Education

This course focuses on the identification and response to learning difficulties and developmental disorders with a specific emphasis on primary education. Topics include: difficulties in the development of language, in the learning of reading, writing, and math; problems of behavior and maladjustment to the school system; physical disabilities (visual, auditory, and motor)-- problems of development and learning; intellectual disability and giftedness; generalized developmental disorders; emotional disorders.

This course engages in active learning of the theory, research, and practice of designing, developing, and evaluating online learning environments, including distance education and blended learning approaches The discussions and explorations in class includes both sychronous and asynchronous online learning environments. The course covers issues related to current trends in online learning; teaching and learning in an online environment; online learning communities, and designing participatory online courses. 

This is a comparative study of educational aims and systems in numerous national and societal contexts. This course provides an introductory overview of education policies and practices across multiple countries. Topics include educational goals and nation-state development; models and approaches in comparative education; education systems and policy structures; cross-national achievement data; access and opportunity; language and education; colonization and decolonization; history education and national identity; refugee and immigrant education; media literacy education, and peace education.
Through comparative analysis of education systems and practices around the world, the class gains a foundational understanding of how education policies and systems function in different contexts and proposes potential solutions for improving current policies, systems, and/or educational practices.

This course focuses on critical analysis of media messages and impacts of various media including TV, music videos, newspapers, advertisements, websites, and social media on children and youth. It empowers the class to explore, understand, analyze and control the effects of mass and digital media on young people and oneself.

The course combines both theoretical and practical approaches to visual perception and representation. It offers an introduction to the basic principles of visual and artistic language, including its elements, structure (syntax), and meaning (semantics). This course also focuses on how to teach visual arts in primary education. It explores creative and expressive strategies, teaching methodologies, and assessment of children’s artwork in educational settings.

This course reviews various academic perspectives on development, including the relationship between development and education. The course explores the history of how education has been perceived and changed its position in the various paradigms of international development; the meaning of each perspective, and their empirical evidence. The first half of the course discusses the definition of development; theories, and empirical evidence of the relationship between development and education, while the latter half focuses on various challenges in development and education.

The course develops linguistic and educational skills for teaching English language and literature in early childhood settings. It focuses on key theories of early language learning and the tools to create engaging, age-appropriate, and inclusive learning experiences.

This course provides students with a critical grounding in the major psychological schools that shape the field and examines how these influence educational doctrine and practices in the ‘modern’ classroom. Throughout the course, students are introduced to different ways in which human thoughts, feelings and behaviour can be examined encouraged to consider how different perspective can be used in the context of education. With the introduction of multiple theories, critical thinking skills are developed comparing and contrasting different interpretations of the similar contexts. Potential biases and assumptions are questioned each session. The assignment is an applied case study scenario. The assignment requires students to examine a case study of an individual’s circumstances and to discuss to what extent one chosen perspective is able to explain the situation. Students can decide which perspective they want to apply and are encouraged to develop a deeper understanding of those chosen perspective, building on the introductory class

This advanced course bridges theoretical understanding of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) with practical applications in English language teaching, specifically focused on the Japanese educational context. The class explores the relationship between SLA research and effective pedagogical practices across second language skills.

While the primary language ofinstruction is English, this course is provided in a bilingual format, incorporating both English and Japanese. Some readings will be in Japanese, so students need to be comfortable reading academic Japanese to get the most out of the course.

Recommended course prerequisites: Applied Linguistics (intermediate course) and/or Intermediate seminar to build a basic foundation in SLA. 

In this course, students focus on how children learn to communicate in the real world, with a particular emphasis on the communicative skills needed for survival and success in educational settings. In the first half of the course, students consider how children learn to use the kinds of complex language needed in the classroom; to what extent language learning is impacted in atypical populations (e.g. autism, DLD); how language interventions can support children’s learning; how cross-linguistic differences might impact children’s use of the language of the classroom. In the second half of this course, students consider the challenges and benefits of bilingual language development; how children engage in mind-reading for successful communication; and how children reason with one another, collaboratively think and solve problems with other individuals such as peers.