Courses Currently Taught

EDSE 601 Globalization and Education
EDSE 580 Teaching as the Practice of Wisdom
EDSE 610 Advanced Topics in Curriculum Studies
EDSE 503 Foundations of Curriculum
EDSE 504 Curriculum Inquiry
EDSE 378: Religious and Moral Education: Curriculum and Instruction

EDSE 601 Globalization and Education

This course explores the relationship between broader geo-political developments and the construction of educational policies and practices in the contemporary context. Of particular interest is the emergence of radical liberalism, or neoliberalism, since the end of the Cold War, and more recently the morphing of liberalism into an aggressive conservative ideology that wishes to turn public education into an instrument of The Market to serve a vision of Empire.
It is the influence of these forces on the day-to-day lives of teachers and others in the helping professions that is the practical focus of the course.  The influence includes increasing loss of control over professional discourse and practices, declining morale in the teaching and helping professions, the rise of violence within the culture of hypercompetitiveness, and an emerging crisis in the relation of knowing to being within cyberculture.

Teachers and those in the helping professions who wish to explore the increasing influence of international globalization forces on their working lives, and on the development of their profession, will find the course very helpful. Themes examined include: knowledge across cultures; migration and changes in cultural consciousness; finding human value outside of market logic.

EDSE 580 Teaching as the Practice of Wisdom

Teaching is understood in this course as a series of ‘encounters’ with others that continuously call forth the interpretive ability of the teacher. Such encounters include those with curriculum texts, with students, with parents, other staff members and perhaps most importantly, with oneself. But on what basis can or should such encounters be interpreted? In the Western/Euro-American tradition, the dominant interpretive paradigms are those of science, economic progress, and self-fulfilment, each of which is profoundly problematic if prescribed for universal application.
In most non-Western cultures of the world (80% of the world’s peoples), before the Age of Modernity teaching was associated with the cultivation of Wisdom, understood variously as learning what it means to live well, in harmony with others and the broader cosmic space within which all human beings dwell.
The course is organized around three focal practices: 1) the experience of daily meditation, which is the foundation of all Wisdom traditions; 2) weekly readings of key sources of the world’s Wisdom traditions, namely Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Sapiential writings in the Bible (Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes), Islamic Sufi writings and Aboriginal storying; and 3) weekly written reflections on encounters through the meditative space of Wisdom writings.

This course is especially valuable not only for teachers, but for all those in the helping professions such as nursing and occupational and physical therapy , where broader interpretive insight is required for understanding human difficulty.

EDSE 610 Advanced Topics in Curriculum Studies

This is the required seminar for doctoral students in the Department of Secondary Education.  It combines reading and study in leading edge topics in the curriculum field (psychoanalysis, globalization theory, indigenous epistemologies etc.), along with collaborative class discussions of students’ writing (especially dissertation proposal writing) and professional induction topics such as forms and practices of academic writing.

EDSE 503 Foundations of Curriculum

This is the foundational graduate course in Curriculum Studies in the Department of Secondary Education. The historical, philosophical and political influences on curriculum formation are examined. Students are also encouraged to examine their own valuational practices within curriculum, as it is conducted in schools, hospitals, and places of business.

EDSE 504  Curriculum Inquiry

This course extends the explorations of EDSE 503 into the contemporary context by examining current work in the curriculum field. Forms of inquiry such as autobiography, narrative, hermeneutic phenomenology, and critical theory are studied, along with cultural studies in technology and curriculum internationalization.

EDSE 378: Religious and Moral Education: Curriculum and Instruction

This course is a requirement for Secondary Education students wishing to complete a Minor option in Religious and Moral Education.

Objectives for the course include

1. To introduce students to the various  curricula that are part of Alberta Learning’s Social Science Secondary School option in Religious and Moral Education. As well there will be an examination of programs and resources in the Catholic Separate School system.
2. To examine ways of teaching religion that honour the diversity and pluralism of Canada’s peoples.
3. To engage teachers-to-be in work that assists in the clarification of their own values and perspectives in teaching, and especially their own formation within tradition.
4. To provide opportunities for deepening an understanding of a variety of religious traditions, and especially an understanding of how relitious traditions are experienced by people.
5. To learn how to explore key ethical issues in pedagogically sensitive ways.
6. To study and practice multiple forms of instructional technique.
7. Overall, to prepare students for readiness to teach in the Integrated Professional Term practicum.

The course is taught in a collaborative style, using short lecture formats, multimedia, Internet, video and small group work. Students and instructor work together to prepare and present the material for the course.

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