Graduate Courses (Design of Learning Environments 262)
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Design of Learning Environments (3)
This course is an introduction to the process of planning, designing, and user testing of learning environments in formal and informal settings. In this course we will focus on both the theoretical and practical aspects of design. Toward this end, students will work in small groups to design a learning environment of their choice. The process will be guided by various design frameworks, and informed by current research on the design and study of learning environments.
Prerequisite: Admission in the Ed.D. program at Rutgers GSE.
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15:262:610
Design-Based Research (3)
Students will learn about design-based research and how to design and conduct this kind of inquiry. Students will use data to examine various design research principles and to consider how learning scientists approach the study of learning environments such as technology, curriculum units, and teaching strategies. We will take an action-oriented approach to the conduct of design-based research in the context of actual research projects.
Prerequisite: Admission in the Ed.D. program at Rutgers GSE.
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15:262:612
Inquiry and the Design of Learning Environments (3)
In this course, we explore the idea of "inquiry" as both a pedagogical approach and a design feature. What does it mean to enact inquiry in a classroom? What features define inquiry? What does the research on the use of inquiry in classrooms tell us about effective teaching and learning? Are these specific design features to inquiry? If so, which work best? Under what circumstances is inquiry most effective? We will read, discuss, and critique primary and secondary source literature on the use of inquiry, especially, though not only, as it relates to the teaching and learning of science in K-12 science classrooms, the most commonly researched application of inquiry. Students will engage in a curriculum review project. Working in teams, they will identify, with the help of the instructor, current inquiry-based curricula and critique the curriculum as it relates to the research literature. This activity will help prepare both practitioners (teachers and administrators) and researchers by engaging them in the application of ideas of inquiry to real-world curricula.
Prerequisite: Enrollment in GSE or approval of instructor.
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Learning in Informal Contexts (3)
The seminar-style course focuses on theoretical components of learning in out-of-school contexts. Learning theory in this area draws heavily from sociocultural perspectives on knowing and learning. Students will read and discuss primary and secondary literature on learning sciences research focused on learning in out-of-school settings, including science centers, art museums, after-school programs, scouting and hobbiest groups, aquariums, and life-long learning settings, among other out-of-school contexts.
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Cognition, Collaboration, and Technology (3)
This seminar will tackle these questions as we consider cognitive, constructivist, and sociocultural approaches to learning and teaching with technology. A myriad of educational technology has been developed over the last decade, much of it based on psychological research on how people think and learn. We will explore a number of technologies ranging from those that provide information such as hypermedia to technologies that support collaborative learning to those that provide expressive media for learners. We will discuss factors that are important to the success and failures of these approaches as well as explore the research issues inherent in these learning environments. We will examine the nature of knowledge construction, collaboration, and distributed cognition by discussing the relevant literature, and by demonstrations of different examples of these technologies. In addition, we will consider some of the Web 2.0 technologies and look to the future to see how these might be important to education.
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15:262:625
Fieldwork Practicum Experience (3)
The purpose of this course is to provide students with an experiential opportunity to explore educational design in a variety of ways. The format of the fieldwork/internship can take shape in one of two ways: 1) Students might choose to visit a variety of instructional design environments to get a flavor for the gamut of options; or 2) As an alternative, students might also choose to do an internship in an area that closely aligns to the their career or interests. This will allow a student to actually work, for a significant period of time (a semester), in a professional setting of their choice that focuses on design of a learning environment (i.e., work in a museum, in an educational technology company, a textbook publishing company, etc).
Prerequisite: Admission in the Ed.D. program at Rutgers GSE.
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