Representative Course Offerings
TEAC 811B Contemporary Research in Reading (3cr)
This course provides an introduction to reading research. By participating and engaging in reflective inquiry, students will develop their theoretical frameworks and critical views of reading research. The students will identify the underlying philosophies they encounter in studies and focus on reviewing research findings in a chosen field. The course follows a historical progression of large-scale reading research in the United States starting with the First-Grade Studies and The Great Debate, all the way to the National Reading Panel and beyond. Current research issues in reading will be integrated “just in time”.
TEAC 813A Second Language Acquisition (3 cr)
This course explores theories of how second languages are learned with particular emphasis on second language acquisition in K-12 settings. 813A is a required course in the ELL certification path.
TEAC 813B ESL Curriculum & Teaching (3 cr)
This course exams the many features of both effective teaching strategies and curriculum structures for K-12 learners for whom English is a new language. Special emphases are given to learning how to read, listen, write, and speak in English, as well as to the influences of the learner's native and host cultures.
TEAC 813D ESL Assessment (3 cr)
The assessment of English language learners (ELL’S), particularly school-aged ELL’s, is the focus of this course. Practices from performance-based assessment to standardized testing are examined. 813D is a required course in the ELL certification path.
TEAC 813E Special Topics Critical Pedagogy in Second Language Teaching (3 cr)
This course takes a critical look at second language teaching (with particular emphasis on the teaching of English) including the discipline’s colonialist past, values in second language teaching, transformation pedagogy, and possibilities for the discipline’s future.
Teac 813J Cross Cultural Communication (3 cr)
This course entails analysis and evaluation of two major theories, culture and communication. The examination of verbal and non-verbal communication modes, and more specifically, the interaction of the modes (ways of talking) in cross-cultural contexts to include space and time orientations as well as kinesics (body talk) are undertaken.
TEAC 817 - Emerging Reading and Language (3 cr)
This course is designed to familiarize students with current research trends in early literacy development and instruction for children from birth through third grade. A second purpose is to gain an appreciation of current practice. Students will critically examine recent intervention studies to develop an understanding of their essential components. Particular consideration will be given to the development of oral language during the preschool years. Additionally, the students will examine the place of phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary building, text comprehension, the role parents play in preparing children for formal literacy instruction in school, how play contributes to early literacy growth, and the emerging literacy of special populations.
TEAC 822 - Principles and Practices: Social Studies Education (3cr)
This course explores current issues and trends in the curriculum and teaching of social studies. It includes a comprehensive study of the purposes and possibilities of social studies education in K-12 settings. Emphasis is placed upon recent theory and research related to the development of student understanding and instructional approaches that contribute to this learning. TEAC 822 is organized into five modules: Teaching and Learning Social Studies—An Overview; Social Studies and Citizenship Education; Student Learning—History; History Teaching—Purposes and Possibilities; Inquiry into Social Studies Principles and Practices. The course is offered typically in an online format.
TEAC 838 Linguistics for the Classroom Teacher (3 cr)
This course enables teachers to learn aspects of English including dialects, usage, grammar, semantics, lexicography, morphology, and the like, with special emphases on the creation of materials for use in K-12 classrooms.
TEAC 840D Culture & Schooling: Schooling in Demographically Transitioning Communities (3 cr)
This course considers the following propositions: (1) The future economic viability of many Nebraska towns and towns elsewhere in the Great Plains is tied to the future of Latino newcomers in these communities; (2) The demographic transition of many communities puts into flux whose prerogative it is to define who is and is not part of the community and precipitates nostalgia and nostalgic action on the part of established residents; (3) Schools are key intermediary agencies at which macro dynamics like economic globalization, population displacement, and transnationalism from below get negotiated, as do national priorities (like economic competitiveness and technological literacy) and local charges (like school as a center for and vehicle of defining community); (4) Demographic change affects the roles of schools and the roles of those who attend and/or work in them. These propositions can be a problem or an opportunity; it is not automatically one or the other of these. (Counts as an HRT course.)
TEAC 841 Teaching Content Reading, Grades 4-12 (3 cr)
This course enables teachers to teach academic content and functional reading strategies simultaneously. Topics include, but are not limited to, comprehension, vocabulary/concept growth, text analyses and selection, cross-discipline writing.
TEAC 846 Studies in Middle Level Schooling (1-9 cr, max 9)
This course maps out the historical development, philosophy, and current literature of the middle school.
TEAC 846A Curriculum (1-3 cr, max 3)
This course investigates the basic necessary components of a middle school program that differentiate it from both elementary and high school programs. It will entail study of the original writers and those who now present the middle school concept in the journals, along with the research that substantiates their positions. A look at the pending future of middle school curriculum development in the fluid sociological milieu of emerging communities is considered.
TEAC 846B Leadership (1-3 cr, max 3)
This course offers an examination of the components of general leadership styles that are effective in education with a close look at those skills needed in a middle school curriculum situation. A study of the current research related to middle school teacher profiles in relation to the demands of contemporary communities and the requirements necessary for leading a building and program which will produce a young adolescent student who is an intellectually reflective learner, is undertaken. In addition, a thorough investigation of how team, group, and building leadership develops is explored throughout the course.
TEAC 846D Teacher-Based Advisory (1-3 cr, max 3)
This course examines the research and writings that support the establishment and evaluation of an advisory program suited to meeting the cognitive and humane development of early adolescence during the middle school day. A study of the origin and development of this teacher-based advisory concept and its use in today’s middle school programs is undertaken. Pursuit of the contemporary research and readings that illustrate the necessity of the incorporation of this major middle school program component in the middle school is explored throughout.
TEAC 846E Special Topics (1-3 cr, max 9)
Directed research relating to the review of critical contemporary concerns in middle school education. Using the research from major educational organizations, such as the National Middle School Association, The Association of Supervisory and Curriculum Development, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals as an initial basis for inquiry, this course entails a detailed study of the contemporary concerns that affect the future of middle school education and the transescent student.
TEAC 848 Introduction to Curriculum Studies (1-3 cr, max 3)
This course traces the historical development and philosophy of high school curricula. Review of research on schooling, curriculum trends, and school organizational structures are examined.
848A: Elementary Schools
848B: Middle Schools (1-3 cr, max 3)
Comparing and contrasting the historical philosophy of high school with the contemporary high school philosophy. A study of the current publications from the National Association of Secondary School Principals with those of the National Middle School Association are examined in relation to curriculum innovation.
848D: Secondary Schools
848E: Special Topics in Curriculum
TEAC 849 Instruction of the Transescent Student (3 cr) Not open to students with credit in TEAC 449.
Reading, discussion and review of the research of new instructional methods and materials for the education of transescent students. A review of experimental programs and methods for improving the instructional quality in the middle grades is undertaken.
TEAC 851 P Learning and Teaching Principles and Practices (3-4 cr)
Prereq: Admission to the Teacher Education Program; completion of 80 percent of subject-area course work with a grade of C+ (2.33) or better. Theoretical issues in the area of teaching and learning as applied to the discipline of Secondary Mathematics exploring innovative methodologies, planning, teaching, and evaluating mathematics lessons for diverse learners.
TEAC 851R Modern Language Secondary Methods (3 cr)
This course is designed to build a conceptual framework for second language/foreign language teaching based on theoretical insights and research/inquiry from a broad range of empirical studies. Participants will develop a comprehensive approach to designing curriculum, instruction and assessment for foreign language programs in K-16 classrooms. Participants will a) develop a contextualized approach to language teaching that is based on meaningful language use, real-world communication, interaction among language learners, and learning new information, b) design foreign language pedagogy and curriculum organized around the Standards for Foreign Language Learning (National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project, 1996) by linking theory and practice via teaching applications. What students should know and be able to do with another language serves as the guiding focus for making curricular, instructional, and assessment decisions about classroom foreign language learning.
TEAC 851 V Learning and Teaching in Secondary Science (3-4 cr)
Understanding begins with learners’ questions, which grow from personal experiences. This course is designed to help each student identify and engage in experiences so that questions and concerns can be raised in an environment that supports inquiry and introspection regarding science teaching and learning. Students engage in a learning community that provides opportunities to do real work which in turn allows for the construction of deeper understandings of self, teaching and learning.
TEAC 861 Education for a Pluralistic society (3cr)
This course engages in graduate level analyses of contemporary educational issues within the contexts of multiculturalism and cultural diversity. We address issues of equality, equity, and social justice as they pertain to the academic success of individuals of diverse ethnic, linguistic, religious, economic, gender, and racial backgrounds who may have been historically oppressed in North American society. We examine under-girding concepts, theories, practices, and policies, and critique curricular materials and resources as a means of informing professional knowledge of educators, administrators, and policymakers.
TEAC 880 E: Survey and analysis of the application of technology to improve teaching in Mathematics (1-3 cr)
Research and related literature on learning, teaching, and curriculum aimed at enhancing mathematics understandings. Critical application of technology and the development of teaching strategies are also explored.
TEAC 887 Effecting High School Improvement (3 cr)
High schools are the most advanced educational stage available in the United States for which access is a right (i.e., it is free and broadly available) rather than a privilege (with tuition, limited admission, and other controls). They are concurrently both academic and social sites, with rite of passage and other rituals (e.g., prom, graduation). They are remarkably similar places, location by location, in terms of structure and organization (a high school in Denver is organized much like one in Seward Nebraska, in Evanston Illinois, or in Concord New Hampshire) and they tend to be very traditional and slow to change. Despite the prevalence of this one best system, high schools are sites of contention as Americans continue to recognize that few high schools serve or have ever served all students well and as there is growing recognition that different skill sets might be necessary to negotiate the 21st Century political economy. Thus high schools are also subjects of debate regarding how they should change. This course uses various lenses to consider how to improve high schools in non-ephemeral ways, ranging from rethinking the micro-scale of individual student interaction with teachers and curriculum to considerations at the macro level of state department and federal efforts at high school reform.
TEAC 890 Teaching in Demographically Transitioning Communities (3 cr)
As Nebraska’s classrooms become increasingly linguistically diverse, educators at all levels and in all content areas are being called upon to meet English learners’ unique linguistic and academic needs. Enrollees in this workshop-style course will explore adequate and appropriate instruction of English learners in the context of their own classroom. As a starting point, the course presents current theories on how school-aged students learn English as a second language and the practical implications these hold for all Nebraskan teachers. The course will also examine instructional models designed for teaching with English learners in the content areas.
TEAC 893 Professional Development for Literacy Coaching (3 Cr)
This course examines the multifaceted roles of the School Literacy Coach. It is the capstone course for the K-12 Reading Specialist Endorsement, preferably taken at the end of the coursework for the endorsement. Teachers who are reading coaches for their schools/districts are also invited to enroll in the course. Topics for the course include, but are not limited to: leadership roles, student assessment and development of instructional plans, partnerships with families and the community, development of school reading programs, planning and providing professional development, coaching to improve literacy instruction, culturally and linguistically responsive coaching, and evaluating and selecting reading materials and technology.
TEAC 902 Seminar in Educational Policy (3 cr)
The purpose of this course is to introduce advanced concepts in the study of the interrelationships between educational policy and practice, focusing on the overlapping interdisciplinary fields of implementation studies and sociocultural studies of educational policy. The course is grounded by eight core propositions, which we amend, supplement, or reiterate as the collective work of our class. This course consciously plays with the labels policymaker and practitioner to ask what can be gained by examining the practice of educational policymakers and asking how and when educational practitioners are actually shapers of local and non-local educational policy.
TEAC 908E Seminar in Teacher Education (3 cr)
This course serves three academic ends: (1) understanding the current research base on teacher education; (2) determining how this base relates to contemporary reform; and (3) analyzing and comparing contemporary teacher education programs in the U.S. This course is designed for advanced graduate students who intend to be teacher educators in higher education settings and/or work in teacher education policy and professional development in governmental and non-governmental settings.
TEAC 921B Motivation & Engagement - in the Literacy Classrooms (3 cr)
Why are some students enthusiastic about and engaged in the reading and writing tasks assigned across the curriculum, while other students in the same classroom routinely put forth minimal effort? An examination of current motivation research literature can shed light on the essential components that act as catalysts for engaging all students in academic literacy. This seminar course will introduce students to achievement motivation literature related to academic reading and writing. The readings and in-class discussions will explore a variety of motivation constructs and theories, student populations, school, home and community contexts, and successful programs that encourage and support engaged readers and writers.
TEAC 922 Learning and Teaching Foreign Language (3 cr)
This seminar focuses on research based language teaching and learning practices aimed at enhancing foreign language teaching and learning in K-16 settings.
Special focus courses offered online include:
TEAC 922A Learning and Teaching Foreign Languages - Reading in the Language Classroom
Designed for K-12 teachers of German, this course provides practical classroom applications of theory of teaching reading in the foreign language classroom.
TEAC 922B Writing in the Language Classroom
Designed for K-12 teachers of German, this course provides practical classroom applications of theory of teaching writing in the foreign language classroom.
GOLDEN courses (German On Line Distance Education Network)
GOLDEN: TEAC 922D - Listening in the Language Classroom
GOLDEN: TEAC 922E - Speaking in the Language Classroom
Designed for K-12 teachers of German, this course provides practical classroom applications of theory of teaching writing in the foreign language classroom.
GOLDEN: TEAC 922 J Learning and Teaching Foreign Languages - Technology Enhanced Language Teaching
This course introduces teachers of German to technology applications in language teaching and learning.
GOLDEN: TEAC 922 K Learning and Teaching Foreign Languages - Instructional Planning
This course introduces teachers of German to short and long term planning skills focusing on standards based principles and research findings to optimize student learning.
GOLDEN: TEAC 922L/GERM 952 (Cross listed with Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
GOLDEN: Deutsche Kinder - und Jugendliteratur (German Children’s and Adolescent Literature)
This course is intended to familiarize participants with a selection of works of German children's literature, most of them very familiar classicscommonly read by children today in Germany. The course will provide an overview of historical developments in German children's literature, beginning with the Enlightenment and ending with contemporary works. These works first will be viewed in an historical context, examining how they reflect and/or attempt to undermine the values and norms of the society in which they were written. We will also focus on the didactic function of these works: what and how were they intended to teach their young readers? Do contemporary German children's books have a different message than earlier books? If so, why? How do these changes fit into broadersocial changes occurring within German society?
We will also consider how these books can be used in the German classroom. Participants may choose to develop unit plans for integration into the language classroom.
TEAC - 923 Seminar in the Curriculum and Teaching of Secondary School Mathematics (3 cr)
Prereq: Undergraduate teaching major and teaching experience in mathematics. Critical evaluation of current literature, yearbooks, research, and experiments in the curriculum and teaching of mathematics.
TEAC 924/812 - Seminar in the Curriculum and Teaching of K/College Science (3 cr)
Because of the growing need for educators to view education more holistically, K through College level science teachers’ work together to understand the implications of the latest research, as it applies to their area and grade level. This online asynchronies delivered course involves a critical evaluation of current literature, yearbooks, research, and experiments in the curriculum and teaching of science, with emphasis on the interface of theory and practice.
TEAC 925 - Seminar in the Curriculum and Teaching of Social Sciences (3cr)
TEAC 925 explores current research and theory in social studies education. Drawing upon scholarship from a variety of authors and approaches, students engage in critical analysis of methods, purposes, recommendations, and responsibilities of inquiry in the field. Course aims are directed toward students who both study the research of others and conduct scholarly inquiry themselves.TEAC 925 is organized in four modules: Research methods in social education; Critical issues in social education; Research in history teaching and learning; Current approaches and topics in social studies inquiry. The course is offered typically in an online format.
TEAC 925E - Seminar in the Curriculum and Teaching of Social Sciences: Great Plains (3cr)
The concept of region is an established and important one in the study of the social sciences. Through a regional lens, the relationships between and among the environments, peoples, and cultures of a given area are realized in the study of history, geography, political science, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and related fields. This course focuses on the identification and development of research, curriculum, and instructional approaches for K-12 classrooms related to teaching and learning about the Great Plains and multidisciplinary inquiry utilizing a variety of local historical and current sources. The course is offered typically in an online format.
TEAC 944 Curriculum Studies (3 cr)
This seminar will entail a critical examination of issues in curriculum development historically and in contemporary curricular discourses. The fundamental question that emerges from the curriculum field is one of worth. What is it most worthwhile to know and experience? The answer to such a question presupposes a particular notion of the “subject” (identity) and the society of which one wishes to be a part. This will be the pivotal question in the course. We will explore the plethora of responses that this question has evoked over the years. Some of the questions that will guide our exploration are:
- What is curriculum?
- What are the theoretical frameworks that focus contemporary curriculum inquiry?
- What are the predominant historical perspectives that have shaped contemporary curriculum discourses?
- What are some of the key ideas, issues, and concerns?
- Who are some curriculum theorists?
- How does curriculum function as a shaping force in society?
- How do race, class, gender, and sexuality relate to curriculum?
- What are the politics of curriculum?
- What is the teacher’s role in relation to curriculum?
TEAC 944A Curriculum As Aesthetic Text (3 cr)
Within the creating process lives a worthwhile direction, a medium, for learning and teaching that asks teachers and students to participate through adapting, changing, building and creating meaning. This is the nature of curriculum as aesthetic text. Curriculum is seen as genuine inquiry into what is worth knowing, rather than simply a curricular document. But, what does this mean for learners and teachers? This question will be pursued from many perspectives, across disciplines, and grade levels. This course is intended to provide a space for all educators wishing to pursue aesthetic considerations seriously in their teaching/learning practices such as experimentation, observation, intuitive responses, mistakes as a route to learning, and non-linear ways of working. We will explore the necessary conditions to foster and sustain curriculum as aesthetic text, along with beliefs, practices, and traditions surrounding the nature of the aesthetic. The primary texts are two mid-later works of the philosopher and educator, John Dewey, alongside the texts of contemporary thinkers reinterpreting the perspectives of John Dewey.
TEAC 946 Instructional Improvement & Decision Making (3 cr)
This course entails the study and application of teaching models and techniques based on research, theory, and exemplary practice. The course is organized into three five-week units including 1. The role of dispositions (personal attributes); 2. Examination of teaching and learning with emphasis on Interaction analysis; and 3. Modifying the teaching and learning environment, including classroom physical space. As a result of this course, you will:
- Understand how your behaviors, values and soft skills influence your teaching.
- Study the role of teaming as it relates to these behaviors, values and soft skills.
- Identify your personal “patterns of classroom interaction”.
- Identify and alter ineffective patterns of classroom interaction.
- Measure personal use of wait time and levels of questions used while teaching.
- Design classroom-teaching objectives that match classroom behaviors of both the teacher and the students.
- Develop a teaching and learning environment that maximizes learning opportunities.
- Develop a personal plan of action that implements these new tools of insight.
TEAC 946B Instructional Improvement & Decision Making: What Constitutes the Good? (3 cr)
Educators must constantly face questions about content and form. Answering these questions requires decisions about what is worth knowing and experiencing. Even more fundamentally, such questions lead educators to query the essence of teaching and learning. However, once we have answered the larger philosophical questions, we are faced with the challenge of creating programs and practices that fulfill our visions of how things ought to be despite conceptual, political, economic, institutional and even personal contingencies. The challenge to respond appropriately requires that educators consider the best in the practice of others and that they also risk undertaking new initiatives. The challenge hinges on understanding what good teaching is and understanding how one becomes a good teacher. This course will be a search for the good because finding the good in teaching and learning matters to students, teachers, and the greater community.
TEAC 949 Mathematical Ways of Knowing and the Art of Teaching (3cr)
The purpose of this course is to explore the way knowing is characterized by the discipline of mathematics. In this course, we will explore the relationship between knowledge as it is constructed in a discipline and representations of that disciplinary knowledge in schools. After examining the ways in which scholars and others think about and construct knowledge, we will consider knowledge as it relates to the purposes, practices, and outcomes of schooling as well as teacher education. The core readings of the course will focus on mathematics, although students will be able to explore that more deeply or work within another discipline in the context of course assignments.
The course is organized in three parts. In the first part, we will focus on the history and the nature of knowledge in disciplines. Discussions will consider the ways in which knowledge is developed, justified, and construed. In the second part of the course, we will revisit those readings as well as read some classic pieces on the role and place of knowledge in school by Schwab and Dewey. In the last third of the course, we explore the relationships between a discipline and disciplinary ways of knowing, on one hand, and school subjects, and school teaching, learning, and knowing, on the other hand.
TLTE - 951A Seminar in Reading Research (3 cr)
The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the broad range of methodological approaches literacy researchers employ in attempting to answer questions about reading and writing. We will consider the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies, various types of experimental designs, and the modes of data collection. In addition, you will receive hands-on experience with several different research approaches and methodological techniques. The course will be an ongoing conversation and workshop aimed at increasing your understanding of literacy research from the inside-- that is by doing. Reading assignments will be relatively limited for a PhD level course, and will be replaced by readings you discover to be relevant to your research and relevant out of class analysis.
TEAC / EDPS 989 Psychology of Literacy (3 cr)
Psychology of Literacy provides a forum for closely examining the research and instruction literature related to reading and writing. Both theory and its application will be stressed, since one informs the other. The goal is to refine all of our conceptions of literacy and its development.
