Teaching

As a developmental psychologist interested in children's learning, I bring strong beliefs about educational goals and practices to my teaching. I believe that students must actively engage in structuring their own knowledge by becoming aware of and reflecting on the assumptions they bring with them to the classroom. My primary instructional aim is to help students develop their own views about children's learning and development, views that will help them make sense of the diverse approaches and voluminous research findings they encounter in their studies. The development of personal frameworks for understanding, unlike the memorization of facts, facilitates students' ability to apply their knowledge to varied and novel circumstances, including educational research and public school teaching. In my classes, I am guided by a sociohistorical perspective on teaching and learning. I encourage the shared construction of meaning through social interaction by creating structures that engage students in discussions that connect course materials to their own interests and beliefs. My role in the classroom is to guide the discussions so that educationally meaningful topics are covered in depth, to ensure a classroom climate in which students are comfortable expressing their ideas and asking about what they do not understand, and to model a critical and reflective stance to knowledge that I hope my students will share.

Courses frequently taught:

EDUC 4411/5705: Educational Psychology and Theories of Learning and Development (Elementary Teacher Education Program)
In order to teach well, instructors must know a great deal about their students. In these courses, we focus on children's social, affective, and cognitive development; their learning processes; and the implications for school practice of how children learn and develop. One guiding theme of the courses is that learning, development, and schooling are inherently social and cultural processes. We consider several theoretical frameworks for guidance in understanding how to structure educational environments and tasks to promote children's scholastic achievement and well-being. Some questions we consider include: How does understanding children's learning and development influence the way teachers organize their classrooms and lessons? What is the appropriate role for teachers? What is "developmentally-appropriate" practice? Finally, we also consider how teachers can use the answers to these questions in their planning, instruction, and assessment to raise the scholastic achievement of all their students. A second guiding theme of the course concerns school content standards as described by the Colorado Department of Education. Educators and policy makers have developed these standards to help guide the development of school curriculum, instruction, and assessment. It is important that educators become familiar with them.

EDUC 6328: Advanced Child Growth and Educational Development (Spring 1999)
In this seminar, we examine theoretical and empirical work on children's development with a focus on their implications for education, including learning in and outside of school. The primary emphasis of the course are Piagetian and Vygotskian perspectives on cognitive development from birth through adolescence. Four topics form the basis of readings, discussion, and assignments: (a) Vygotskian and Piagetian ways of understanding and studying children's development, (b) descriptions of children's developing understanding of various topics (e.g., mathematics, science, the arts, AIDS), (c) children's social and emotional development, and (d) the application of theory and research findings to children's formal and informal education.

EDUC 6804: Learning in Informal Educational Settings (Summer 2002)
Informal educational settings, such as museums and zoos, provide opportunities for teachers to supplement their classroom instruction in ways that promote their students’ motivation and achievement. But many teachers are not aware of the variety of community resources available to them – including teacher development programs, specialized field trips for students, virtual field trips and web-based tools, and materials that can be borrowed for classroom use. Although many teachers take their students on field trips, without appropriate planning field trips often become “days off” from school in which little meaningful learning takes place. Especially in this time of high-stakes testing, field trips must be used in ways that facilitate meeting curriculum goals and content standards. In this course, we will examine the range of community resources available to teachers and how they can be used to enhance classroom instruction and promote students’ motivation and achievement. Through readings, discussion, and visits to local informal educational institutions, we will study several related topics: learning in informal settings and how it differs from learning in schools, enhancing meaningful learning on field trips through planning and pre- and post-visit activities, locating community resources for teachers and students, and integrating field trips into instructional units in ways that build on standards-based curriculum and promote student achievement.

EDUC 8348: Seminar in Human Development (Spring 1999)
The focus of this advanced seminar is socio-cultural-historical approaches to understanding children's development and learning in school and out-of-school settings. Building on the work of Vygotsky, we examine some of the major concepts in sociocultural theory, including mediation, learning in the zone of proximal development, activity theory, the development of academic and everyday concepts, and the nature of discourse in classrooms and other settings. We apply these concepts to examine issues related to learning in classrooms (e.g., reform-based math and science instruction, group differences in achievement) and children's learning outside of school.