COURSE OVERVIEW:
Language Arts & Literacy (Junior/Intermediate) (EDUC 4214) has been designed to provide the teacher candidate with an introduction to major concepts and understandings required to organize and implement balanced literacy programs that are responsive to students’ needs at the Junior/Intermediate levels. The course is grounded in the notion that effective practice is guided and informed by current theory related to language and literacy teaching and learning. The course will prepare participants for designing, planning, teaching, and assessing comprehensive balanced literacy programs in the Junior/Intermediate divisions, and will demonstrate the features of a classroom guided by social constructivist principles. Throughout the course, teacher candidates will be expected to participate in active/interactive learning opportunities as they explore, analyze, discuss, explain, and evaluate their own developing knowledge, and reflect upon the implications of their own learning for the development of effective classroom practice.
Drawing on the work of Cambourne et al (2003)*, this course has also been structured to assist and enable teacher candidates to fully participate in:
- Taking responsibility for their own professional learning
- Learning through professional collaboration with colleagues
- Identifying and resolving professional issues
- Becoming reflective practitioners
- Learning to effectively teach diverse learners in contemporary classrooms
- Developing a thorough working knowledge and understanding of the six language arts (listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing and representing), and the ability to make teaching/learning connections across the curriculum at J/I levels
*Cambourne, B., Kiggens, J., & Ferry, B. (2003). Replacing traditional lectures, tutorials and exams with a Knowledge Building Community (KBC): A constructivist, problem-based approach to pre-service primary teacher education. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 2 (3), 34-48.