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About
About Puget Sound
Founded in 1888, University of Puget Sound is an independent, residential, and predominantly undergraduate liberal arts college.
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Academics
SOMETHING YOU DO
Part of a Puget Sound education is the opportunity for a wide variety of experiential learning options, including internships, studying abroad, and more.
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Admission
OPENING DOORS
Create your own path and pursue a life of purpose and impact.
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Student Life
We look forward to seeing you!
Learn about our weeklong orientation program that immerses you in campus and the community while preparing you to tackle your academic studies.
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Alumni
Once a Logger...
Always a Logger! Just because you're not still living on campus and visiting the Cellar for pizza doesn't mean you have to be disconnected from what's happening on campus!
Courses for Education Studies
In this section
- School of Music
- School of Occupational Therapy
- School of Physical Therapy
Schools teach students much more than academics. Schools also teach right from wrong, and they send messages about who students are and who they can be. This course examines the nature of schooling and the socializing power of schools, using masculinity as its lens. Through readings, writing, discussion, and time spent in schools, students examine the hidden and official curriculum schools use to teach about gender and what it means to be a man. Successful completion of this course requires a commitment to spend regular time in schools, participating in the formal curriculum and observing the hidden curriculum.
Teaching students to read is a fundamental task of teachers in every class and grade level. This course examines the nature of reading and provides an introduction to well balanced reading instruction in grades K-12. Through readings, writing, discussion, and time spent in schools, students are introduced to the nature of reading, how young people learn to read, and instruction that fosters lasting literacy. Successful completion of this course requires a commitment to spend regular time in schools, participating in the teaching of reading or writing.
Educating children living in poverty poses significant challenges to schools and teachers. This course is designed to allow individuals interested in schools to develop a greater understanding of poverty and to examine what teachers can do to provide the best possible education for students experiencing poverty. This course examines and confronts the American stories of rugged individualism and of the United States as a place where class and race are irrelevant, while maintaining a focus on what teachers can do for the children with whom they work and the society in which they live. Successful completion of this course requires a commitment to spend 14 hours outside of class interacting with students living in poverty.
The history of legislated and de facto everyday white supremacy in public schooling and social life has created a highly segregated teaching force. Most U.S. teachers are white, middle-class, monolingual females who grew up in predominantly white communities. Teachers of color are dramatically under-represented in the teaching force, and children of color have very limited representations of their racial identity throughout their schooling experience. White teachers are thus currently over-represented in public schools, often with little experience engaging in and among communities of color, as they work with an increasingly racially diverse student body.
The central work of this course is to center race as a lens for understanding miseducation in American schooling. Through shared discussion, reading, and engagement in public school communities, students will confront the assumptions of whiteness in U.S. schooling and seek to unlearn socialized assumptions about race. Students will reflect on classroom and community learning, as well as personal experiences, to develop and apply strategies and action steps that promote equity in learning contexts.
Teaching reading has never been politically neutral because reading instruction, when it is done well, requires that we read something. Underlying this course is an assumption that the selection of what students read should consider the promotion of American ideals of liberty and justice for everyone. Together students think about the messages children's and young adult books send and how to select books that promote social justice. Students read children's and young adult books that include people from different racial groups, and books that open up ideas of gender and sexuality. Successful completion of this course requires a commitment to spend regular time working with youth.
Teaching about the past tells us where we came from and provides a narrative that communicates who "we" are. Using primary sources with K-12 students is often touted as one of the best ways to shape inclusive narratives while developing reading, writing, and critical thinking. And yet, primary sources are rarely used at the pre-college level. This class is designed to introduce students to using primary documents to help K-12 students understand alternative perspectives of the past. While many perspectives are marginalized in K-12 classrooms, few experience the silence that surrounds LGBTQ people. By using the Archive of Sexuality and Gender, students learn about LGBTQ history, discover valuable primary sources for use with K-12 students, and create a plan for using these sources with K-12 students. Successful completion of this course requires a commitment to spend regular time working with youth in a volunteer setting.
This course focuses on the ways in which educators, politicians, and the public view the state of American schools. Broad philosophies of education guide an analysis of schools, which include historical lenses as well as the current literature on classroom reforms. This course contrasts central issues of schooling as seen from the "outside" political domain and the "inside" experience of students. In particular, the course addresses how issues of race and social as well as economic inequality surround current debates over the best way to improve schools in the 21st century. This course is intended both for prospective teachers and for students interested in examining critically the policies that shape one of the key institutions in American society. Required for the Education Studies minor and for admission to the MAT program.
Code
Knowledge, Identity, and Power
The central topic of this course is the ways teachers view learning, instruction, classroom organization, and motivation. This course takes a micro-analytical approach focusing on classroom interactions and how a teacher plans for a range of student interests, experiences, strengths, and needs. Students in the course consider 1) how the teacher inquiry cycle of planning, teaching, and reflecting supports teacher identity development and improves instruction, and 2) how the interactions between teachers and students, and amongst students, are located at the intersections of issues of knowledge, identity, and power.
Code
Knowledge, Identity, and Power
This is a required, school-based placement that students typically take in their senior year. Students are placed in classrooms with a teacher who is examining a "problem of practice". Students assist the teacher by gathering data related to the teacher's question(s), analyzing the data, and presenting what they find to the teacher. The School of Education builds off of decades of contacts with local districts to individually tailor placements. Students meet on a regular basis to discuss their placements and their work in the schools.
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