Faculty of Education

Graduate Studies Program

07:752 (NT1) Overview of Educational Issues

Regular Session 2016-17 Term 1 (Fall)

Instructor Name: Dr. Cameron Symons

Office #: Education 226-5
Telephone: 204 571 8535
Email: symonsc@brandonu.ca Web: www.brandonuteachertools.net
Moodle page for this course: https://moodle.brandonu.ca/course/view.php?id=1500
The enrolment key for this course is: overview

A. Course Description:
This course will engage students in critical thought and discussion of the important
issues challenging the education system, including public, private, and band-operated
schools. The course is designed to broaden students’ knowledge and understanding in
bringing multiple perspectives to bear upon complex educational issues.

B. Texts:
There will not be a textbook for the course. We will use articles instead.

C. Proposed Class Schedule:

The course is delivered fully online and in an asynchronous mode. Therefore, you will
have one week to complete each module, but can contribute to the discussion on that
module at any time during the week-long window for that topic.

These discussion windows are scheduled as follows:

Topic Dates
1. Zero Tolerance in Schools Sept 12-18
2. Inclusive Classrooms Sept 19-25
3. Cyberbullying & Online Speech Sept 26-Oct 2
4. The Flipped Classroom Oct 3-9
5. Can Failing Schools be Fixed? Oct 10-16
6. Charter Schools Oct 17-23
7. Virtual Schools & Online Schooling Oct 24-30
8. The 21st Century Skills Movement Oct 31-Nov 6
9. Grade Retention Nov 7-13
10. Sexuality Ed & Cultural/Religious Issues Nov 14-20
11. Cultural Proficiency & Anti-Oppressive Ed Nov 21-27
12. RTI/UDL/PBIS/CI3T Nov 28-Dec 5
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D. Course Assignments (APA version 6.0 required):
All assignments must be submitted on time unless extenuating circumstances prohibit
such submission. In such instances, students will inform the instructor prior to when the
assignment is due and make alternate arrangements.

 In the course there are 12 issues presented. Each of these issues will have a
discussion forum created on VoiceThread or on the Moodle page or on both. For
each topic you may post your opinion on the issue in the forum/discussion. The
dates above are provided for those of you who like to pace your work out evenly
over the course of the term, and also to give most of us a chance to be thinking
about the same topic around the same time together. Your comment(s) should
definitely be there by the last day of the discussion window time in order to get
credit for them. Each forum participation by you will be worth 5% (or 60% over
the course of 12 topics) and it will be scaled as:
o 0 – no comment,
o 1-2 - does not address the issue clearly
o 3 – approaches expectations – opinion with some justification
o 4 – meets expectations – clearly expressed and justified
o 5 – exceeds expectations – very articulate, extends thinking, references
one or more other sources

 The Graduate Studies Committee, and the Dean of Education, have affirmed that
“all graduate courses in Education must include a requirement of a writing
assignment of publishable quality.” This would mean an article or essay of about
9-12 pages (double spaced) or so. Therefore, this will be part of our assessment
plan. This will be worth 30%. (Note: B.U. requires that grades submitted
represent a spread of marks. To accomplish this, the paper will not be graded on
a criterion referenced basis but on a norm referenced basis in order to achieve
this spread. Therefore, the papers will be ranked from most scholarly to least
and graded according to that ranking.)

 For those of you who have chosen the course route for your M.Ed., in the
Summative Seminar, which you will take at the conclusion of your program, you
may (depending upon the instructor) be required to produce an annotated
bibliography of 20 or more articles based on coursework done throughout your
program. So that you will not be sideswiped by that when you take that course,
you can develop a chunk of your future annotated bibliography by acquiring five
articles and writing annotations on them in this course now. This will be worth
10% of the final grade. These can, however, be the same articles you source for
the paper mentioned above. An exemplar of what an entry might look like is
provided at the end of this course description document.

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  So, in summary, the mark will be based on:
o Your thoughts posted in the discussion for each of these 12 topics.
o A paper exploring one of these issues or an issue of your own choice in
greater depth.
o An annotated bibliography of 5 items.

 The mark out of 100 will then be converted to a letter grade according to this
scale.

E. Course Grade Evaluation:

 minimum grade requirement for a pass in the graduate program is B
 grade equivalencies are:
A+ 96-100 B- 70-74
A 90-95 C+ 65-69
A- 85-89 C 60-64
B+ 80-84 D 50-59
B 75-79 F Under 50%

Academic dishonesty will cancel out all the calculations above and result in a
final grade of F-AD (Fail-Academic Dishonesty) (refer to the Graduate Calendar,
section 3.9)

F. Financial & Registration Information

Students are advised to check the Graduate Studies Calendar (online) for all
information related to deadline dates for Voluntary Withdrawal from courses and
subsequent tuition refunds. You can see the tuition and refund schedule at:
https://www.brandonu.ca/registration/2016-2017-regular-session/2016-2017-important-dates/
Students are advised that an ‘Incomplete’ grade (extension) will be approved only under
the following two conditions: i) a student provides a compelling argument to the course
instructor that an extension is warranted ii) the student has completed at least 50% of
the course work to that point.

Attendance at Lectures and Practical Work:

(refer to the Graduate Calendar, section 3.7.1)

1. All students are expected to be regular in their attendance at lectures and labs.
While attendance per se will not be considered in assessing the final grade, it
should be noted that in some courses participation in class activities may be
required.
2. For limited enrolment courses, students who are registered but do not attend the
first three classes or notify the instructor that they intend to attend, may have
their registration cancelled in favour of someone else wishing to register for the
course.
3. Students who are unable to attend a scheduled instruction period because of
illness, disability, or domestic affliction should inform the instructor concerned as
soon as possible.
4. Instructors may excuse absences for good and sufficient reasons.

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G. Instructor / Course Evaluation:
The anonymous course evaluations will be completed online. All students are expected
to complete the evaluation. Dates of the evaluation will be communicated by Ina
Schumacher in the Graduate Studies Office.

H. Statement on Accommodation:
Brandon University is committed to providing reasonable accommodation for individuals
with disabilities. Students are responsible for registering with Student Services,
providing official documentation and requesting appropriate accommodation with
reasonable advanced notice. If you have registered with the Disability Services
Coordinator, please inform the instructor at the beginning of the course. For more
information about services for students with disabilities, contact the Disability Services
Coordinator located in the Accessible Learning Centre, Room 106 A.E. McKenzie Bldg
or call 727-9759.

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EXEMPLAR FOR AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY

Shernoff, E. (2011). Teachers supporting teachers in urban schools: what iterative

research designs can teach us. School Psychology Review, 40(4), 465-485.

Shernoff began the article by discussing the consequences of teacher attrition,

then specifically focused on the importance of supporting and retaining new teachers.

“Teachers Supporting Teachers in Urban Schools” was a three-year study that analyzed

a model designed to provide support for new teachers. The study took place at a

kindergarten to grade eight school in Chicago. The model’s outcomes were increasing

teacher engagement, curriculum development, and training. The model emphasized

using trained mentors and coaches. As the study continued, modifications were made

and PLCs became more predominant. The new teachers participating in the study noted

that they had a decreased sense of isolation and were more likely to have implemented

new strategies in the classroom. However, time constraints did detract from the overall

effectiveness, and teachers indicated that they would prefer being given a limited

number of strategies to implement. Although this study was limited in terms of

participants and it focused on urban schools, many of the problems that the participants

faced are considered common experiences for many new teachers.

This study will be a good reference when discussing the need for new teacher

support programs, which is an area that I am very interested in as I often work with new

or younger teachers. I feel it is so important to provide these teachers with strong

supports and solid foundations so that they will have a better self-efficacy, but also to

ensure they become valuable, contributing members of the school community.

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