Education Foundation/Policy (EDF)

This survey course includes historical, sociological, and philosophical foundations of education; governance and finance of education; educational policies; legal, moral, and ethical issues; and the professionalism of teaching. Emphasis also will be placed on the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices, Florida State Standards, and the Professional Educator competencies. Students are required to complete a minimum of 15 hours of field based experience with children and youth in schools or similar settings and not via virtual modes of film or Internet. Students must obtain security clearance before obtaining hours in public schools.

This course is designed to assist future and current teachers and support personnel in establishing a positive learning environment in the K-12 classroom. This course transfers to the upper division as elective credit only. It does not satisfy any prerequisite requirement. This course requires a minimum 5 hours field experience in the education field.

This course explores diversity in the context of education. Topics address influence of culture, family, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, language of origin, ethnicity, age, and exceptionalities upon educational experience. Other content includes Florida Educator Accomplished Practices, Know Your Schools, and the education resource portal for "Collaborate, Plan, Align, Learn, Motivate, and Share" (CPALMS). Students must undergo district approved, level two security clearance to complete direct field experience: English Language Learners (ELL), high performing and/or improving, high poverty, urban, rural, and students with disabilities school settings.

The goal of this course is for students to gain knowledge, to gain understanding, and to analyze the developmental stages and characteristics of individuals from infancy through adolescence, with application to learners in educational settings. The objectives in this course correlate to the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices and include a mandated 15-hour field experience requirement.

This course provides an analysis of the legal, ethical, and safety concerns in educational settings. This course is correlated to the Florida Educator Pre-professional and Accomplished Practices and contains a mandated 15 hours direct field experience/service learning component.

This course gives students opportunity to understand the relationship of theory to practice through participation in a service-learning experience. Students are required to complete 20 hours of volunteer work, a service-learning contract, and an oral and written reflection of the experience.

This course is designed to teach education majors how to develop a philosophy of assessment. In addition, students will learn the value of multiple measures to gauge student potential, progress, and achievement in the multicultural classroom. Topics include traditional and alternative assessment strategies, formative and summative assessment strategies, test construction, and performance assessments. Additional topics include state and standardized achievement test data interpretations and methods to accommodation diverse learners.