Course Descriptions
Graduate Courses for the MAT
MAT 610 Educational Research and Technology
Develop the techniques and criteria for understanding and conducting action research in education in preparation for the capstone project in MAT 614. Additional emphasis placed on using technology as an effective teaching and learning tool. Topics include research strategies, literature reviews, research design, data collection, and quantitative and qualitative research techniques.MAT 611 History and Foundations of American Education
A study of historical and contemporary issues in American Education that include major educational issues from various disciplines, policies, and trends. The disciplines of philosophy, psychology, sociology, and history will provide an intellectual foundation designed to develop an awareness of and critical disposition to pressing concerns in American Education.
MAT 612 Instructional Methodology
The course will focus on theoretical and practical support for attending to issues of student differentiation, environments that support responsive teaching, principles of effective classroom differentiation, instructional and management strategies that support differentiation, and the roles of assessment in differentiation. The course is structured to assist participants in developing approaches to modifying content and process in mixed ability classrooms in order to address the varied readiness, interests, and learning profile needs of a variety of learners.
MAT 613 Urban Education and Social Issues
Provides conceptual frameworks for understanding how race and class operate in schools and instructional methods to ensure inclusive education. Particular emphasis on addressing the diversity needs of our region, including the needs of English language learners.
MAT 614 Curriculum: Theory and Practice
Prerequisite: Completion of 21 credits, including MAT 610.
A study of curriculum dimensions, concepts, design, and products for varied student populations and school settings. This course focuses on curriculum planning for multicultural and multisector educational levels, research of curriculum development, and the study of curriculum issues, trends, and innovations. The capstone project for this course fulfills the expectations for the MAT degree.
English Courses for the MAT
ENL 623 Web Authoring
Problems, issues, and rhetorical strategies in authoring effective Web pages and content. The primary focus of the course is in authoring hypertext and hypermedia documents for the World Wide Web. In the process, students grapple with a host of problems related to effective non-linear writing, efficient and user-friendly interface design, and inventive mixing of text, graphics, video, sound, animation, and navigational components to achieve the most dynamic messages possible within the many constraints of hardware and software.
ENL 632 Theory and Practice in Teaching Reading and Writing
Prerequisite: Graduate status or permission of instructor and director
This course divides
itself into three basic strands. The first explores theoretical issues in reading
comprehension, text processing, memory, and language development as a foundation
for understanding how students learn to read. The second focuses on theoretical
issues in how students learn to write. The third focuses on applying theory
to teaching in both areas by exploring such general issues as reading and writing
evaluation and assessment, diagnosis, selection and use of reading materials
and writing assignments, developing teaching strategies for a spectrum of low-
to high-level skills, and critical thinking.
ENL 657 Literature Seminar: Historical Approaches
Explores canonical and/or non-canonical literature from a historical perspective to strengthen background knowledge and understanding of literature, using representative literary texts as a point for departure and discussion. Includes discussion of issues relating the role of historical texts to alternative, nontraditional, and multicultural contexts and of the pedagogical limitations and issues inherent in using a historical approach.
ENL 659 Graduate Literature Seminar: Thematic and Cultural Approaches
Prerequisite: Graduate status or permission of instructor and director
Exploration of the study of literature in light of current thematic and cultural perspectives. This course includes discussion of women's literature, minority literature, and third-world literature, especially as such works contrast with or depart from the traditional canon. The course will examine the influences of these works on student learning and issues that arise in the classroom when they are introduced. In addition to traditional texts, the course will consider the options for use of alternative, nontraditional materials. Discussion will focus on the pedagogical limitations, problems, and issues inherent in using a cultural or thematic approach, with emphasis on finding ways to animate and vitalize the literature classroom.
ENL 676 Discourse Processes
Prerequisite: MAT enrollment or permission of instructor
An advanced seminar in exploration of classroom communication with a focus on the means by which language is taught and, specifically, on analyzing and recording instructional conversations involving multicultural populations. The course is intended to provide experience in the investigation of a classroom research question. Students will undertake supervised fieldwork and careful study of the theory and methods of descriptive research from a sociolinguistic perspective.
ENL 684 Literary Criticism I: Theory and Practice in Teaching Literature
Prerequisite: MAT enrollment or permission of instructor
Intensive readings with analysis of relationships among language, thought, form, and content. The course will examine the intellectual, emotional, cultural, multicultural, and aesthetic qualities of texts, including the links among stylistic devices, central motifs, author's purpose, motivation, imagination, and psychology with emphasis on secondary students' analytic writing and reading abilities. The course will examine forms of literary criticism as they apply to teaching secondary language and literature.
Additional course offerings from the English Department may be selected in consultation with Director of the MAT Program in English (please see the contact list below for more information).
