Class Schedules

An introduction to theory and research in educational psychology. Topics include learning theory, learner characteristics, intelligence, creativity, motivation, measurement and evaluation, and models of teaching appropriate for diverse learners from early childhood through young adulthood. Students are required to complete observations in classroom settings.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course examines the role of Education as global phenomena. The course encompasses a comparative view of education around the world, as well as its role in International Development. We take it further, by analysis and critique, to understand education as a force for change in an inter-dependent, globalized world. Specifically, we will examine ways in which policies and practice either enhance or diminish efforts towards change that is inclusive, just, sustainable and effective in relieveing suffering, while expanding potential and capacity in those affected by social change. We take the position that, in order to be effective, building trust becomes a key to connectivity between people, groups, organizations and ideas where education, development and change are theorized and practiced. We will construct possible education frameworks around the idea of building trust, by analyzing socio-cultural issues of power, voice, silence, and discourse. (4 credits)

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to outdoor education as an opportunity to promote social justice and environmental sustainability in a globalized world.  Informed by relevant philosophical, psychological, cultural and political-economic frameworks, in addition to critical issues in public education policy and practice, we will explore interdisciplinary approaches to outdoor environmental education appropriate for students across the K-12 continuum.  We will utilize the Katharine Ordway Natural History Study Area (Ordway Field Station) as an outdoor classroom and will adapt curriculum from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and other outdoor education organizations to assist elementary school teachers and students in fulfilling Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards. Early in the semester, all students will participate in a weekend retreat at the Ordway Field Station. Weekly lab sessions will include field days during which course members design and implement educational experiences for elementary school children at Ordway, small group work days for preparing field day lesson plans, trips to local outdoor environmental education sites within the Twin Cities, and other experiential learning opportunities.  Weekly seminar sessions incorporating readings, reflective writing, and individual and small group projects complement the experiential aspects of the course. As the semester progresses, each course member will develop a curricular unit aimed at teaching an important environmental issue to diverse adolescents attending urban public schools.  The curricular unit is a significant undertaking that provides students with the opportunity to synthesize all aspects of the course material in a creative, pragmatic and integrative manner.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to outdoor education as an opportunity to promote social justice and environmental sustainability in a globalized world.  Informed by relevant philosophical, psychological, cultural and political-economic frameworks, in addition to critical issues in public education policy and practice, we will explore interdisciplinary approaches to outdoor environmental education appropriate for students across the K-12 continuum.  We will utilize the Katharine Ordway Natural History Study Area (Ordway Field Station) as an outdoor classroom and will adapt curriculum from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and other outdoor education organizations to assist elementary school teachers and students in fulfilling Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards. Early in the semester, all students will participate in a weekend retreat at the Ordway Field Station. Weekly lab sessions will include field days during which course members design and implement educational experiences for elementary school children at Ordway, small group work days for preparing field day lesson plans, trips to local outdoor environmental education sites within the Twin Cities, and other experiential learning opportunities.  Weekly seminar sessions incorporating readings, reflective writing, and individual and small group projects complement the experiential aspects of the course. As the semester progresses, each course member will develop a curricular unit aimed at teaching an important environmental issue to diverse adolescents attending urban public schools.  The curricular unit is a significant undertaking that provides students with the opportunity to synthesize all aspects of the course material in a creative, pragmatic and integrative manner.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course examines Pasifika Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, rooted/routed in the region of Oceania. Drawing on scholarship, storytelling, and lived experiences from across Pasifika communities, students will explore epistemologies and pedagogies grounded in relationality, ocean, land, ancestry, and collective responsibility. The course also critiques the commodification and mis/representation of Oceania cultures in global popular media—focusing particularly on the Disneyfication of the region in films such as Moana. Students will analyze how Indigenous knowledge systems are represented, erased, and/or reimagined in these narratives, and consider the broader educational and cultural implications. Centering Indigenous perspectives, the course invites critical reflection on the role of education in sustaining cultural identity, advancing sovereignty, and resisting colonial narratives across Oceania and beyond.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In this seminar, we will consider how epistemicide and its originary instantiation in formalized educational institutions and academic disciplines both contained the core of empire’s brutal logics and the kernel of empire’s impending collapse. Studying across intellectual traditions and genres, we will develop vigorous dialectic inquiry into this extraordinary contradiction. And we will study some of the vital educational traditions that precede empire, that have continued uninterrupted, and that exceed dialectic relations to modernity through resurgence, the fantastic, and more.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course introduces students to cross-cultural collaboration and community engagement in educational settings. It takes a project-based and strength-based approach. Students will reflect on their skills - teaching, communicating, linguistic, artistic, technical, or organizational - and apply them to a specific project.In Fall 2025, students will partner with the American Russian Center, a non-profit serving diverse and multiethnic Russian-speaking communities in the Twin Cities, including Russians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Jews, Uzbeks, and others from across the post-Soviet space. Through this partnership, students will design and implement projects such as creating language activity kits, facilitating an intergenerational learning event, designing a family literacy night, and more.This unique course offers a bridge between academic studies and community engagement, while building skills in teamwork, communication, and project design. Open to all students; no knowledge of Russian is required.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course provides opportunities for students to engage with research methods that promote inclusive, egalitarian, exploratory social inquiry aimed at enriching the quality of learning and life in schools and civic spaces. Pedagogical in addition to formal research applications are addressed, as are implications for development and change on personal to organizational to societal levels. Ethical dimensions of engaging children and youth, in schools and community settings, as research participants and as researchers, are also carefully considered.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course builds on prior learning in Educational Studies to deepen understanding of both the challenge and potential of teaching in urban schools. Focal topics include exploration dynamic learning environments for teaching children and youth with a variety of social, cognitive, economic, and cultural experiences. We will consider the evaluation, appropriate accommodations, and methods of instruction and assessment for students possessing a broad range of academic interests and aptitudes and varied forms of exceptionality. The course is grounded in a field experience (40 hour minimum) engaging students in learning from and contributing to a local classrooms at the grade level/subject matter area of their choice. The course culminates in the design of a curricular unit that reflects instruction aimed at higher order cognition and holistic child development. Course reserved for Educational Studies majors (Teaching/Learning Emphasis). Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This senior capstone course explores the question: How can we educate to promote change toward more just, compassionate, and sustainable approaches to living and learning in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world? We will consider contemporary barriers to and opportunities for systemic education reform and social transformation on local, national and international levels. We will then work both individually and collectively, on campus and in the community, to analyze specific social issues and reform strategies in addition to conceptualizing plans for principled social action. Prerequisite(s): Permission of department chair.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Course DescriptionEDUC 194 (will become EDUC 180) - Education & Society: The Philosophies, Politics, and Cultures of Learning! This is an introductory survey course that explores the discipline of Educational Studies as a humanistic endeavor across time and geography. In this course you will engage with multiple, and sometimes contradictory, philosophical perspectives about the purpose of education in a given society. You will have the opportunity to learn from all of the Educational Studies faculty members who each approach the discipline through distinct, yet overlapping, traditions, as well as guest speakers and practitioners. By the end of the course you should have a strong foundation through which to engage with Educational Studies as an academic discipline and an applied field of study and practice. The course will engage with formal, non-formal, and informal educational contexts through historical, sociological, and psychological lenses. Some of the core concepts that will be covered include:1) The evolution of educational theory; 2) A comparative analysis of educational philosophies and theories;3) An interrogation of the difference between schooling and education;4) Case studies of the impact of politics on educational theory and practice;5) The symbiotic relationship between ethics and education.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

An introduction to theory and research in educational psychology. Topics include learning theory, learner characteristics, intelligence, creativity, motivation, measurement and evaluation, and models of teaching appropriate for diverse learners from early childhood through young adulthood. Students are required to complete observations in classroom settings.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This survey course will explore history, policy, and pedagogy as they relate to race, ethnicity, and culture as education. K-12 public education will be the primary focus with topics including desegregation, standardized testing, multi-cultural and ethnocentric pedagogy, the teacher's role and experience, and significant historical events in education. The course will culminate by analyzing current trends and future expectations in education.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course explores the peril and promise of urban public education. Critical issues to be explored range from poverty and economic inequality, to challenges faced by recent immigrants and historically oppressed populations, to religious and political intolerance, to bullying and school violence, to school bureaucracy, administration and governance, to teacher unions and professional ethics, to urban education reform initiatives promoted by corporations, think tanks and foundations in contrast to those emerging in response to teacher/parent/student/community activism.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The displacement of people across cultures and borders have specific and complex implications for education as a global project of social justice and equity. Understanding these as an intersectional network necessarily deepens our knowledge and skill as global educators. Using a critical historical comparative, international lens, this course seeks to explore the phenomenon of migration as a timely and critical educational space at the crossroads of globalization. Using Appadurai’s work on global ‘ethnoscapes’and ‘ideoscapes’, foundational texts on diaspora education practice, and the voices and stories of immigrant/refugee experience in educational spaces, this course seeks to explore the practice of education as a global flow that is dynamic and changeable, and as an archive of resistance and resilience frameworks. In this course students will write their own stories of being placed and displaced, and will connect with immigrant and refugee communities in the Twin Cities.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Drawing from activist-scholar Teresia Teaiwa's concept of s/pacific to honor the specificities of Pacific Islander experiences, this course will explore various social movements across the Pacific region. Students will examine how Pacific Indigenous movements challenge colonialism, militarism, and environmental degradation through texts including scholarly work, oral histories, documentary films, and creative expressions. Focusing on the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific, Mau Movement, Polynesian Panthers movement, and the 350 Pacific, the course will analyze the role of community education, language revitalization efforts, and activist pedagogies in shaping political and cultural change. An emphasis will be placed on Indigenous epistemologies, land-based learning, and the mobilization of education in pursuit of sovereignty.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

No other social welfare institution in the United States (U.S.) is associated more with culture transmission, citizenship, and notions of public than its education system. It is the only social welfare institution in the U.S. that is compulsory from childhood to young adulthood. However, despite the educational system being so much of our lives, it is also the one we know the least about historically. This course will look at the history of public schooling in the U.S. from its pre-European colonial origins to the present day. We will look at the ways in which notions of culture, citizenship, and the very idea of what it means to be "American" have been discussed, debated, contested, and institutionalized in what is viewed as "our most precious institution."

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course presents an overview of world language pedagogical methods and provides a forum for discussion on current trends and thinking in second language acquisition. Students who are curious about teaching a world language are given opportunities to observe world language educators as well as teach mini-lessons at Macalester College. Course taught in English and open to world language students having attained an intermediate level in the target language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this seminar, we will study across genres and knowledge traditions to consider gender in and through captivity stories. Specifically, we will study in response to ongoing anti-colonial calls to exceed frameworks of: Indigeneity as reducible to subject of settler colonial studies (J. Kēhaulani Kauanui); carcerality as coterminous with prison (Ruth Wilson Gilmore); and resistance as featured solely by oppositional entanglement with empire (Cedric Robinson). How might we learn through capacious global Indigenous analytics, carcerality as a vast societal and ideological organizing colonial force, and refusal, resurgence, and self-determination as abundant epistemic and ontologic praxes beyond and outside the narrow dichotomies of empire? How does a global attention to captivity guide a political, intellectual struggle over and through colonial gender and gendering?

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This senior capstone course explores the question: How can we educate to promote change toward more just, compassionate, and sustainable approaches to living and learning in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world? We will consider contemporary barriers to and opportunities for systemic education reform and social transformation on local, national and international levels. We will then work both individually and collectively, on campus and in the community, to analyze specific social issues and reform strategies in addition to conceptualizing plans for principled social action. Prerequisite(s): Permission of department chair.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials