gender equity issues addressed by the internship. FLSC I (fall) and FLSC II (spring) are required components of the Women's Center internship for all new interns.

Education policy has taken center stage in a variety of national, state and local debates such as teacher evaluation, universal pre-K, school accountability, and charter schools. These are issues around which there is often contentious debate, much of which is polarized and simplistic. This class will explore a few current education policy debates through the lenses of conceptual models and empirical evidence.

Understanding "what works" in education is useless unless we know how to pass, implement, and sustain political support for effective education policy. To that end, this course explores the politics of U.S. K-12 education policy 1954-present. We examine policy formulation and implementation, key institutions, actors, and theories of policy-making, and the role of racial and economic inequality in influencing education policy.

Independent Study

Directed Research under supervision of faculty member.

In this course we will cover theories, methods, and research at the intersection of education and neuroscience and the implications of this work for educational practice. Major topics include research on student development in reading and math, as well as the development of foundational skills that support student learning, including executive functions, emotion regulation, and motivation.

This course will focus on biological, psychological and social development from birth through older adulthood. Topics will be presented via discussion of underlying theory, research, and application, with attention to how gender, race, SES, and cohort impact development. Concepts of consistency and change will be stressed. Throughout, students will be encouraged to examine and even question their own beliefs about what it means to "grow up".

Examination of the governance structure of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its conferences. Focus is on the historical evolution of NCAA governance; understand the legal, financial, educational, and diversity issues which underlie decisions in intercollegiate athletics. Students will examine compliance and enforcement issues in that stem from rules and regulations emanating outside of the college/university setting

This course will focus on understanding motivation theory and research, and then applying these understandings to our lives in two main ways. First, we'll develop a deeper awareness of our own motivations, including personal strengths, obstacles, and opportunities for growth. Second, we'll apply our insights to help build more motivationally-supportive environments (e.g., school, sport, work, family, community).

This course is designed to examine race and ethnicity as social constructs and to explore how they matter in the lives of youth through a critical examination of youth development research, policy and practices. We will identify dominant group narratives and analyze how research and policy contribute to these narratives, and how individual, interpersonal, and structural factors mediate the associations between group membership and youth outcomes

Cultural contexts are powerful influences on child development and learning and have long been recognized as shaping the very notion of what a child is across time and place. This course considers contemporary sociological and anthropological efforts to rethink notions of child development, learning, parenting, risk, etc. to recognize both the impact of cultural differences and to recognize the cultural agency of children. Globalization has become a major influence on children and childhood as well and the course will also examine this phenomenon in the light of issues concerning culture and children's welfare. The course is designed to stimulate students' critical thinking about culture and its role in raising and educating children.

Students apply academic experiences in professional and/or research settings; reflect and critically and constructively analyze experiences from multiple perspectives; and view the work as connecting course content authentic contexts. Students work as professionals with site supervisors and instructors to complete related assignments and relevant background research on the professional and academic resources available.

Prerequisite: Instructor permission.

This course explores the dynamics of race/ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality in higher education policy, theory, and practice. Using a variety of theoretical frames and emerging research, the course will examine group differences in experience and perspective within American higher education.

This course is a survey of current theory and practice in student affairs programming, organizations, and administration in institutions of higher education. It emphasizes philosophy, services provided, and trends and issues within the profession, including research and literature analysis.

Orientation to graduate study, research ethics, scholarly writing, professional preparation for career paths in higher education, and analysis of internship experience.

This course examines the broad legal framework of higher education, including constitutional and contractual rights to due process, equal protection, and free speech; legal and policy issues regarding tenure, promotion, intellectual property, and the constitutive role of the state in higher education; and tort liability and the impact of federal statutes such as the ADA, Title IX, and FERPA on the administration of colleges and universities.

The commitment to effective professional learning increases educator effectiveness, providing a vehicle through which leaders can navigate change and seek improvement in their schools. Leaders who foster an environment of adult learning and build capacity to lead learning enhances the quality of instruction and student outcomes. Providing the tools and resources, leaders can create accessible means to develop new knowledge, skills, and practices.

Intermediate-level course designed to explore classical and contemporary concepts of adolescence. Attention will be paid to all aspects of development physical, social, emotional, and cognitive. Emphasis will be placed on the interrelationships among these domains and the treatment of adolescent problems.

This course explores educational psychology as a profession and provides a forum for discussing current problems in the field of Educational psychology and the local program. This seminar is appropriate only for Educational Psychology majors in the Learning and Development specialty. Restricted to Master's Degree Students

Detailed examination of the design and interpretation of single-subject research. Foci for the course include rationale for single-subject research; methods for planning, implementing, and evaluating studies; and issues in the use of these methods.

This class serves as an introduction to the central concepts of qualitative methods in research and evaluation. Primary emphasis is on the development of skills required to conduct qualitative research, with a focus on research design, specific methods of inquiry, and approaches to analysis. The philosophy and epistemology of qualitative approaches are also discussed. Empirical readings provide examples of qualitative research within education and related fields.

This course provides an introduction to mixed methods in social science/educational research. We will consider the types of questions that mixed methods can answer and discuss the benefits/challenges of mixed methods research. We will cover research design, sampling, and analysis, including reading exemplars of mixed methods research. Students will apply the theoretical/methodological tenets learned by designing their own mixed methods study.

This course provides a theoretical and applied understanding of the general linear model in the context of continuous outcomes. Focus is on multiple regression with continuous predictors, dichotomous and multi-category predictors (i.e., ANOVA in a regression framework), and models that include combinations of these predictor types. Emphasis will also be placed on moderation and mediation, and model assumptions.

What is "social" about education? How are schools connected to larger issues in society? Using the lenses of history, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology we explore education as a social institution. Our goal is to develop a deeper insight into the processes, practices and values that shape education as we explore themes such as social inequality, social justice, and cultural diversity, and the changing nature of schooling in a global world.

Through research based practices and theoretical framing, students learn to build schools' professional capacity through recruitment, interviewing, induction, professional development, evaluation, and compensation. The process is considered in school and policy contexts with attention to ethical and diversity considerations. Students develop actionable plans for employing, supporting, and retaining professional capacity as a leader.

This course covers the basic principles of engaging families and the community in the life of a school, a fundamental responsibility of school leaders. Topics include communication with the school community and families, community partnerships, crisis communications, and research-based engagement practices. This course will provide tools and resources for building positive relationships with staff, parents, and the community at large.

The role of principal is complex and demanding, but no other individual in a school is better positioned to impact student achievement and faculty morale. Students consider the school as an organization, and examine the routines and tools school leaders and teachers use to analyze and act on its management and climate, and then apply improvement science to identify effective and ineffective practices for a problem of practice in the specific area.

This course represents the analysis of the problems and principles involved in finance in an individual school with special emphasis on budgeting procedures and accounting systems. Prerequisites: Restricted to students who are admitted into a degree and/or endorsement program in Administration and Supervision, or permission of instructor.

This course explores laws and policies that shape U.S. public school teaching and learning environments, covering Supreme Court cases and federal legislation. The course introduces legal principles and guidelines for fulfilling leadership duties and protecting the respective rights of student and teacher. Students will be prepared to make fair and ethical decisions, enhancing educational opportunities for all students.

This course gives students conceptual and philosophical frameworks for leading good instruction and creating conditions for teaching and learning in schools and districts. Students reflect on their own instructional filters and deepen understanding of what we know about effective teaching and learning. Considering various instructional issues, students learn to supervise and evaluate instruction, connecting supervision with professional growth.

This course provides educators with tools to initiate and sustain continuous improvement to promote all student's academic success and well-being. Drawing on improvement science, the course provides frameworks and protocols for understanding and leading systemic change in schools and school systems. Activities include authentic application of approaches used to support high-quality teaching and leading in P-12 school systems across the country.

Examines how, as a team, school leaders analyze the relationship of the integration of technologies to teachers' beliefs & practices & to local school culture, structures, & policies. Students will evaluate factors critical for successful implementation of educational technology; identify & deconstruct the distributed leadership of educational technology in a school setting; & plan comprehensively for a system of practice to lead EdTech.

Leadership for Equity of Diverse Populations seeks to support special populations in schools. It proposes that effective leadership for all special student populations involves particular knowledge and requires a strong equity orientation.

Under close guidance of an individual faculty member, students work on areas of particular interest that cannot be met in regularly scheduled courses. Enrollment in this course is limited to three credits in a master's degree program.

The VEST proseminar is a set of activities designed around the speaker series. Students will read and critique academic articles, hear nationally renowned speakers present their recent work, and engage in conversation and dialogue with our visiting speakers. The primary goal of the proseminar is to improve your ability to critique research.

The primary goal of this course is to provide a structure to support you in planning and designing your Research-Practitioner Partnership Experience project. We will discuss how to find and contact a potential partner, how to begin a conversation about research with a partner, how to listen to the partner's needs, how to guide a discussion that focuses your project on a specific research question, and how to write the RPE proposal.

Focus is on the generalized linear model (GLM) for cases when variables have specific non-normal conditional distributions, with emphasis on common data analytic challenges that arise in real world settings. Topics include nonlinear relationships, nominal and ordinal outcomes, discrepant data, and bootstrapping methods. Course materials are grounded in applied examples from the social and health sciences.

An advanced methods course on quasi-experimental statistical techniques for generating unbiased effect estimates when random assignment is not feasible. Underlying theories, identifying assumptions, and applications are presented for techniques drawn from a variety of disciplines including economics, sociology, and psychology including regression discontinuity, instrumental variables, difference-in-difference, matching, and fixed effects.

This course is designed to familiarize students with the basics of multilevel modeling. Topics include random effects ANOVA models, means-as-outcomes models, random coefficients models, intercepts- and slopes-as-outcomes models, contextual models, random effects ANCOVA models, linear growth models, nonlinear growth models and cross-classified models. Prerequisite: EDLF 7420 or equivalent.

The major topics include exploratory/confirmatory factor analysis models, a variety of structural equation models, growth curve models, and multi-sample modeling analysis. The major focus of the course is both on the conceptual understanding of latent variable modeling and on practical application of these models in research and measurement. Students will work with data sets and computer programs to gain practical research experience.

We focus on problems of practice (POP) through systematic qualitative inquiry, specifically focusing on qualitative processes, questions, and strategies to conduce meaningful inquiry in educational systems. Specifically, the focus is on identifying a qualitative question to address POP and the creation of a qualitative design to address the POP. Co-requisite of EDLF 8384 Lab of practice.

This Lab of Practice complements qualitative fieldwork methods in educational settings focusing specifically on observations, interviews, artifacts, and beginning data reduction and analysis that are the focus of EDLF 8383: Qualitative Inquiry. The Lab is an opportunity to engage in fieldwork on a very small scale allowing for practicing the major qualitative methods for generating qualitative data.

The intersection of evaluation theory and practice is focused on with an emphasis on the design of thoughtful, ethical evaluation inquiry about problems of practice (POPs) associated with educational programs. The course focuses specifically on developing the knowledge, skills, and understandings regarding evaluation and the collection of information to make judgments about an education initiative or program.

Advanced course in methods and practices of qualitative research. Students determine their own philosophy of inquiry and become increasingly proficient in the application of qualitative methods. Assumes an introductory course in qualitative methods. Focuses on research design and proposal development, data collection and analysis techniques, and presentation of findings. The course is field-based and guides students through the complete qualitative research cycle.

Why is there so much inequality in college entry and completion? How can higher education provide opportunity while sorting, selecting, and certifying students? What is the relationship between higher education and economic prosperity? By addressing these, and related questions, we will examine the complex interplay between inequality and opportunity and the relationship between higher education and the society at large.

Applies political and social theories to politics, policy and power in K-16 education. Concepts: role of the State, pluralism, rational choice, mobilization of bias, public goods, interest groups and social movements. Key issues: access and success, equity, school choice, stratification, governance, and reform. Goal is to enable students to conduct research using political theory and policy frameworks in educational settings.

This course examines research on learning and motivation in order to assist educators & educational leaders in thinking about the effectiveness of traditional & innovative designs for learning. A special focus concerns the development of learning environments for students in persistently low-performing schools & schools serving diverse populations. The course culminates in a practicum requiring the design of an innovative learning environment.

Administrative Internship

Designed to give masters students experience conducting research in professional settings appropriate to their disciplines. Prerequisites: Permission of Advisor

For master's research, taken under the supervision of a thesis director.

Opportunities for experienced doctoral students to teach courses or partial courses at the University, or to supervise student teachers under the guidance of a faculty member. Opportunities are arranged by the students with the assistance of the sponsoring faculty member.

This is a seminar for advanced doctoral students, in which they develop research topics and strategies and write the qualifying paper.

Ed.D. Research conducted under the guidance of capstone committee. 12 hours required for graduation. Permission of Instructor required.

Under close faculty guidance, students work on an area of interest not covered by the curriculum. A plan of study must be signed by the faculty sponsor and filed in the student's permanent file in the Office of Student Affairs. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.

Independent Research

Designed to give doctoral students experience conducting research in professional settings appropriate to their disciplines. Prerequisites: Advisor Permission Required.

Doctoral Dissertation Research completed under the guidance of dissertation committee. 12 hours is required for graduation. Permission of instructor required.