Years 1, 2, & 3

Year 1 - Learning in Personal and Social Contexts    
     Courses taken during the first year focus on the self an learner or the reexamination of one's beliefs, teaching, and learning in personal and social contexts. For example, autobiographical and narrative inquiry are emphasized in several Year 1-courses, particularly in TE 807, the first core course in the program. Conceptual and analytic inquiry also are emphasizes in foundations courses, or those courses that focus on complex questions and perennial issues in education in social and historical contexts.

       During Year 1, students learn that there are many legitimate forms of inquiry that can help them explore a variety of questions of personal and professional interest. They learn that there is more than one way to think about and do "research." And they will begin to engage in inquiry across their courses and in their workplace settings in ways that are relevant to them as practitioners.

Year 2 - Inquiry into Teaching and Learning in Classrooms    
     The second year of study focuses on classroom-based inquiry so that students may intensively study the many dimensions of pedagogy and what/how students learn. TE 808 is the second core course in the program to help students design and anchor such inquiry. Subject-matter courses are taken in concentration where curriculum planning; K-12 students' learning; pedagogical strategies; and alternative forms of assessment are examined in depth. What it means to understand the disciplines--and then how best to teach and learn these subjects--are questions pursued during Year 2. Also, students attend closely to learner diversity and explore how academic achievement, social equality, justice, and building a learning community can be fostered in the classroom.

Year 3 - Professional Culture, Community, and Change    
     Year 3 focuses on becoming a competent, productive member of a professional community and involves inquiry at the program or school level beyond the individual classroom. To further develop practitioners' many roles and responsibilities as professionals, students take a capstone course: either TE 870 in curriculum development and deliberation, or TE 872 which focuses on research in learning to teach and mentoring novice teachers. After previous, intensive study of their own beliefs and practices, and those espoused and contested in the field, by the third year M.A. students are in a credible position to engage in informed decision making and collaborative inquiry with colleagues and other important stakeholders in education. Many of the issues encountered earlier in the program will surface problematically in Year 3 when trying to negotiate diverse interests in order to develop shared goals, policies, and practices in a productive, professional context.

Horizontal Themes    
     Each year, integrated themes are stressed to provide depth and breadth of study across students' coursework. These recurring themes are: teachers and teaching, learners and learning, contexts and communities, and disciplined modes of inquiry. The latter theme includes curriculum study, subject-matter investigations, and a variety of research perspectives and methods to use when students' pursue their questions of interest throughout the program.
     Depending on the year of study, one of the above four themes is apt to be figure across their courses, and the others ground. For example, during the first year, "learners and learning" and "context and communities" are apt to be prominent themes in students' coursework. While digging deeply into one's own autobiographical experiences, beliefs, and way(s) of learning and knowing in TE 807, students also are apt to be taking foundation courses and studying how scholars and diverse stakeholders in education may define learning, what it means to "know," what knowledge is of most worth, to whom, and with what consequences. Throughout their program of study, M.A. students actively seek integration and try to make connections across their courses in ways that acknowledge how these themes are related in education as well as to their own practice.