Provisional University Bulletin (2026-2027)

• Minor
• Major (BA)
• Master in Education
• Advanced Graduate Study

The Education Program pursues goals that neatly fit the mission of the School of Arts & Sciences, Brandeis University, and the Brandeis Framework for the Future, including a “reverence for learning, the exercise of critical thinking, and a commitment to improving the world through one’s talents and actions.” In this spirit, we want our graduates to:

• View educational processes, institutions, and practices in interdisciplinary perspective
• Understand the strengths and challenges of diverse students and the ways that they learn
• Think critically about educational opportunity, equity and achievement in relation to race/ethnicity, social class, gender, sexuality, language and disability
• Be able to recognize the context and potential of schools as places of growth and learning for both students and educators
• Understand how educational institutions (both schools and informal settings) intersect with other social, economic, political, and cultural institutions to shape patterns of opportunity and exclusion in the United States and beyond
• Develop the tools to think in complex ways about schooling’s potential and limits as a tool of social transformation

• And become reflective educators, citizens, and scholars who will work with others to make change

Undergraduate Education Studies Major

The Education Studies major is designed for students interested in the social, historical, and cultural contexts of education and the role of education in shaping policy, practice, learning, and identity. This major encourages students to think critically about such questions as: How do various political, economic, historical, psychological, and social forces shape education and public expectations for school? What does schooling teach us about society? How do PK-12 schooling and higher education shape individual and communal identities and life opportunities? How can we better understand and guide learning in and out of school? What kinds of learning, schools, and teachers do young people need and deserve?

A Brandeis graduate with an Education Studies major will be prepared to pursue:

• education policy, legislative, or nonprofit work;
• careers in education-related fields such as school psychology, higher education, informal education, museum education;
• graduate study and a career in teaching; and/or
• graduate study and a scholarly career in education or a wide range of other disciplines.

In addition to developing skills and habits of inquiry, critical thinking, and analysis associated with a strong liberal arts education, Education Studies majors will acquire a historical and comparative understanding of schooling, a deeper understanding of teaching and learning, educational research skills, and an understanding of the ethical dimensions of education.

Please note that the Education Studies major alone does not lead to a teaching license. Students interested in becoming teachers need to enroll in the teacher education pathway to licensure (see below).

Undergraduate Education Studies Minor

This minor gives students a chance to explore the impact of political, historical, psychological, economic, and social forces that shape education and public expectations for schools. The minor's interdisciplinary approach is suitable both for students interested in the broad social and cultural contexts of education and for those interested in educational careers. 

Please note that the Education Studies minor alone does not lead to a teaching license. Students interested in becoming teachers need to enroll in the teacher education pathway to licensure (see below).

Undergraduate Education Studies Major or Minor + Teaching License

Through the teacher education pathway, students apply what they have learned as Education Studies majors and minors to become licensed educators whose teaching reflects four themes: Teaching for Social Justice, Teaching for Understanding, Teaching All Learners, and Teaching as Inquiry. 

Teaching for Social Justice applies an understanding of systemic issues of in/justice in schools, schooling, and policy (macro) to the daily work of teaching (micro). It means forwarding justice in everyday interactions with individuals and groups of students, addressing status inequities in the classroom, and ensuring that each student is challenged and supported.

Teaching for Understanding means moving beyond rote memorization and toward students’ own meaning making and ownership of their learning. Teachers engage students in explorations of rich content and employ a wide variety of instructional approaches, combining high expectations and strong support, to make that content accessible and meaningful.

Teaching ALL Learners means valuing and building upon students’ prior knowledge, experiences, and interests—honoring these as assets in which to ground teaching and learning. Teachers must attend to the diverse intellectual, social, and emotional needs of individual students as well as the broader contexts of teaching and learning.

Teaching as Inquiry or taking an "inquiry stance" refers to the way teachers approach their own and their students’ learning. It means continually and systematically assessing and reflecting on one’s teaching and one’s positionality in order to improve. Teachers understand particulars of their classrooms in a broader theoretical framework.

Graduate Teacher Leadership Program 

This program prepares teachers to partner with administrators and colleagues to address systemic learning challenges and ensure ambitious, equitable and accessible instruction for all students.  The Teacher Leadership Program recognizes that the most important change agents in education are our classroom teachers. Teachers change lives day after day, and the influence of many extends beyond their classrooms, schools, and communities. This hybrid program brings together cohorts of experienced and talented teachers to learn skills essential to becoming effective Teacher Leaders. Focusing on both instructional and institutional policy, the program helps teachers improve their teaching and the teaching of others; foster a collaborative culture to support educator development; facilitate teacher learning in the service of student learning; understand the school as an institution and organization. 

Students have two options to pursue: Advanced Graduate Studies (AGS) or the Master in Education (EdM). Both options combine formal study and guided practice providing teachers with the opportunity to:

• Strengthen their professional identity
• Become part of a robust professional network
• Acquire specific skills and understandings essential to promoting educator development and improving student learning in their schools.

Graduates of the Teacher Leadership Program will be qualified to assume roles such as mentor, team leader or instructional coach and may be eligible to apply for an endorsement in teacher leadership in states that offer them. If you are interested in becoming a department chair, you may need supplementary courses in your content area.

Undergraduate Education Studies Major and Minor

Critical Understandings

Students completing the Education Studies major will be able to:

• Understand schools in various contexts (e.g. cultural, historical, economic, and political), and be able to articulate the ethical and civic dimensions of schooling;
• Think critically about educational opportunity, equity, and achievement in relation to race/ethnicity, social class, gender, and disability;
• Analyze teaching and learning, education and schooling, and student growth and development through various disciplinary lenses;
• Analyze what is taught and how in pk-12 education and connect this to broader theoretical frameworks;
• Use educational research skills to investigate educational issues and challenges.

Core Skills

The Education Studies major emphasizes core skills in analysis, critical thinking, research, and communication. Based on the critical understandings above, Education Studies majors will be prepared to:

• Think critically and write persuasively about the various functions schools perform in a community, with special attention to issues of equality and access in our democracy;
• Use research skills to assess the validity, paradigmatic claims and limits of empirical studies in education;
• Critically evaluate educational research, policy and practice, and develop policy recommendations.

Social Justice

As a liberal arts university with a strong commitment to social justice, Brandeis has a responsibility to contribute to the improvement of education as a key building block of democracy. The Education Studies major examines the various functions schools perform in society, with special attention to the role of public schools in a democracy and the intended and unintended consequences of educational policies and practices on student access and achievement. The Education Studies major enables graduates to acquire and develop the knowledge, skills, and perspectives to examine and act on the ethical and civic dimensions of schooling.

Undergraduate Education Studies Major or Minor + Teaching License

In addition to meeting the learning goals of the Education Studies major or minor, undergraduates following the teacher education pathway meet the goals of Massachusetts teaching licensure. The learning goals for this pathway also link to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Candidate Assessment of Performance (CAP) Standards that are required for licensure. Students also use the Learning For Justice | Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards. 

Students earning a teaching license will demonstrate the ability to:

Plan, Sequence, and Scaffold Instruction and Assessment in ways that . . .

• emphasize enduring understanding, transferable skills, and authentic experiences.
• meet the needs of a diverse student population.
• engage students’ prior knowledge, experiences, cultures, language, identities, and stages of development.
• challenge students intellectually and facilitate students’ independence and mastery.
• give students the support they need to meet high expectations.
• demonstrate deep pedagogical content knowledge. 

Create a Safe Learning Environment for Intellectual and Emotional Development in ways that...

• give students ownership over the intellectual work in the classroom.
• maintain rituals, routines, and responses that support learning.
• engage students in the work of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice.
• integrate and support students’ identities in classroom experiences.

Engage in Reflective Practice by...

• approaching their own and others’ teaching from an inquiry stance.
• integrating theory and practice; linking the macro (big ideas in education) and the micro (small moments in classrooms). 
• seeking out, engaging with, and integrating feedback.
• analyzing observation and assessment data to inform teaching practice.
• analyzing the impact of positionality on teaching and learning. 

Enter a Professional Culture by...

• engaging professionally with others across contexts: in schools, with families, and with the community
• locating themselves and their teaching in the broader culture of schools and schooling

Teacher Leadership Program

The Teacher Leadership Program includes both coursework and a practicum with one-on-one coaching. By the end of the program, Teacher Leaders will be able to:

• Analyze factors that enable and constrain school change (e.g. professional culture, school organization, distribution of authority);
• Refine their vision of good teaching as a basis for teacher learning and assessment;
• Foster a professional culture that supports critical colleagueship;
• Frame worthwhile goals for instructional improvement;
• Design and facilitate productive discussions about teaching and learning with colleagues
• Gather and use data to document inform instructional and school improvement; and
• Express their identity as teacher leaders.

Any undergraduate at Brandeis may begin taking courses in Education Studies and fulfilling requirements of the major or minor at any time, without formal admission. Students typically declare the Education Studies major or minor in the spring of their sophomore year.

Because candidates for the Education Studies major must complete nine courses, including two required courses and an Applied Learning Requirement, students should consult with an education studies advisor no later than the spring of their sophomore year about the program requirements.

No course for the major may be taken on a pass/fail basis. Students must receive a grade of C or higher for any course to be counted as part of the Education Studies major. 

Please note that the Education Studies major alone does not lead to a teaching license. Students interested in becoming licensed as teachers need to enroll in the teacher education pathway and fulfill specific additional requirements governed by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (see details below).

While completing the Education Studies major or minor, undergraduates also have the option to pursue Massachusetts teacher licensure through the teacher education pathway. 

Through the teacher education pathway, education studies majors or minors, can pursue certification at one of three grade levels: early childhood (infant, toddler, or PK); elementary (grades 1-6); or secondary (middle and high school, grades 5-12). 

Early childhood and elementary certification/licensure is offered in ‘general education’ meaning that candidates pursuing these licenses will teach all subject areas (i.e. English Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies).

Secondary school teachers are licensed in specific subject areas: English, History, Math, or Science. English refers to English language arts, the teaching of writing and reading, literary and informational texts (not the teaching of English as a second language). Science subjects include: biology, chemistry, general science, and physics.

Students who are considering pursuing a teaching license should begin their preparation by taking ED 10a Introduction to Teaching and Learning (ED100a/b for graduating classes prior to 2026). They should meet with an Education Program advisor in their first year, if possible, so that they can plan a course of study that will meet state licensure requirements as part of their Education Studies major or minor.

Licensure candidates fulfill all of the same Education Studies major/minor course requirements, but within the major, the choices of elective and cluster courses are determined by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education [DESE] and Early Childhood Education [EEC] regulations. Additional requirements, including state tests, performance assessment, and fieldwork, are detailed below.

No course for the major may be taken on a pass/fail basis. Students must receive a grade of B- or higher for any course to be counted as part of the Education Studies major or minor plus licensure. 

Note: Licensure is governed and granted by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education [DESE], not by Brandeis University. The university grants the academic degree not the license. Candidates who successfully fulfill degree program expectations should earn the BA or minor in Education Studies and are also well-positioned to earn an MA Initial Teaching License. Massachusetts Licensure requirements include passing the required Massachusetts Tests of Educator Licensure (MTEL) exams and successfully completing the Candidate Assessment of Performance. Coursework alone does not confer a teaching license.

Teacher Leadership Program is for experienced K-12 teachers who are ready to expand their impact beyond their own classrooms. For information about the Teacher Leadership Program and specific requirements, please visit the program’s website.

The general requirements for admission to the Graduate School, given in an earlier section of this Bulletin, apply to candidates for admission to this program. The Teacher Leadership Program welcomes applications from experienced teachers (K-12) coming from traditional public schools, charter, independent, or Jewish day schools who are interested in strengthening their professional identity, developing new capacities for teacher leadership, and becoming part of a robust professional network. Ideal candidates must have demonstrated initiative, earned the respect and trust of their colleagues, and be considered a very good classroom teacher by their supervisor and peers.

Applications should include all relevant transcripts, a resume, and 2 statements of purpose. The first essay should describe a change the applicant has already attempted to make in their classroom or school and the second should describe their leadership skills, experiences and potential. In lieu of traditional recommendation letters, applicants must have one nomination letter from their principal or Head of School as well as one endorsement letter from a teaching colleague.

To learn more about the AGS and EdM Programs, please email msokolof@brandeis.edu or teacherleadership@brandeis.edu.

Marcie Abramson
Elementary Mathematics Education

Jasmine Alvarado
Educational Leadership and Policy; Bilingual Education; Elementary Education; Family, Community, and School Partnerships

Leah Gordon (on leave 2025-2026)
Education Studies. History of Education. History of Higher Education. Educational Equality.

Ziva Hassenfeld
Literacy Studies. Classrooms in Context. Jewish Education

Danielle Igra
Teaching, Learning, Curriculum, and Assessment. Teacher Education.

Jed Lippard
Teacher Leadership.

Rachel Kramer Theodorou, Director of Teacher Education
Elementary Education. English as a Second Language and Interdisciplinary Education.

Jonathan Krasner, Director of Education
American Studies.

Tanishia Williams, Kay Fellow
Racial Justice, Education, and the Carceral State.

Affiliated Faculty

(contributing to the curriculum, advising and administration of the department or program)

Susan Eaton
Heller School

Colleen Hitchcock
Environmental Studies

Jon Levisohn
Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

James Morris
Biology

Education Studies minors must pass six courses with a grade of C or higher. Pass/Fail courses will not earn credit for the minor.

A. Core course: ED 150b Purpose and Politics of Education (can be taken any time, but often completed in junior or senior year)

B. A second core course (see approved course list below).

C. At least four additional program electives from any of the four clusters as categorized below.

Students may substitute successful completion of an essay, thesis, or internship, as described below, for the fourth elective course option:

1. Essay: an approved research or honors essay, usually taken in the senior year. Students would receive credit for this essay through their department major, or ED 98a (Individual Readings and Research in Education), or an independent study or research course approved by the director of the education program.
2. Honors Thesis: a senior thesis in the student's major that has an emphasis on some aspect of education.
3. Internship: ED 89a Applied Learning with Education Related Internship.

Students must receive a grade of B- or higher in order for coursework to be counted toward licensure requirements. (A grade of C may be counted toward the major or minor without licensure).

Licensure candidates fulfill all of the same Education Studies major/minor course requirements, but their choices of elective and cluster courses are determined by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education [DESE] and Early Childhood Education [EEC] regulations.

• Additional requirements—including state tests, performance assessment, and fieldwork—are detailed under Additional Requirements for Teacher Licensure
• Students must receive a grade of B- or higher for any course to be counted as part of the Education Studies major or minor plus licensure. Pass/Fail is not an option for licensure courses.
• Through the teacher education pathway, education studies majors or minors, can pursue certification at one of three grade levels: early childhood (infant, toddler, or PK); elementary (grades 1-6); or secondary (middle and high school, grades 5-12). 
• Early childhood and elementary certification/licensure is offered in ‘general education’ meaning that candidates pursuing these licenses will teach all subject areas (i.e. English Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies).
• Secondary school teachers are licensed in specific subject areas: English, History, Math, or Science. English refers to English language arts, the teaching of writing and reading, literary and informational texts (not the teaching of English as a second language). Science subjects include: biology, chemistry, general science, and physics.

Required for All Licenses at All Grade levels and in All Subjects

1. ED 150b Purpose and Politics of Education
2. ED 10a Introduction to Teaching and Learning
3. ED 175f Teaching Multilingual Learners [2 credits, Sheltered English Instruction course]
4. ED 125a Special Education: Teaching for Inclusion [2 credits;  Early Childhood licensure candidates may substitute PSYC 168b Disorders of Childhood]
5. ED 60a Supervised Fieldwork in Education [taken twice, once in fall senior year and once before senior year; see details in the fieldwork section under Additional Requirements for Teacher Licensure]
6. ED 89a Applied Learning Seminar [in conjunction with full time student-teaching, spring senior year; see details in the fieldwork section under Additional Requirements for Teacher Licensure]
7. ED 110a Classroom Practicum [in conjunction with full time student-teaching, spring senior year; see details in the fieldwork section under Additional Requirements for Teacher Licensure]

Additional Requirements for Early Childhood and Elementary Licenses (Infant, Toddler, PreK, Grades 1-6)

1. ED 101a Literacy, Literature, and Social Justice (grades PK-6)
2. PSYC 33a Developmental Psychology

Additional Requirements for Elementary License (Grades 1-6)

1. ED 101b Teaching Science and History for Social Change (grades PK-6)
2. ED 105a Structure, Concepts, and Best Practices in Mathematics (grades PK-6)

Additional Requirements for Early Childhood (Infant, Toddler, PreK)

1. An additional teaching and learning course for early childhood education that includes a pre-practicum and is approved by the advisor.

Additional Requirements for Secondary License (Grades 5-12)

1. ED 104a Reimagining Teaching (grades 6-12+) The subject area for this course—English, Math, History, or Science—rotates each year. Licensure candidates should take the course for their specific subject area when it is offered.
2. ED 144a or ED 145a or another four-credit teaching and learning course for middle/high school that is approved by the advisor, and that includes an ED 60a pre-practicum.
3. PSYC 36b Adolescence and the Transition to Maturity

Education Studies majors must pass nine courses with a grade of C or higher. Pass/Fail courses will not earn credit for the major.

A. ED 150b Purpose and Politics of Education

All Education Studies majors are required to enroll in this course during their studies, preferably in their junior or senior year.

B. ED 165a Reading (and Talking Back to) Research on Education

Required research course to be taken in fall of sophomore or junior year.

C. Applied Learning Experience

Education Studies majors are required to complete the Applied Learning Experience Requirement by one of the means outlined below.

D. Three elective courses in one of the four clusters:

• Education, Equity, and Social Change
• Teaching and Learning In and Outside of Schools
• Human Creativity and Development
• Jewish Formal and Informal Education

E. Three additional elective courses

Majors enroll in three additional elective courses: one in each of two other clusters, and one additional elective courses from any of the four clusters. See courses listed in clusters below. Courses cannot be double counted to fulfill the three-course requirement in a cluster and the requirement to take a course in each of two other clusters.

F. Foundational Literacies: As part of completing the Education Studies major, students must:

• Fulfill the writing intensive requirement by successfully completing any WI-designated course offered by any program in the Division of Creative Arts, Humanities, or Social Sciences.
• Fulfill the oral communication requirement by successfully completing one of the following: ED 165a, ED 170a, LING 197a, or THA 138b, or any OC-designated ED Studies course.
• Fulfill the digital literacy requirement by successfully copmleting any DL-designated course offered by any program in the Division of Creative Arts, Humanities, or Social Sciences.

G. Other Considerations: Elective Credit for Independent Studies & Internships

Essay: An approved research or honors essay, usually taken in the senior year, may substitute for one of the six elective courses. Students would enroll in ED 98a (Individual Readings and Research in Education), or an independent study or research course approved by the director of the education program to earn elective credit for the major.

Internship: All students must take internships as part of the Applied Learning Experience in conjunction with ED 89a.  If a student takes on a second internship, this may be taken with ED 192 (4 credits) or ED 92 (2 credits) or ED 110a for teacher licensure. No more than two internships may be counted towards the Education Studies Major (unless completing the Teacher Licensure Pathway).

H. Honors: Students who wish to be considered for honors in education studies will be required to complete a senior thesis. Students intending to complete an honors thesis must discuss their potential topic with the Education Program Thesis Coordinator and submit an application in May of their junior year.

Please note that majors who intend to do an honors thesis involving empirical research are required to have completed a research course before their senior year.

Applied Learning offers a structured opportunity to incorporate learning beyond the Brandeis classroom—through community engagement, apprenticeship, teaching, research, or other experiential learning in the field of education. Education is a multidisciplinary field that brings together research, policy, and practice in, for example: psychology, sociology, history, politics, economics, and a host of other fields. Applied Learning experiences help students ground the broader theoretical frameworks of education studies in real-world contexts. Applied Learning seminars such as ED89a bring students together to learn from each other’s experiences beyond the university.

The Applied Learning Experience must be Pre-Approved in writing and can be met through either an Applied Learning Internship & Seminar or a Thesis/Capstone.

Applied Learning Internship

Each student is responsible for researching and securing an internship in advance of the seminar. All internships must be pre-approved in writing by the Education Program’s Internship Coordinator/ED 89a Instructor. 

Internships are completed in an education-related organization, which the Education Program defines broadly to include, for example: a school; a school district office; a not-for-profit; a policy, law, or reform related organization; a counseling setting; an informal education setting; or another type of organization engaged in educational work, advocacy, or policy. 

The internship may be completed locally or in another context, including in study abroad (see below for seminar requirements for internships completed abroad).

Applied Learning Seminar ED 89a

The seminar serves to help students: learn from each other’s internship experiences, broaden their visions of education, and connect the internship to frameworks, principles, and practices that they have learned in their Education Studies coursework.

ED 89a Applied Learning Seminar can be taken in the spring after or concurrent with the internship, as long as the internship and seminar have been approved—in writing, in advance—by the internship coordinator/ED 89 instructor. 

Even if the internship is not completed concurrently with ED 89, assignments are required during the internship. 

Students completing the internship while abroad, may (with written pre-approval) substitute an equivalent course, taken concurrently with the internship, for ED 89a Applied Learning Seminar.

Four-credit fall or spring academic internships must be a minimum of 10 weeks in length and 100 hours, while those in the summer must be a minimum of 6 weeks in length and 100 hours.

Because students spend 100+ hours in the field, the seminar class meetings and coursework comprise the remaining 80 hours of coursework required for a four credit course.

Education Related Senior Thesis or Capstone Paper as Applied Learning

Students completing an education related senior thesis (either in the Education Program or in another department or program) may count this work towards their Applied Learning Requirement.  In special circumstances, where a student wants to complete a semester long independent research project but not a full year thesis, an independent study or capstone paper can be substituted for the Applied Learning Requirement.  Work as a research assistant on faculty-led research projects, that is approved by both the faculty researcher and the internship coordinator and meets the required hours, may also count towards the Applied Learning requirement.

Students must receive a grade of B- or higher in order for coursework to be counted toward licensure requirements. (A grade of C may be counted toward the major or minor without licensure).

Licensure candidates fulfill all of the same Education Studies major/minor course requirements, but their choices of elective and cluster courses are determined by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education [DESE] and Early Childhood Education [EEC] regulations. 

• Additional requirements—including state tests, performance assessment, and fieldwork—are detailed under Additional Requirements for Teacher Licensure
• Students must receive a grade of B- or higher for any course to be counted as part of the Education Studies major or minor plus licensure. Pass/Fail is not an option for licensure courses.
• Through the teacher education pathway, education studies majors or minors, can pursue certification at one of three grade levels: early childhood (infant, toddler, or PK); elementary (grades 1-6); or secondary (middle and high school, grades 5-12). 
• Early childhood and elementary certification/licensure is offered in ‘general education’ meaning that candidates pursuing these licenses will teach all subject areas (i.e. English Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies).
• Secondary school teachers are licensed in specific subject areas: English, History, Math, or Science. English refers to English language arts, the teaching of writing and reading, literary and informational texts (not the teaching of English as a second language). Science subjects include: biology, chemistry, general science, and physics.

Required for All Licenses at All Grade Levels and All Subjects

1. ED 150b Purpose and Politics of Education
2. ED 165a Reading (and Talking Back to) Research on Education
3. ED 10a Introduction to Teaching and Learning
4. ED 175f Teaching Multilingual Learners [2 credits, Sheltered English Instruction course]
5. ED 125a Special Education: Teaching for Inclusion [2 credits; Early Childhood licensure candidates may substitute PSYC 168b Disorders of Childhood]
6. ED 60a Supervised Fieldwork in Education [taken twice, once in fall senior year and once before senior year; see details in the fieldwork section under Additional Requirements for Teacher Licensure]
7. ED 89a Applied Learning Seminar [in conjunction with full time student-teaching, spring senior year; see details in the fieldwork section under Additional Requirements for Teacher Licensure]
8. ED 110a Classroom Practicum [in conjunction with full time student-teaching, spring senior year; see details in the fieldwork section under Additional Requirements for Teacher Licensure]

Additional Requirements for Early Childhood and Elementary Licenses (Infant, Toddler, PreK, Grades 1-6)

1. ED 101a Literacy, Literature, and Social Justice (grades PK-6)
2. PSYC 33a Developmental Psychology

Additional Requirements for Elementary License (Grades 1-6)

1. ED 101b Teaching Science and History for Social Change (grades PK-6)
2. ED 105a Structure, Concepts, and Best Practices in Mathematics (grades PK-6)

Additional Requirements for Early Childhood (Infant, Toddler, PreK)

1. An additional teaching and learning course for early childhood education that includes a pre-practicum and is approved by the advisor.

Additional Requirements for Secondary License (Grades 5-12)

1. ED 104a Reimagining Teaching (grades 6-12+) The subject area for this course—English, Math, History, or Science—rotates each year. Licensure candidates should take the course for their specific subject area when it is offered.
2. ED 144a or ED 145a or another four-credit teaching and learning course for middle/high school that is approved by the advisor, and that includes an ED 60a pre-practicum.
3. PSYC 36b Adolescence and the Transition to Maturity

Honors

Students who wish to be considered for honors in education studies will be required to complete a senior thesis. Students who are pursuing licensure, which requires full time teaching in spring of senior year, must begin their senior thesis well in advance and gain approval early on in their junior year.

Please note that majors who intend to do an honors thesis involving empirical research are required to have completed a research course before their senior year.

Fieldwork Requirements

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education governs fieldwork guidelines. 

Elementary and Secondary Licensure Fieldwork Requirements

• TWO Pre-Practica at two different school sites.

1. These are credited in two different courses that each connects to a 2-credit ED 60a Supervised Fieldwork in Education. See list of courses that include a fieldwork option. One section of ED 60a should be taken in fall of senior year as the prelude to full-responsibility practicum in spring of senior year.

• ONE ‘Full’ Practicum that includes:
  1. 100 hours of full responsibility for classroom teaching as part of ≥ 300 of student-teaching
  2. This is credited through:
     1. a four credit internship ED 110a (≥180 hours of fieldwork), PLUS
     2. a four credit seminar ED 89a (≥100 hours of fieldwork + 80 hours of coursework)

The full-practicum alongside 89a should be completed in the spring of senior year, after all other coursework has been completed.

Early Childhood Education Certificate (EEC) Fieldwork Requirements for Certification

Teacher & Lead Teacher Certification requires 450 hours of fieldwork at Lemberg Children’s Center including:

• ED 10a - Intro to Teaching and Learning with 48 hours of fieldwork
• 8 additional credits of student teaching credited through:
  • a four credit internship ED 110a (≥180 hours of fieldwork), PLUS
  • a four credit seminar ED 89a (≥100 hours of fieldwork + 80 hours of coursework)

Subject Matter Knowledge (SMK) Requirements for Licensure

Overview 

This list of content areas needed to demonstrate functional subject matter knowledge at the elementary level and for specific subject area licenses in secondary (middle/high) school teaching. Consult your teacher education pathway advisor for specific guidance in fulfilling functional SMK requirements. 

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) requires prospective teachers to demonstrate a functional level of subject matter knowledge (SMK) in order to pursue a provisional license and a fluent level of SMK to earn an initial license, the license for which the Brandeis Education Program licensure pathway prepares candidates. 

According to DESE guidelines, functional knowledge is knowledge of the subject itself (at a university level). A fluent level of subject matter knowledge is not only knowledge of the subject itself, but an ability to teach the subject in a range of contexts; this is also called pedagogical content knowledge. 

The Brandeis Education Program, licensure pathway includes coursework to develop fluent, pedagogical content knowledge in their subject areas. However, the program requires students to demonstrate functional knowledge of subject matter prior to beginning the full-responsibility student teaching internship. 

The Massachusetts Department Early Education and Care cites 14 Categories of Study and requires prospective Lead Teachers to have completed course work in a minimum of 4 of 10 Categories of Study which are specific for LT certification.  To demonstrate a functional level of skills in the 10 Categories of Study specific for Lead Teachers is assessed while you pursue this certification for which Brandeis Teacher Education Program prepares candidates conjointly with the staff of the Lemberg Children’s Center, Inc. 

Functional subject matter knowledge must be demonstrated in two ways: 

1. Passing the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure (MTEL)

All teacher candidates must take the MTEL in the areas under which they will be licensed. At Brandeis, these tests must be taken before beginning the full-time student-teaching internship. For clarification on which MTELs are required for which areas of licensure, please consult the DESE website. All licenses require passing the Communication and Literacy Skills MTEL in addition to the grade level and subject area test/s. 

2. Earning a B- or higher in subject matter knowledge coursework

Candidates for initial licensure must have earned a B- or higher in sufficient coursework in the topics covered by the MTEL and Massachusetts frameworks listed here. Teaching at the secondary (grades 5-12) level requires university coursework in functional SMK. To teach at the elementary level, some of the functional SMK may be demonstrated through AP exams. 

The Teacher Leadership Program in Advanced Graduate Study (AGS) is designed for talented and experienced teachers interested in gaining leadership skills that will empower them to influence policy and practice in their own schools and beyond. This 13-month program prepares graduates to create change in their schools by improving pedagogical practices and fostering a collaborative culture that leads to greater student and educator learning.

Program of Study

The AGS program includes two intensive summer semesters of in-residence classes at Brandeis and two semesters of distance learning during the academic year. During the school year, AGS students participate in a practicum which allows them to practice new skills in their own schools with the support of a coach from the Brandeis Education Program. All AGS students design and implement a teacher leadership initiative which contributes to worthwhile instructional or institutional change.

Course Requirements

• Understanding and Improving Classroom Teaching and Learning (ED 253)
• School Culture, Organization and Change (ED 258)
• Core Practices of Teacher Leadership (ED 256)
• Using Data to Drive School Change (ED 259)
• Experiential Teacher Leadership Practicum (ED 294)
• Leadership, Authority and School Change (ED 251)
• Principles and Practices of Professional Development (ED 291)

Program of Study

The Teacher Leadership EdM Program includes two intensive summer semesters of in-residence classes at Brandeis and two semesters of distance learning as well as two additional semesters of practitioner research for a total time to completion of 2 years.

Teacher Research

In addition to fulfilling the requirements of the AGS program, all EdM students will conduct a self-study of some aspect of their teacher leader practice. They present their findings at an online research conference at the end of the program.

Course Requirements

• Understanding and Improving Classroom Teaching and Learning (ED 253)
• School Culture, Organization and Change (ED 258)
• Core Practices of Teacher Leadership (ED 256)
• Using Data to Drive School Change (ED 259)
• Experiential Teacher Leadership Practicum (ED 294) - taken twice
• Leadership, Authority and School Change (ED 251)
• Principles and Practices of Professional Development (ED 291)
• Action Research for Teacher Leaders (ED 285)
• Inquiry as Professional Development (ED 286)

Summer Registration

Graduate students in the EdM and AGS in Teacher Leadership programs should register for the courses determined by your program through Workday self-service. 

ED 10a Introduction to Teaching and Learning
[ ss ]

Priority enrollment given to first year and Education students. Cannot be taken for credit by students who have previously taken ED 100a or ED 100b.

A hands-on, interactive, and collaborative exploration of a host of introductory topics in teaching and learning. We’ll engage in and analyze teaching and learning strategies, zooming in on small teaching and learning moments (micro) and zooming out to understand how these represent big ideas in education (macro). We’ll reflect on our own experiences as students and imagine the experiences of students who are different from each of us. All of our work will be guided by the four themes of teacher education at Brandeis: Teaching for Social Justice; Teaching for Understanding; Teaching—and knowing—All Learners; and Teaching as Inquiry.

Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms. Usually offered every year.

ED 21a Reading Teens: Learning from Young Adult Literature
[ ss ]

Why YA? Young Adult literature isn’t always taken seriously, but it raises serious questions about crucial social issues. It wrestles with questions of identity and equity and what it means to be human. Plus, dragons. Voracious consumers of YA often don’t see themselves as “readers,” and yet they bring sophisticated strategies to their reading—strategies that could be leveraged for a lifetime of reading across genres. In this course we’ll explore a host of questions about the genre, including: What is it about YA lit that keeps teens reading? How might YA lit expand the traditional English curriculum in schools? What is the role of YA lit in the classroom and in students’ lives? What can we learn by leaning into YA lit? This course involves a LOT of reading—some of it scholarly, and much of it curl-up-on-the-couch delicious. Usually offered every second year.

ED 60a Supervised Fieldwork in Education

Prerequisite: Concurrent enrollment in one of the designated education courses that offers a fieldwork option. Yields half-course credit. Open to all, but required for students pursuing teaching licensure.

ED 75b Waltham Speaks: Multilingualism, Advocacy, and Community
[ deis-us ss ]

Grounds community-engaged and service learning in Waltham within theoretical frameworks and practical skills from education and the social sciences. Educators (broadly speaking, in and beyond schools) integrate perspectives from history, policy, psychology, and sociology with teaching pedagogy. Through reflective, responsive, and empathetic learning, students will learn how English learner populations have shaped a community's organizations, schools, and identity. Waltham's school system and service organization leaders will teach students about their work in shaping a responsive and inclusive community. Through interviews, reflective essays, weekly discussions, and a semester-long service project, students will grow habits of mind and practical skills for work in education and beyond. Usually offered every second year.

ED 89a Applied Learning Seminar and Internship
[ ss ]

Instructor permission required. Can be taken in the spring after or concurrent with the Applied Learning Internship, as long as the internship and seminar have been approved—in writing, in advance—by the internship coordinator/instructor.

This course offers a structured opportunity to apply classroom learning to self-directed, community based, or experiential learning. The seminar serves to help students: learn from each other’s internship experiences, broaden their visions of education, and connect the internship to frameworks, principles, and practices that they have learned in their Education Studies coursework. Usually offered every year.

ED 92a Education Internship and Analysis

Usually offered every year.

ED 98a Individual Readings and Research in Education

Usually offered every year.

ED 98b Individual Readings and Research in Education

Yields half-course credit. Usually offered every year.

ED 99a Senior Thesis

Seniors who are candidates for degrees with honors in education studies must register for this course in their final semester and, under the direction of a faculty member, prepare an honors thesis on a suitable topic. Usually offered every semester.

ED 99b Senior Thesis

Prerequisite: Instructor permission. Students are expected to have completed ED 165a by the end of their junior year and prior to starting a senior thesis.

Seniors who are candidates for degrees with honors in education studies must register for this course in their final semester and, under the direction of a faculty member, prepare an honors thesis on a suitable topic. Usually offered every semester.

AMST/ED 120a History of Higher Education in the U.S.
[ deis-us ss ]

Explores the history of higher education in the United States from the nation's formation to the present. Readings outline the competing purposes Americans envisioned for colleges and universities, as well as student life, institutional access, and visions of the relationship between excellence and equity. The course explores patterns of inclusion and exclusion based on race, class, ethnicity, religion, and gender and how universities served as sites where class was produced and contested. Students explore the post-World War II democratization of American higher education, the politics of college admissions, and recent movements to make college more affordable. The course also raises questions about the power universities came to hold as centers of knowledge-making networks and universities as sites of political activism. Usually offered every third year.

AMST/ED 121a Education and Equity in Modern American History
[ deis-us ss ]

Focusing on educational inequities related to race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status, this course examines twentieth century American efforts to make schools more equal, and in the process to make the social, economic, and racial order more just and fair. The course focuses on the ways Americans have addressed three core questions: What is educational equity? What is the relationship between school desegregation and equalization? Can equal schools create an equal society? By exploring how Americans thought about and sought to institutionalize their answers to these questions, the course investigates the promise and pitfalls of treating schooling as an egalitarian tool. Usually offered every third year.

ED 101a Literacy, Literature, and Social Justice (Grades PK-6)
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: ED 10a, ED 100a, or ED 100b. Open to all, priority for Ed Studies and teacher licensure students. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Focuses on principles and effective procedures for teaching reading strategies, writing process, and social studies in elementary classrooms. Students will study, practice, and reflect upon concepts in: writing development and assessment, reading comprehension strategies to meet needs of diverse learners, unit development via Understanding by Design pedagogy, and practice in teaching social studies in order to promote civic engagement and cultural awareness. Usually offered every second year.

ED 101b Teaching Science and History for Social Change (Grades PK-6)
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: ED 10a, ED 100a, or ED 100b. Open to all, priority for Ed Studies and teacher licensure students. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Focuses on principles and effective procedures for teaching elementary students inquiry-based science. Examines how art, creative drama, multicultural education, special education, and physical education affect teaching and learning. Usually offered every second year.

ED 104a Reimagining Teaching
[ ss ]

Ever have a teacher who made you love a subject (or loathe it)? Ever have a teacher who really saw you and knew you (or didn’t)? Imagine what it would be like if learning could be meaningful for all students.

Each year, this course focuses on a specific subject area—English, history, math, or science—and reimagines how it could be taught in middle school, high school, and college. Instead of thinking of teaching as "covering the content," we’ll focus on genuinely engaging students—students from all backgrounds and experiences. Participants will learn how to develop student-centered curriculum, instruction, and assessments that encourage students’ exploration and collaboration.

This course assumes a strong background in the subject area focus for that year and/or a previous course on teaching and learning. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms. Usually offered every fall semester.

ED 105a Structure, Concepts, and Best Practices in Mathematics: Elementary
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: ED 10a, ED 100a, or ED 100b. MATH 3a is recommended but not required. Open to all, priority for Ed Studies and teacher licensure students. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Current research, strategies, and philosophies in and about the learning and teaching of mathematics in elementary classrooms. Emphasizes understanding the important math concepts, best practices, and class structures that all help to build a solid and positive learning experience for all students. Usually offered every second year.

ED 110a Classroom Teaching Practicum

Prerequisites: Pre-practicum coursework and fieldwork at two different sites and advisor approval. Required for Massachusetts teaching license. Minimum 300 hours of supervised classroom teaching, assignments, and licensure documentation. Taken concurrently with ED89a, internship course and includes minimum 100 hours of full responsibility for classroom teaching.

Supervised teaching internship designed to help those in the final stages of earning their teaching license connect theory and practice. Students gradually build proficiency in teaching, adding responsibilities and skills over time. Students have guided opportunities to observe, plan, and teach core subjects, to manage classrooms, to get to know students and families, and to participate fully in the life of the school. Interns receive regular mentoring from school and university personnel. Usually offered every spring.

ED 114a Family Engagement in Schools
[ deis-us ss ]

Examines various conceptualizations for family engagement in U.S. schools and how a range of actors, entities, and conditions shape the experiences that families have in schools. This seminar course also analyzes key sociohistorical conditions that shape the reproduction and contestation of inequities for families in U.S. schools. Usually offered every year.

ED 115a The Reading Wars: What is Reading and Why Do We Love to Fight About It?
[ ss ]

Recent media rhetoric has hyped up a supposed dichotomy between an imagined protagonist, who represent “the science of reading," and an enemy--those scholars of “balanced literacy” and their misinformed classroom acolytes who are anti-phonics and anti-science. This invented drama is replete with financial scandals, and the stakes are not only moral but also impact the very health and fabric of our society. And yet, the scholars of literacy themselves emphatically deny the entire dichotomy.

ED 120b Religion and Higher Education
[ ss ]

Examines the interplay between religion and higher education in the United States, both historically and during current times. Students will consider all facets of the higher education realm, from the laws and policies that govern it, to the diverse students and employees that make up its campuses. This discussion-based class will take the time to consider how people from varied religious, secular, and spiritual backgrounds experience higher education, and how Christian privilege impacts that experience. Finally, it will examine some of the most pressing issues related to religion and higher education in our time, including campus protests and free speech issues. Usually offered every second year.

ED 125a Special Education, Teaching for Inclusion

Yields half-course credit. May not be taken for credit by students who took ED 125f in prior years. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Participants in this course will explore characteristics of students who have moderate disabilities and learn how these students' learning can be supported. Participants will be introduced to the laws, technologies, and school structures that pertain to special education. They will practice analyzing, preparing, implementing, and evaluating Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Usually offered every second year.

ED 144a Look Who’s Talking: Student Voice and Classroom Discourse

Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Teaching is about students, who they are, how they learn, and what they bring to the classroom, that is: their funds of knowledge. While traditional teaching uses a "banking model" in which teachers “deposit” information into students’ empty brains; this course reimagines what that bank would look like if students were the ones with the funds. In this course, participants practice classroom structures in which students, rather than teachers, do the bulk of the intellectual work. The course examines small interactions in classrooms (micro) to understand big ideas about education (macro). Usually offered every second year.

ED 145a Making the Grade: Equity and Assessment

Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

The word “assessment” usually conjures images of standardized tests and educational inequity—but it doesn’t have to be that way. In this course, we’ll look at the ways that assessment has been used to reify inequities and also explore alternative, more equitable, approaches. Together, we’ll develop ways to create supportive learning environments in which assessments build on and support students’ existing strengths and skills. We’ll explore ways to "differentiate" for students' differing needs and learn how to create collaborative environments that embolden students to take academic risks. Usually offered every second year.

ED 150b Purpose and Politics of Education
[ deis-us ss ]

Focuses on the United States and introduces students to foundational questions in the interdisciplinary field of Education Studies. We explore competing goals Americans have held for K-12 and post-secondary education and ask how these visions have (or have not) influenced school, society, and educational policy. We pay particular attention to educational stratification; localism; segregation; privatization; and the relationship between schooling and equality. Usually offered every year.

ED 155b Education and Social Policy
[ oc ss wi ]

Examines the various functions that schools perform in a community, with special attention to the intended and unintended consequences of contemporary policies such as special education, desegregation, charter schools, and the standards/accountability movement. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Gordon

ED 161b Religious Education in America
[ hum oc ]

No principle stands more sacred in American public education than separation of Church and state. Public schools pride themselves as neutral playing fields when it comes to matters of religion. But this position belies a more complicated history. American public schools were initially founded by protestant leaders concerned with an influx of non-protestant immigrants during the middle of the 19th century. Indeed, despite lip service to ideas like separation of Church and state, American educational leaders long saw schools as a vehicle for promoting a Protestant inflected American culture. This course begins from the premise that American education and American religion have always existed in relationship. Religious groups have sometimes tried to use the public schools as vehicles to advance their religion, sometimes, they have created supplemental schools, and sometimes they have created whole parallel school systems. But in all cases, education and religion in America are intertwined. This course asks when education is religious and when religion is educational. It examines a series of case studies drawn from different faith communities including Judaism, Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, and Islam. Usually offered every second year.

ED 165a Reading (and Talking Back to) Research on Education
[ oc ss ]

Open to education studies majors only. May be repeated once for credit.

In this required capstone course for education studies majors, students will review quantitative and qualitative research through disciplinary lenses. Students pursue some topic of inquiry by either reviewing and synthesizing educational research, or conducting some empirical research. Usually offered every year.

ED 170a Race, Power, and Urban Education
[ deis-us oc ss wi ]

Examines the nature of urban schools, their links to the social and political context, and the perspectives of the people who inhabit them. Explores the historical development of urban schools; the social, economic, and personal hardships facing urban students; and challenges of urban school reform. Usually offered every year.

ED 171b Latinx-e K-12 Education: Challenges and Possibilities
[ dl ss ]

Examines conceptualizations of Latine/x families and communities in U.S. K-12 schools, and how a range of actors, entities, and inequities shape the experiences that Latine/x students have in U.S. schools. This seminar course also analyzes key socio-historical conditions that shape contemporary approaches toward Latine/x student learning and schooling. Usually offered every year.

ED 172a Race Theories and Education
[ ss ]

Examines how racial hierarchies are constructed, maintained, and challenged within the U.S. public education system. Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws from law, sociology, philosophy, history, cultural studies, and education, the course pushes students to interrogate the political, epistemological, and material foundations of schooling. While Critical Race Theory serves as an anchoring framework, a variety of theories will be explored not as static frameworks, but as living traditions engaged in ongoing struggle, resistance, and reimagination.

Students will be expected not only to understand these theories but to actively engage with them—to apply, extend, repurpose, and imagine their use in policy, curriculum, pedagogy, and community action. Additionally, students will reflect on their own educational experiences and those of communities historically excluded from power. Together, we will analyze how schools function as both instruments of racial stratification and sites of possibility. Usually offered every year.

ED 173b The Psychology of Love: Education for Close Relationships
[ ss ]

Students will be selected after the submission of a sample of writing on adult loving relationships.

What is love? How does it develop? How do psychologists study how people think, feel and behave in close relationships? These questions will guide our inquiry and inform our guiding question: how can we educate young people to better care for their friends, lovers and intimates? Usually offered every year.

ED 175f Teaching Multilingual Learners

Yields half-course credit. May not be taken for credit by students who took ED 175a in prior years. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Examines the intersection of culture and language and the process of second language acquisition. Participants will discuss specific issues confronting bilingual students, including testing, family involvement, and a variety of challenges facing children who enter American elementary, middle, or high schools. Through the study of cases, classrooms, and children, participants will observe, analyze, and reflect upon the teaching and learning of English Learners. Participants will analyze linguistic and cultural demands of lessons and become familiar with instructional strategies for teaching English Learners. Usually offered every second year.

ED 192a Education Internship and Analysis

Usually offered every year.

ED/HRNS 168a Summer Camp: The American Jewish Experience

How did American summer camps evolve? How did Jews appropriate this form for their communal needs? How did leadership develop and what are the pressing issues of today? These questions will be examined from historical, educational, and managerial perspectives. Usually offered every second year.

ED/NEJS 170b Inside Jewish Education: Language, Literacy, and Reading
[ hum ]

Combines autobiography, classroom videotapes, curriculum investigation and fieldwork to explore the purposes, practices and effects of contemporary Jewish education in its many forms and venues. Usually offered every other year.

ED 251 Leadership, Authority, and School Change

Yields three semester-hour credits.

Focuses on a developmental model of teacher development, instructional and institutional leadership in schools, modeling and building of professional learning communities, and reflections on the challenges and opportunities of teacher leadership. Usually offered every second year.

ED 253 Understanding and Improving Classroom Teaching and Learning

Yields three semester-hour credits.

Focuses on the theory and practice of becoming an instructional leader. Participants will experience and then practice key leadership skills which can support their work with individual teachers and with groups. Usually offered every year.

ED 256 Core Practices of Teacher Leadership

Prerequisites: ED 253 and ED 258. Yields three semester-hour credits.

Enables students to learn core practices to support their work as teacher leaders in their schools and to use a collaborative online space to gain feedback on their teacher leadership initiatives. Usually offered every year.

ED 258 School Organization, Culture, and Change

Yields three semester-hour credits. Enrollment limited to participants in the Teacher Leadership program.

Lays a conceptual and practical foundation for assuming responsibilities related to improving instruction as well as the overall functioning of the school as a learning environment for both teachers and students. Usually offered every year.

ED 259 Using Data to Drive School Change

Prerequisites: ED 253 and ED 258. Yields three semester-hour credits.

Strengthens students' understandings and skills related to curriculum and assessment and provides a collaborative online space for feedback and problem solving related to their teacher leader initiatives. Usually offered every second year.

ED 285 Action Research for Teacher Leaders

Prerequisite: ED 253 and ED 258. Yields three semester-hour credits. Enrollment limited to participants in the Teacher Leadership program.

Teacher leaders learn how to be practitioners who bring an inquiry stance to document efforts to strengthen teaching and learning in their schools. Masters students develop a research plan, review relevant literature, and collect and analyze data. Usually offered every year.

ED 286 Inquiry as Professional Development

Prerequisites: ED 253 and ED 258. Yields three semester-hour credits. Enrollment limited to participants in the Teacher Leadership program.

Enables teacher leaders to develop their inquiry stance so that they can find the best ways to foster teacher learning in service of student learning and asses the effects. Usually offered every year.

ED 291 Principles and Practices of Professional Development

Prerequisites: ED 253, ED 258 and ED 259. Corequisite: ED 251. Yields three semester-hour credits. Enrollment limited to participants in the Teacher Leadership program.

Examines the central focus of teacher leadership-- working with colleagues to improve the quality of instruction in schools. This course will deepen your skills as an observer of teaching and learning, a mentor to novice teachers, a practitioner of action research and a leader of professional learning. Usually offered every year.

ED 294 Experiential Teacher Leadership Practicum

Prerequisites: ED 253 and ED 258. Corequisite: ED 256 or ED 259. Yields three semester-hour credits. Enrollment limited to participants in the Teacher Leadership program.

Enables teacher leaders, working with their coaches, to learn key skills and tools to support their teacher leader initiatives and the development of their new professional identity as a teacher leader. Usually offered every semester.

ED 298a Independent Study

ED/HRNS 390a Independent Study

ED/HRNS 391a Independent Study

Yields half-course credit.

ED/HRNS 391f Independent Study

Half-semester course. Yields half-course credit.

AMST 150a The History of Childhood and Youth in America
[ ss ]

Examines history, cultural ideas, and policies about childhood and youth, as well as children's literature, television, and other media for children and youth. Includes an archival-based project on the student movement in the 1960s. Usually offered every second year.

AMST/ED 120a History of Higher Education in the U.S.
[ deis-us ss ]

Explores the history of higher education in the United States from the nation's formation to the present. Readings outline the competing purposes Americans envisioned for colleges and universities, as well as student life, institutional access, and visions of the relationship between excellence and equity. The course explores patterns of inclusion and exclusion based on race, class, ethnicity, religion, and gender and how universities served as sites where class was produced and contested. Students explore the post-World War II democratization of American higher education, the politics of college admissions, and recent movements to make college more affordable. The course also raises questions about the power universities came to hold as centers of knowledge-making networks and universities as sites of political activism. Usually offered every third year.

AMST/ED 121a Education and Equity in Modern American History
[ deis-us ss ]

Focusing on educational inequities related to race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status, this course examines twentieth century American efforts to make schools more equal, and in the process to make the social, economic, and racial order more just and fair. The course focuses on the ways Americans have addressed three core questions: What is educational equity? What is the relationship between school desegregation and equalization? Can equal schools create an equal society? By exploring how Americans thought about and sought to institutionalize their answers to these questions, the course investigates the promise and pitfalls of treating schooling as an egalitarian tool. Usually offered every third year.

ECON 59b The Economics of Education
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: ECON 2a or ECON 10a.

An introduction to economic analysis of the education sector. Topics include the concept of human capital, private and social return on investment in education, cost-benefit analysis of special educational programs, and issues in the financing of education. Usually offered every second year.

ED 10a Introduction to Teaching and Learning
[ ss ]

Priority enrollment given to first year and Education students. Cannot be taken for credit by students who have previously taken ED 100a or ED 100b.

A hands-on, interactive, and collaborative exploration of a host of introductory topics in teaching and learning. We’ll engage in and analyze teaching and learning strategies, zooming in on small teaching and learning moments (micro) and zooming out to understand how these represent big ideas in education (macro). We’ll reflect on our own experiences as students and imagine the experiences of students who are different from each of us. All of our work will be guided by the four themes of teacher education at Brandeis: Teaching for Social Justice; Teaching for Understanding; Teaching—and knowing—All Learners; and Teaching as Inquiry.

Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms. Usually offered every year.

ED 75b Waltham Speaks: Multilingualism, Advocacy, and Community
[ deis-us ss ]

Grounds community-engaged and service learning in Waltham within theoretical frameworks and practical skills from education and the social sciences. Educators (broadly speaking, in and beyond schools) integrate perspectives from history, policy, psychology, and sociology with teaching pedagogy. Through reflective, responsive, and empathetic learning, students will learn how English learner populations have shaped a community's organizations, schools, and identity. Waltham's school system and service organization leaders will teach students about their work in shaping a responsive and inclusive community. Through interviews, reflective essays, weekly discussions, and a semester-long service project, students will grow habits of mind and practical skills for work in education and beyond. Usually offered every second year.

ED 101a Literacy, Literature, and Social Justice (Grades PK-6)
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: ED 10a, ED 100a, or ED 100b. Open to all, priority for Ed Studies and teacher licensure students. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Focuses on principles and effective procedures for teaching reading strategies, writing process, and social studies in elementary classrooms. Students will study, practice, and reflect upon concepts in: writing development and assessment, reading comprehension strategies to meet needs of diverse learners, unit development via Understanding by Design pedagogy, and practice in teaching social studies in order to promote civic engagement and cultural awareness. Usually offered every second year.

ED 101b Teaching Science and History for Social Change (Grades PK-6)
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: ED 10a, ED 100a, or ED 100b. Open to all, priority for Ed Studies and teacher licensure students. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Focuses on principles and effective procedures for teaching elementary students inquiry-based science. Examines how art, creative drama, multicultural education, special education, and physical education affect teaching and learning. Usually offered every second year.

ED 104a Reimagining Teaching
[ ss ]

Ever have a teacher who made you love a subject (or loathe it)? Ever have a teacher who really saw you and knew you (or didn’t)? Imagine what it would be like if learning could be meaningful for all students.

Each year, this course focuses on a specific subject area—English, history, math, or science—and reimagines how it could be taught in middle school, high school, and college. Instead of thinking of teaching as "covering the content," we’ll focus on genuinely engaging students—students from all backgrounds and experiences. Participants will learn how to develop student-centered curriculum, instruction, and assessments that encourage students’ exploration and collaboration.

This course assumes a strong background in the subject area focus for that year and/or a previous course on teaching and learning. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms. Usually offered every fall semester.

ED 114a Family Engagement in Schools
[ deis-us ss ]

Examines various conceptualizations for family engagement in U.S. schools and how a range of actors, entities, and conditions shape the experiences that families have in schools. This seminar course also analyzes key sociohistorical conditions that shape the reproduction and contestation of inequities for families in U.S. schools. Usually offered every year.

ED 115a The Reading Wars: What is Reading and Why Do We Love to Fight About It?
[ ss ]

Recent media rhetoric has hyped up a supposed dichotomy between an imagined protagonist, who represent “the science of reading," and an enemy--those scholars of “balanced literacy” and their misinformed classroom acolytes who are anti-phonics and anti-science. This invented drama is replete with financial scandals, and the stakes are not only moral but also impact the very health and fabric of our society. And yet, the scholars of literacy themselves emphatically deny the entire dichotomy.

ED 125a Special Education, Teaching for Inclusion

Yields half-course credit. May not be taken for credit by students who took ED 125f in prior years. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Participants in this course will explore characteristics of students who have moderate disabilities and learn how these students' learning can be supported. Participants will be introduced to the laws, technologies, and school structures that pertain to special education. They will practice analyzing, preparing, implementing, and evaluating Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Usually offered every second year.

ED 144a Look Who’s Talking: Student Voice and Classroom Discourse

Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Teaching is about students, who they are, how they learn, and what they bring to the classroom, that is: their funds of knowledge. While traditional teaching uses a "banking model" in which teachers “deposit” information into students’ empty brains; this course reimagines what that bank would look like if students were the ones with the funds. In this course, participants practice classroom structures in which students, rather than teachers, do the bulk of the intellectual work. The course examines small interactions in classrooms (micro) to understand big ideas about education (macro). Usually offered every second year.

ED 145a Making the Grade: Equity and Assessment

Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

The word “assessment” usually conjures images of standardized tests and educational inequity—but it doesn’t have to be that way. In this course, we’ll look at the ways that assessment has been used to reify inequities and also explore alternative, more equitable, approaches. Together, we’ll develop ways to create supportive learning environments in which assessments build on and support students’ existing strengths and skills. We’ll explore ways to "differentiate" for students' differing needs and learn how to create collaborative environments that embolden students to take academic risks. Usually offered every second year.

ED 155b Education and Social Policy
[ oc ss wi ]

Examines the various functions that schools perform in a community, with special attention to the intended and unintended consequences of contemporary policies such as special education, desegregation, charter schools, and the standards/accountability movement. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Gordon

ED 165a Reading (and Talking Back to) Research on Education
[ oc ss ]

Open to education studies majors only. May be repeated once for credit.

In this required capstone course for education studies majors, students will review quantitative and qualitative research through disciplinary lenses. Students pursue some topic of inquiry by either reviewing and synthesizing educational research, or conducting some empirical research. Usually offered every year.

ED 170a Race, Power, and Urban Education
[ deis-us oc ss wi ]

Examines the nature of urban schools, their links to the social and political context, and the perspectives of the people who inhabit them. Explores the historical development of urban schools; the social, economic, and personal hardships facing urban students; and challenges of urban school reform. Usually offered every year.

ED 173b The Psychology of Love: Education for Close Relationships
[ ss ]

Students will be selected after the submission of a sample of writing on adult loving relationships.

What is love? How does it develop? How do psychologists study how people think, feel and behave in close relationships? These questions will guide our inquiry and inform our guiding question: how can we educate young people to better care for their friends, lovers and intimates? Usually offered every year.

SOC 104a Sociology of Education
[ deis-us ss ]

Examines the role of education in society, including pedagogy, school systems, teacher organizations, parental involvement, community contexts, as well as issues of class, race, and gender. Usually offered every third year.

ED 155b Education and Social Policy
[ oc ss wi ]

Examines the various functions that schools perform in a community, with special attention to the intended and unintended consequences of contemporary policies such as special education, desegregation, charter schools, and the standards/accountability movement. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Gordon

ED 170a Race, Power, and Urban Education
[ deis-us oc ss wi ]

Examines the nature of urban schools, their links to the social and political context, and the perspectives of the people who inhabit them. Explores the historical development of urban schools; the social, economic, and personal hardships facing urban students; and challenges of urban school reform. Usually offered every year.

ANTH 61b Language in American Life
[ deis-us oc ss ]

Examines both language-in-use and ideas about language varieties in the United States from an anthropological perspective. Explores how language-in-use emerges from and builds relationships, social hierarchies, professional authority, religious experience, dimensions of identity such as gender and race, and more. Usually offered every second year.

ED 155b Education and Social Policy
[ oc ss wi ]

Examines the various functions that schools perform in a community, with special attention to the intended and unintended consequences of contemporary policies such as special education, desegregation, charter schools, and the standards/accountability movement. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Gordon

ED 161b Religious Education in America
[ hum oc ]

No principle stands more sacred in American public education than separation of Church and state. Public schools pride themselves as neutral playing fields when it comes to matters of religion. But this position belies a more complicated history. American public schools were initially founded by protestant leaders concerned with an influx of non-protestant immigrants during the middle of the 19th century. Indeed, despite lip service to ideas like separation of Church and state, American educational leaders long saw schools as a vehicle for promoting a Protestant inflected American culture. This course begins from the premise that American education and American religion have always existed in relationship. Religious groups have sometimes tried to use the public schools as vehicles to advance their religion, sometimes, they have created supplemental schools, and sometimes they have created whole parallel school systems. But in all cases, education and religion in America are intertwined. This course asks when education is religious and when religion is educational. It examines a series of case studies drawn from different faith communities including Judaism, Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, and Islam. Usually offered every second year.

ED 165a Reading (and Talking Back to) Research on Education
[ oc ss ]

Open to education studies majors only. May be repeated once for credit.

In this required capstone course for education studies majors, students will review quantitative and qualitative research through disciplinary lenses. Students pursue some topic of inquiry by either reviewing and synthesizing educational research, or conducting some empirical research. Usually offered every year.

ED 170a Race, Power, and Urban Education
[ deis-us oc ss wi ]

Examines the nature of urban schools, their links to the social and political context, and the perspectives of the people who inhabit them. Explores the historical development of urban schools; the social, economic, and personal hardships facing urban students; and challenges of urban school reform. Usually offered every year.

LING 197a Language Acquisition and Development
[ dl oc ss ]

Open to all students.

The central problem of first language acquisition is to explain what makes this formidable task possible. Students will learn about the acquisition and development of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics in child language.  Additional topics to be covered include the brain and language development, experimental methods for evaluating the linguistic knowledge of children, second-language acquisition, bilingualism, and heritage language and heritage speakers. The overall goal is to arrive at a coherent picture of the language learning process. Usually offered every second year.


PSYC 36b Adolescence and the Transition to Maturity
[ oc ss ]

Prerequisite: PSYC 10a.

Examines the core issues (identity, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, etc.) that define development during adolescence and the transition to young adulthood. Heavy emphasis is placed on integrating research and theory in understanding adolescence and young adulthood. Usually offered every year.

THA 138b Creative Pedagogy
[ ca oc ]

Explores the individual discovery in human creativity and how this journey impacts the quality and inclusivity of teaching and learning both inside and outside of educational spaces. Students will dig into their own educational experiences and their relationship to creativity in this creativity-engaged space. Using the theoretical stages of creativity, students read research, reflect on their own experiences, try new creative endeavors, and engage in creative collaboration with others with the lens towards inspiring and supporting learning. Students are asked in the course to expand their own creative reach and risk-taking capabilities. Usually offered every second year.

ED 171b Latinx-e K-12 Education: Challenges and Possibilities
[ dl ss ]

Examines conceptualizations of Latine/x families and communities in U.S. K-12 schools, and how a range of actors, entities, and inequities shape the experiences that Latine/x students have in U.S. schools. This seminar course also analyzes key socio-historical conditions that shape contemporary approaches toward Latine/x student learning and schooling. Usually offered every year.

NEJS 135b Philosophy of Jewish Education
[ dl ]
What should Jewish education be? What are its legitimate goals? What are the competing visions of an educated Jew, and how do these influence educational practice? How is Jewish education similar to and different from other kinds of religious education? Usually offered every second year.
Jon Levisohn

AAAS 170a Black Childhoods
[ deis-us ss ]

Explores historical experiences of growing up black in America. We will examine the role of race in shaping experiences and meanings of childhood from slavery to the present day, including studies of black girlhood and boyhood. Usually offered every second year.

AMST 150a The History of Childhood and Youth in America
[ ss ]

Examines history, cultural ideas, and policies about childhood and youth, as well as children's literature, television, and other media for children and youth. Includes an archival-based project on the student movement in the 1960s. Usually offered every second year.

AMST 180b Topics in the History of American Education
[ deis-us ss ]

Examines major themes in the history of American education, including the development of schools; changing ideas about education; the quest for equity and inclusion; the place of religion; the role of the media, and efforts at reform, privatization, and corporatization. Usually offered every second year.

AMST/ED 120a History of Higher Education in the U.S.
[ deis-us ss ]

Explores the history of higher education in the United States from the nation's formation to the present. Readings outline the competing purposes Americans envisioned for colleges and universities, as well as student life, institutional access, and visions of the relationship between excellence and equity. The course explores patterns of inclusion and exclusion based on race, class, ethnicity, religion, and gender and how universities served as sites where class was produced and contested. Students explore the post-World War II democratization of American higher education, the politics of college admissions, and recent movements to make college more affordable. The course also raises questions about the power universities came to hold as centers of knowledge-making networks and universities as sites of political activism. Usually offered every third year.

AMST/ED 121a Education and Equity in Modern American History
[ deis-us ss ]

Focusing on educational inequities related to race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status, this course examines twentieth century American efforts to make schools more equal, and in the process to make the social, economic, and racial order more just and fair. The course focuses on the ways Americans have addressed three core questions: What is educational equity? What is the relationship between school desegregation and equalization? Can equal schools create an equal society? By exploring how Americans thought about and sought to institutionalize their answers to these questions, the course investigates the promise and pitfalls of treating schooling as an egalitarian tool. Usually offered every third year.

AMST/LGLS 141b Juvenile Justice: From Cradle to Custody
[ deis-us djw ss ]

After an overview of the basics of juvenile justice in the United States, this course examines the realities and remedies for the cradle-to-prison pipeline, analyzing this pattern from the perspectives of law, society, and economics, tracing the child's experience along that path, and exploring creative public solutions. Usually offered every second year.

ANTH 132a Why Should I Listen to You? Authority, Expertise, and Education in the 21st Century
[ ss ]

Authority is an important part of education, politics, and society at large. In a world where so few of us have direct access to evidence for that which we believe to be true, expertise is a prevalent way to generate authority and get people to listen. However, scholars and popular media commentators alike have noted that people do not trust experts to the same degree that they did in the 20th century, and the organization of authority is changing rapidly. In this class, we ask, “Who listens to whom and why?” to better understand how and why the nature of authority has changed in the 21st century. In class discussions, we give special attention to how those changes affect education in schools and in the workplace. Usually offered every second year.

EBIO 33b Participatory Science: Bridging Science, Education, and Advocacy
[ sn ss ]

Citizen science (the public generation of science knowledge) from both a practical (through direct participation in research) and theoretical application will be explored as the basis for examining how research, scientific literacy, education, and advocacy projects are complementary. Usually offered every second year.

ECON 59b The Economics of Education
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: ECON 2a or ECON 10a.

An introduction to economic analysis of the education sector. Topics include the concept of human capital, private and social return on investment in education, cost-benefit analysis of special educational programs, and issues in the financing of education. Usually offered every second year.

ED 21a Reading Teens: Learning from Young Adult Literature
[ ss ]

Why YA? Young Adult literature isn’t always taken seriously, but it raises serious questions about crucial social issues. It wrestles with questions of identity and equity and what it means to be human. Plus, dragons. Voracious consumers of YA often don’t see themselves as “readers,” and yet they bring sophisticated strategies to their reading—strategies that could be leveraged for a lifetime of reading across genres. In this course we’ll explore a host of questions about the genre, including: What is it about YA lit that keeps teens reading? How might YA lit expand the traditional English curriculum in schools? What is the role of YA lit in the classroom and in students’ lives? What can we learn by leaning into YA lit? This course involves a LOT of reading—some of it scholarly, and much of it curl-up-on-the-couch delicious. Usually offered every second year.

ED 114a Family Engagement in Schools
[ deis-us ss ]

Examines various conceptualizations for family engagement in U.S. schools and how a range of actors, entities, and conditions shape the experiences that families have in schools. This seminar course also analyzes key sociohistorical conditions that shape the reproduction and contestation of inequities for families in U.S. schools. Usually offered every year.

ED 115a The Reading Wars: What is Reading and Why Do We Love to Fight About It?
[ ss ]

Recent media rhetoric has hyped up a supposed dichotomy between an imagined protagonist, who represent “the science of reading," and an enemy--those scholars of “balanced literacy” and their misinformed classroom acolytes who are anti-phonics and anti-science. This invented drama is replete with financial scandals, and the stakes are not only moral but also impact the very health and fabric of our society. And yet, the scholars of literacy themselves emphatically deny the entire dichotomy.

ED 144a Look Who’s Talking: Student Voice and Classroom Discourse

Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Teaching is about students, who they are, how they learn, and what they bring to the classroom, that is: their funds of knowledge. While traditional teaching uses a "banking model" in which teachers “deposit” information into students’ empty brains; this course reimagines what that bank would look like if students were the ones with the funds. In this course, participants practice classroom structures in which students, rather than teachers, do the bulk of the intellectual work. The course examines small interactions in classrooms (micro) to understand big ideas about education (macro). Usually offered every second year.

ED 145a Making the Grade: Equity and Assessment

Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

The word “assessment” usually conjures images of standardized tests and educational inequity—but it doesn’t have to be that way. In this course, we’ll look at the ways that assessment has been used to reify inequities and also explore alternative, more equitable, approaches. Together, we’ll develop ways to create supportive learning environments in which assessments build on and support students’ existing strengths and skills. We’ll explore ways to "differentiate" for students' differing needs and learn how to create collaborative environments that embolden students to take academic risks. Usually offered every second year.

ED 155b Education and Social Policy
[ oc ss wi ]

Examines the various functions that schools perform in a community, with special attention to the intended and unintended consequences of contemporary policies such as special education, desegregation, charter schools, and the standards/accountability movement. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Gordon

ED 161b Religious Education in America
[ hum oc ]

No principle stands more sacred in American public education than separation of Church and state. Public schools pride themselves as neutral playing fields when it comes to matters of religion. But this position belies a more complicated history. American public schools were initially founded by protestant leaders concerned with an influx of non-protestant immigrants during the middle of the 19th century. Indeed, despite lip service to ideas like separation of Church and state, American educational leaders long saw schools as a vehicle for promoting a Protestant inflected American culture. This course begins from the premise that American education and American religion have always existed in relationship. Religious groups have sometimes tried to use the public schools as vehicles to advance their religion, sometimes, they have created supplemental schools, and sometimes they have created whole parallel school systems. But in all cases, education and religion in America are intertwined. This course asks when education is religious and when religion is educational. It examines a series of case studies drawn from different faith communities including Judaism, Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, and Islam. Usually offered every second year.

ED 170a Race, Power, and Urban Education
[ deis-us oc ss wi ]

Examines the nature of urban schools, their links to the social and political context, and the perspectives of the people who inhabit them. Explores the historical development of urban schools; the social, economic, and personal hardships facing urban students; and challenges of urban school reform. Usually offered every year.

ED 172a Race Theories and Education
[ ss ]

Examines how racial hierarchies are constructed, maintained, and challenged within the U.S. public education system. Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws from law, sociology, philosophy, history, cultural studies, and education, the course pushes students to interrogate the political, epistemological, and material foundations of schooling. While Critical Race Theory serves as an anchoring framework, a variety of theories will be explored not as static frameworks, but as living traditions engaged in ongoing struggle, resistance, and reimagination.

Students will be expected not only to understand these theories but to actively engage with them—to apply, extend, repurpose, and imagine their use in policy, curriculum, pedagogy, and community action. Additionally, students will reflect on their own educational experiences and those of communities historically excluded from power. Together, we will analyze how schools function as both instruments of racial stratification and sites of possibility. Usually offered every year.

ED 175f Teaching Multilingual Learners

Yields half-course credit. May not be taken for credit by students who took ED 175a in prior years. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Examines the intersection of culture and language and the process of second language acquisition. Participants will discuss specific issues confronting bilingual students, including testing, family involvement, and a variety of challenges facing children who enter American elementary, middle, or high schools. Through the study of cases, classrooms, and children, participants will observe, analyze, and reflect upon the teaching and learning of English Learners. Participants will analyze linguistic and cultural demands of lessons and become familiar with instructional strategies for teaching English Learners. Usually offered every second year.

ENG 131b Decolonial Pedagogy
[ deis-us djw hum ]

Familiarizes students in the humanities, social sciences and public policy with an important strain of pedagogical theory, what Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire called 'education as the practice of freedom.' Topics will include diversity, equity and inclusion; embodied teaching and learning; authority, or the lack thereof; grading and assessment; and teaching reading and writing. Special one-time offering, fall 2020.

HSSP 192b Sociology of Disability
[ ss ]

In the latter half of the twentieth century, disability has emerged as an important social-political-economic-medical issue, with its own distinct history, characterized as a shift from "good will to civil rights." Traces that history and the way people with disabilities are seen and unseen, and see themselves. Usually offered every year.

LGLS 137a Knowledge and Punishment
[ hum ]

Embarks on a thought-provoking journey to deepen participants’ understanding of how laws and punishments intricately shape our learning processes and define societal acceptability. This course offers a comprehensive exploration of the legal frameworks that influence our educational systems, shedding light on the subtle ways in which consequences, whether doctrine or unintended, mold our perceptions of what is deemed appropriate. Special one-time offering, spring 2025.

NEJS 171b Tikkun Olam/Repairing the World: Service and Social Justice in Theory and Practice
[ hum ]

What does tikkun olam mean? What is a life of service? What should one learn from service-learning? Does "social justice" actually do any good? This is a service-learning course, and includes a service component in the field. Usually offered every third year.

SOC 104a Sociology of Education
[ deis-us ss ]

Examines the role of education in society, including pedagogy, school systems, teacher organizations, parental involvement, community contexts, as well as issues of class, race, and gender. Usually offered every third year.

SOC 113b Sociology of Race and Racism
[ deis-us ss ]

Provides an introduction to the study of race and racism and focuses on specific socio-historical issues surrounding racial inequality in the United States. A variety of media to examine topics such as the institutionalization of white privilege, the social construction of "otherness", racial formation processes, and racial segregation are used" Usually offered every third year.

WGS 151a The Social Politics of Sexual Education
[ deis-us ss ]

Covers the history and sociocultural politics of sexual education in the Global North with a strong focus on the U.S. Using queer, feminist, disability, and race theory, it examines what shapes "sex" and "education." Usually offered every third year.

ANTH 61b Language in American Life
[ deis-us oc ss ]

Examines both language-in-use and ideas about language varieties in the United States from an anthropological perspective. Explores how language-in-use emerges from and builds relationships, social hierarchies, professional authority, religious experience, dimensions of identity such as gender and race, and more. Usually offered every second year.

EBIO 33b Participatory Science: Bridging Science, Education, and Advocacy
[ sn ss ]

Citizen science (the public generation of science knowledge) from both a practical (through direct participation in research) and theoretical application will be explored as the basis for examining how research, scientific literacy, education, and advocacy projects are complementary. Usually offered every second year.

ED 10a Introduction to Teaching and Learning
[ ss ]

Priority enrollment given to first year and Education students. Cannot be taken for credit by students who have previously taken ED 100a or ED 100b.

A hands-on, interactive, and collaborative exploration of a host of introductory topics in teaching and learning. We’ll engage in and analyze teaching and learning strategies, zooming in on small teaching and learning moments (micro) and zooming out to understand how these represent big ideas in education (macro). We’ll reflect on our own experiences as students and imagine the experiences of students who are different from each of us. All of our work will be guided by the four themes of teacher education at Brandeis: Teaching for Social Justice; Teaching for Understanding; Teaching—and knowing—All Learners; and Teaching as Inquiry.

Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms. Usually offered every year.

ED 21a Reading Teens: Learning from Young Adult Literature
[ ss ]

Why YA? Young Adult literature isn’t always taken seriously, but it raises serious questions about crucial social issues. It wrestles with questions of identity and equity and what it means to be human. Plus, dragons. Voracious consumers of YA often don’t see themselves as “readers,” and yet they bring sophisticated strategies to their reading—strategies that could be leveraged for a lifetime of reading across genres. In this course we’ll explore a host of questions about the genre, including: What is it about YA lit that keeps teens reading? How might YA lit expand the traditional English curriculum in schools? What is the role of YA lit in the classroom and in students’ lives? What can we learn by leaning into YA lit? This course involves a LOT of reading—some of it scholarly, and much of it curl-up-on-the-couch delicious. Usually offered every second year.

ED 75b Waltham Speaks: Multilingualism, Advocacy, and Community
[ deis-us ss ]

Grounds community-engaged and service learning in Waltham within theoretical frameworks and practical skills from education and the social sciences. Educators (broadly speaking, in and beyond schools) integrate perspectives from history, policy, psychology, and sociology with teaching pedagogy. Through reflective, responsive, and empathetic learning, students will learn how English learner populations have shaped a community's organizations, schools, and identity. Waltham's school system and service organization leaders will teach students about their work in shaping a responsive and inclusive community. Through interviews, reflective essays, weekly discussions, and a semester-long service project, students will grow habits of mind and practical skills for work in education and beyond. Usually offered every second year.

ED 101a Literacy, Literature, and Social Justice (Grades PK-6)
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: ED 10a, ED 100a, or ED 100b. Open to all, priority for Ed Studies and teacher licensure students. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Focuses on principles and effective procedures for teaching reading strategies, writing process, and social studies in elementary classrooms. Students will study, practice, and reflect upon concepts in: writing development and assessment, reading comprehension strategies to meet needs of diverse learners, unit development via Understanding by Design pedagogy, and practice in teaching social studies in order to promote civic engagement and cultural awareness. Usually offered every second year.

ED 104a Reimagining Teaching
[ ss ]

Ever have a teacher who made you love a subject (or loathe it)? Ever have a teacher who really saw you and knew you (or didn’t)? Imagine what it would be like if learning could be meaningful for all students.

Each year, this course focuses on a specific subject area—English, history, math, or science—and reimagines how it could be taught in middle school, high school, and college. Instead of thinking of teaching as "covering the content," we’ll focus on genuinely engaging students—students from all backgrounds and experiences. Participants will learn how to develop student-centered curriculum, instruction, and assessments that encourage students’ exploration and collaboration.

This course assumes a strong background in the subject area focus for that year and/or a previous course on teaching and learning. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms. Usually offered every fall semester.

ED 105a Structure, Concepts, and Best Practices in Mathematics: Elementary
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: ED 10a, ED 100a, or ED 100b. MATH 3a is recommended but not required. Open to all, priority for Ed Studies and teacher licensure students. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Current research, strategies, and philosophies in and about the learning and teaching of mathematics in elementary classrooms. Emphasizes understanding the important math concepts, best practices, and class structures that all help to build a solid and positive learning experience for all students. Usually offered every second year.

ED 114a Family Engagement in Schools
[ deis-us ss ]

Examines various conceptualizations for family engagement in U.S. schools and how a range of actors, entities, and conditions shape the experiences that families have in schools. This seminar course also analyzes key sociohistorical conditions that shape the reproduction and contestation of inequities for families in U.S. schools. Usually offered every year.

ED 115a The Reading Wars: What is Reading and Why Do We Love to Fight About It?
[ ss ]

Recent media rhetoric has hyped up a supposed dichotomy between an imagined protagonist, who represent “the science of reading," and an enemy--those scholars of “balanced literacy” and their misinformed classroom acolytes who are anti-phonics and anti-science. This invented drama is replete with financial scandals, and the stakes are not only moral but also impact the very health and fabric of our society. And yet, the scholars of literacy themselves emphatically deny the entire dichotomy.

ED 125a Special Education, Teaching for Inclusion

Yields half-course credit. May not be taken for credit by students who took ED 125f in prior years. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Participants in this course will explore characteristics of students who have moderate disabilities and learn how these students' learning can be supported. Participants will be introduced to the laws, technologies, and school structures that pertain to special education. They will practice analyzing, preparing, implementing, and evaluating Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Usually offered every second year.

ED 144a Look Who’s Talking: Student Voice and Classroom Discourse

Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Teaching is about students, who they are, how they learn, and what they bring to the classroom, that is: their funds of knowledge. While traditional teaching uses a "banking model" in which teachers “deposit” information into students’ empty brains; this course reimagines what that bank would look like if students were the ones with the funds. In this course, participants practice classroom structures in which students, rather than teachers, do the bulk of the intellectual work. The course examines small interactions in classrooms (micro) to understand big ideas about education (macro). Usually offered every second year.

ED 165a Reading (and Talking Back to) Research on Education
[ oc ss ]

Open to education studies majors only. May be repeated once for credit.

In this required capstone course for education studies majors, students will review quantitative and qualitative research through disciplinary lenses. Students pursue some topic of inquiry by either reviewing and synthesizing educational research, or conducting some empirical research. Usually offered every year.

ED 170a Race, Power, and Urban Education
[ deis-us oc ss wi ]

Examines the nature of urban schools, their links to the social and political context, and the perspectives of the people who inhabit them. Explores the historical development of urban schools; the social, economic, and personal hardships facing urban students; and challenges of urban school reform. Usually offered every year.

ED 172a Race Theories and Education
[ ss ]

Examines how racial hierarchies are constructed, maintained, and challenged within the U.S. public education system. Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws from law, sociology, philosophy, history, cultural studies, and education, the course pushes students to interrogate the political, epistemological, and material foundations of schooling. While Critical Race Theory serves as an anchoring framework, a variety of theories will be explored not as static frameworks, but as living traditions engaged in ongoing struggle, resistance, and reimagination.

Students will be expected not only to understand these theories but to actively engage with them—to apply, extend, repurpose, and imagine their use in policy, curriculum, pedagogy, and community action. Additionally, students will reflect on their own educational experiences and those of communities historically excluded from power. Together, we will analyze how schools function as both instruments of racial stratification and sites of possibility. Usually offered every year.

ED 173b The Psychology of Love: Education for Close Relationships
[ ss ]

Students will be selected after the submission of a sample of writing on adult loving relationships.

What is love? How does it develop? How do psychologists study how people think, feel and behave in close relationships? These questions will guide our inquiry and inform our guiding question: how can we educate young people to better care for their friends, lovers and intimates? Usually offered every year.

ED 175f Teaching Multilingual Learners

Yields half-course credit. May not be taken for credit by students who took ED 175a in prior years. Students are encouraged, though not required, to engage in fieldwork through ED 60a while taking this course so that they can apply their learning in real classrooms.

Examines the intersection of culture and language and the process of second language acquisition. Participants will discuss specific issues confronting bilingual students, including testing, family involvement, and a variety of challenges facing children who enter American elementary, middle, or high schools. Through the study of cases, classrooms, and children, participants will observe, analyze, and reflect upon the teaching and learning of English Learners. Participants will analyze linguistic and cultural demands of lessons and become familiar with instructional strategies for teaching English Learners. Usually offered every second year.

ENG 131b Decolonial Pedagogy
[ deis-us djw hum ]

Familiarizes students in the humanities, social sciences and public policy with an important strain of pedagogical theory, what Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire called 'education as the practice of freedom.' Topics will include diversity, equity and inclusion; embodied teaching and learning; authority, or the lack thereof; grading and assessment; and teaching reading and writing. Special one-time offering, fall 2020.

LING 110a Phonology I
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: LING 100a.

An introduction to generative phonology, the theory of natural language sound systems. Includes discussion of morphophonology, distinctive feature theory, phonological processes and their representation, the interaction of phonological processes, nonlinear phonological representations, and the basic principles of a constraint-based approach to phonology. Usually offered every year.

LING 197a Language Acquisition and Development
[ dl oc ss ]

Open to all students.

The central problem of first language acquisition is to explain what makes this formidable task possible. Students will learn about the acquisition and development of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics in child language.  Additional topics to be covered include the brain and language development, experimental methods for evaluating the linguistic knowledge of children, second-language acquisition, bilingualism, and heritage language and heritage speakers. The overall goal is to arrive at a coherent picture of the language learning process. Usually offered every second year.


MATH 3a Explorations in Math: A Course for Educators

An in-depth exploration of the fundamental ideas underlying the mathematics taught in elementary and middle school. Emphasis is on problem solving, experimenting with mathematical ideas, and articulating mathematical reasoning. Usually offered every second year.

NEJS 171a Teaching and Learning the Holocaust and Israel
[ hum ]

Examines why we teach history, how students learn history, the uses of public history, and what history means within a Jewish context. Special emphasis is placed on teaching with primary sources, archival resources, and oral history. Includes a history lesson plan writing project and an introduction to Holocaust education with Facing History and Ourselves. Usually offered every second year.

ANTH 109a Children, Parenting, and Education in Cross-Cultural Perspective
[ djw ss ]

Examines childcare techniques, beliefs about childhood and adolescence, and the objectives of school systems in different areas of the world, in order to illuminate cross-cultural similarities and differences in conceptions of personhood, identity, gender, class, race, nation, and the relationship between the individual and society. Usually offered every third year.

ANTH 180b Playing Human: Persons, Objects, Imagination
[ ss ]

Examines how people interact with material artifacts that are decidedly not human and yet which, paradoxically, deepen and extend experiences of being human. Theories of fetishism; masking and ritual objects across cultures; play and childhood experience; and objects of imagination, memory and trauma. Usually offered every second year.

ED 21a Reading Teens: Learning from Young Adult Literature
[ ss ]

Why YA? Young Adult literature isn’t always taken seriously, but it raises serious questions about crucial social issues. It wrestles with questions of identity and equity and what it means to be human. Plus, dragons. Voracious consumers of YA often don’t see themselves as “readers,” and yet they bring sophisticated strategies to their reading—strategies that could be leveraged for a lifetime of reading across genres. In this course we’ll explore a host of questions about the genre, including: What is it about YA lit that keeps teens reading? How might YA lit expand the traditional English curriculum in schools? What is the role of YA lit in the classroom and in students’ lives? What can we learn by leaning into YA lit? This course involves a LOT of reading—some of it scholarly, and much of it curl-up-on-the-couch delicious. Usually offered every second year.

ENG/WLIT 140b Children's Literature and Constructions of Childhood
[ hum ]

Explores whether children's literature has sought to civilize or to subvert, to moralize or to enchant, forming a bedrock for adult sensibility. Childhood reading reflects the unresolved complexity of the experience of childhood itself as well as larger cultural shifts around the globe in values and beliefs. Usually offered every third year.

HSSP 192b Sociology of Disability
[ ss ]

In the latter half of the twentieth century, disability has emerged as an important social-political-economic-medical issue, with its own distinct history, characterized as a shift from "good will to civil rights." Traces that history and the way people with disabilities are seen and unseen, and see themselves. Usually offered every year.

LING 197a Language Acquisition and Development
[ dl oc ss ]

Open to all students.

The central problem of first language acquisition is to explain what makes this formidable task possible. Students will learn about the acquisition and development of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics in child language.  Additional topics to be covered include the brain and language development, experimental methods for evaluating the linguistic knowledge of children, second-language acquisition, bilingualism, and heritage language and heritage speakers. The overall goal is to arrive at a coherent picture of the language learning process. Usually offered every second year.


PSYC 33a Developmental Psychology
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: PSYC 10a.

An examination of normal child development from conception through adolescence. Course will focus on theoretical issues and processes of development with an emphasis on how biological and environmental influences interact. Usually offered every year.

PSYC 36b Adolescence and the Transition to Maturity
[ oc ss ]

Prerequisite: PSYC 10a.

Examines the core issues (identity, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, etc.) that define development during adolescence and the transition to young adulthood. Heavy emphasis is placed on integrating research and theory in understanding adolescence and young adulthood. Usually offered every year.

PSYC 169b Developmental Psychopathology
[ sn ss ]

Prerequisites: PSYC 32a, 33a, or 36a, or graduate standing.

An overview of current research and approaches in the field of developmental psychopathology, including how biological, psychological, and social contextual factors interact to influence developmental trajectories, mental health risk, and resilience across the lifespan. Usually offered every semester.

THA 138b Creative Pedagogy
[ ca oc ]

Explores the individual discovery in human creativity and how this journey impacts the quality and inclusivity of teaching and learning both inside and outside of educational spaces. Students will dig into their own educational experiences and their relationship to creativity in this creativity-engaged space. Using the theoretical stages of creativity, students read research, reflect on their own experiences, try new creative endeavors, and engage in creative collaboration with others with the lens towards inspiring and supporting learning. Students are asked in the course to expand their own creative reach and risk-taking capabilities. Usually offered every second year.

ED 161b Religious Education in America
[ hum oc ]

No principle stands more sacred in American public education than separation of Church and state. Public schools pride themselves as neutral playing fields when it comes to matters of religion. But this position belies a more complicated history. American public schools were initially founded by protestant leaders concerned with an influx of non-protestant immigrants during the middle of the 19th century. Indeed, despite lip service to ideas like separation of Church and state, American educational leaders long saw schools as a vehicle for promoting a Protestant inflected American culture. This course begins from the premise that American education and American religion have always existed in relationship. Religious groups have sometimes tried to use the public schools as vehicles to advance their religion, sometimes, they have created supplemental schools, and sometimes they have created whole parallel school systems. But in all cases, education and religion in America are intertwined. This course asks when education is religious and when religion is educational. It examines a series of case studies drawn from different faith communities including Judaism, Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, and Islam. Usually offered every second year.

ED/HRNS 168a Summer Camp: The American Jewish Experience

How did American summer camps evolve? How did Jews appropriate this form for their communal needs? How did leadership develop and what are the pressing issues of today? These questions will be examined from historical, educational, and managerial perspectives. Usually offered every second year.

ED/NEJS 170b Inside Jewish Education: Language, Literacy, and Reading
[ hum ]

Combines autobiography, classroom videotapes, curriculum investigation and fieldwork to explore the purposes, practices and effects of contemporary Jewish education in its many forms and venues. Usually offered every other year.

HRNS 202b Jewish Passages: Developing through the Cycles of Jewish Life

Thirteen-year-old American Jewish teens celebrating their bnei-mitzvah are engaging with a historic Jewish passage that has changed radically over the past century, as American Jews have continually adapted Jewish life cycle rituals to narrate who they are in the midst of a changing cultural milieu. From naming babies to celebrating a 95th birthday, Jewish passages are also viewed as opportunities for Jewish professionals to help individuals and families locate themselves within cycles of Jewish life. This course helps students understand how Judaism’s life cycle rituals relate to developmental psychologists’ understanding of the course of human development, while also bringing in the ways social scientists describe the evolution of these rituals. Usually offered every fourth year.

NEJS 135b Philosophy of Jewish Education
[ dl ]
What should Jewish education be? What are its legitimate goals? What are the competing visions of an educated Jew, and how do these influence educational practice? How is Jewish education similar to and different from other kinds of religious education? Usually offered every second year.
Jon Levisohn

NEJS 169b From Sunday Schools to Birthright: History of American Jewish Education
[ hum ]

Empowers students to articulate a reality-based, transformative vision of Jewish education that is grounded in an appreciation for the history and sociology of American Jewish education. It will familiarize students with and contextualize the present Jewish educational landscape, through the use of historical case studies and current research, encouraging students to view the field from an evolutionary perspective. The seminar will address Jewish education in all its forms, including formal and informal settings (e.g., schools, camps, youth groups, educational tourism). Usually offered every third year.

NEJS 170a Studying Sacred Texts
[ hum ]

What does it mean to study a sacred text? What are the problems with doing so? What is sacred about a sacred text? How is studying a sacred text similar to and different from studying other texts? How do different religious traditions study texts differently? Usually offered every second year.

NEJS 171a Teaching and Learning the Holocaust and Israel
[ hum ]

Examines why we teach history, how students learn history, the uses of public history, and what history means within a Jewish context. Special emphasis is placed on teaching with primary sources, archival resources, and oral history. Includes a history lesson plan writing project and an introduction to Holocaust education with Facing History and Ourselves. Usually offered every second year.

NEJS 171b Tikkun Olam/Repairing the World: Service and Social Justice in Theory and Practice
[ hum ]

What does tikkun olam mean? What is a life of service? What should one learn from service-learning? Does "social justice" actually do any good? This is a service-learning course, and includes a service component in the field. Usually offered every third year.