This document provides an overview of an educational foundations course, including assignments and resources. It discusses John Dewey's view that teachers should understand and critique the educational system, and poses questions about the embattled nature of teaching. The first assignment asks students to draw and describe their ideal educational environment. Recommended Twitter accounts and resources on multicultural education are also mentioned.

1. Welcome to Educational Foundations
EDUC 2003: Schools & Society
EDUC 5113: Foundations of Teaching & Learning
Dan Krutka, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction
Former High School Social Studies Teacher
@dankrutka

2. Visioning
• First assignment: On one side of your paper, draw
the ideal educational environment in which you
hope to teach? On the other side, describe it in as
much detail as possible.
– What does it look like, smell like, sound like?
– How are seats arranged? Are there seats at all?
– What is the flow of the classroom?
– Who is within your educational environment?
– Who is teaching and learning? What are they teaching and learning?
– What is your school like? Are you at a school at all?
– How do your local, state, national, and global communities shape and contribute to
your educational efforts?

3. The Teacher Wars (2014) by Dana Goldstein
It is…advisable that the teacher should understand,
and even be able to criticize, the general principles
upon which the whole educational system is
formed and administered. He [and she] is not like a
private soldier in an army, expected merely to
obey, or like a cog in a wheel, expected to merely
to respond to and transmit external energy; he [and
she] must be an intelligent medium of action.
-John Dewey, 1895
Two questions:
-What do you think Dewey is saying? And what
do you think it has to do with this course?
-Why is teaching an embattled profession? How
did it get to be the way it is? And what should
teaching look like?

4. Course Preview and Questions
• Our coursesite has explanations for WordPress, Twitter, tweeting with our class
hashtag - #EdFound – field experience, & everything else
– Small groups - Questions?
• Review Week 1 Tasks on educationalfoundations.wordpress.com (including
Syllabus)
• Coursesite and major assignments:
– Due Thursdays at midnight (if responses are required assignments are due on Tuesday before
midnight)
– Quality blog posts for authentic audience with two responses & response responses; Quizzes; Media
Projects; Philosophy of Education; Check rubrics
– Grades: A = 93-100%; B = 85-92%; C = 77-84%
– Digital office hours by Twitter, phone, or videoconference (preferably Google Hangout)
– Google Drive for collaborative notes
– Tech Questions?: Interest in WordPress Hangout on Wednesday at 7pm? Monday nights live with
Hangouts and Twitter?; EDUC 5113 Meet-ups? Remind 101? Food?
– EDUC 5113 will meet on campus on 8/24, 9/14, 10/12, 11/9, 12/7 (move to Nov. 30th
?) from 5:00-
7:00pm

5. Visioning yourself as a teacher
professional
• What is the vision of the
elementary teacher from
Seattle for her educational
environment?
• How will your vision be
supported or modified this
semester?
Teaching Tolerance has free resources
for educators concerning multicultural
education like Starting Small. You can
follow them on Twitter at
@Tolerance_org. I also recommend
following @edutopia.Young’s (1992) Seven Blind Mice
(time permitting)

6. Visioning yourself as a teacher
professional
• What is the vision of the
elementary teacher from
Seattle for her educational
environment?
• How will your vision be
supported or modified this
semester?
Teaching Tolerance has free resources
for educators concerning multicultural
education like Starting Small. You can
follow them on Twitter at
@Tolerance_org. I also recommend
following @edutopia.Young’s (1992) Seven Blind Mice
(time permitting)