EDUC 801 - Place-Based Education: Leading with Communities
Credits: (3)
Instructional Method: Lecture
Prerequisites: This class is offered for students accepted into the Doctoral Program in Education.
In this course, the student reviews, analyzes, and critiques the history, politics,
and rhetoric of place-based education as it relates to school and community change.
Place-based education connects learning to a specific local setting including the
cultural, social, economic, and natural environments. The course involves the study
of the genesis and evolution of place-based education, the reciprocal roles of schools
and communities to create healthy individuals and sustainable institutions, and various
schools of thought to analyze and critique school and community assets and issues.
Student learning is grounded in inquiry, exploration, and discussion. Students develop
a sense of place and commitment to preserving the natural and cultural resources that
sustain a school and a community.
Content
Major topics in this course include the following:
1. Place-Based Education:
- Is an innovative and holistic approach to education where learning is contextualized
in an understanding of local/global issues in relation to healthy schools and communities
understood in the context of time, including past, present, and future. It involves
using rural, urban, and suburban schools and communities as the starting place for
teaching academic disciplines.
- Is an approach to education based on the value of relationship building through in-depth
interaction and interdisciplinary learning experiences over time with local organizations,
individuals, agencies, businesses, and government.
- Focuses on learning that involves intergenerational and cross-cultural sharing of
knowledge and experiences that serve as a foundation for understanding and participating
in local/regional/global issues.
- Uses place as a focal point for developing school and community leaders.
2. Theoretical Basis for Place-Based Education include:
- Dewey (1916) and the study of progressive and experiential learning.
- Orr (1992) and the study of place as significantly reeducating people in the art of
living well, which differs geographically and culturally.
- Massey (1994) and the development of a global sense of place composed of a network
of social relationships mediated by place (i. e., human geography).
- Smith and Sobel (2010) and place-based education as a way to motivate learners, to
consider the school’s role in society, to serve as a starting point for academic disciplines
for rural, urban, and suburban communities, and to invigorate the work of school and
community educators.
- Gruenewald (2008) and merging critical theory with place- based education to create
a critical pedagogy of place.
- Heath (1983) and Street (2003) and the study of community literacy (i. e., socio-cultural
understandings of learning) and socio-cultural understandings of how knowledge and
literacy practices emerge from and are contextualized by culture, place, and community.
3. Principles:
- Promote in-depth knowledge of and connections with local and global issues facing
school and communities.
- Bridge the gap between how students live and how they learn by making the community
the context for learning.
- Pair real world relevance with intellectual rigor so that a local focus has the power
to engage students academically while promoting genuine citizenship and preparing
people to live well wherever they choose. Learn to challenge one another to understand
our own lives and then ask constantly what needs to be transformed and what needs
to be conserved.
- Learn socially just and ecologically sustainable ways of being in the world by identifying
and changing ways of thinking that injure and exploit people and places.
4. Approaches to Place-Based Education
- Involvement in cultural studies, nature studies, real-world problem solving, internships
and entrepreneurial opportunities, and induction into community decision-making processes.
- Use of local phenomena as a foundation for examining more distant and abstract knowledge.
- Students become creators of knowledge and educators serve as experienced guides, co-learners
and facilitators of community resources and learning possibilities.
- Community members assume active roles in schools and students assume active roles
in communities.
Detailed Description of Conduct of Course
The course may incorporate school and community based activities, individual and group
work, guest and peer presentations, case studies, lecture, discussion, reflective
writing, writing assignments, and experiential fieldwork and trips.
Student Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of course requirements, students will:
- Examine, refine, and build understandings of the foundations of place- based education.
- Critically reflect on and develop knowledge, skills, and dispositions related to place-based
education.
- Critically examine the role of place-based education in school and community change.
- Identify and describe theoretical models, principles and approaches of Place-Based
Education (PBE) as applied to school and community change. Explore available resources,
case studies, and research and identify successful PBE programs and practices.
- Identify strategies for implementing place-based theory into practice. Collaborate
to build a community of learners connected with others. Begin to establish a network
of colleagues who learn and grow together.
Assessment Measures
Assessment measures may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Reflective writing such as think/writes and autobiography related to place
- Individual and group inquiry projects
- Journal/blog showing growth in knowledge, skills and dispositions Online discussion
participation
- Exams and/or quizzes
Review and Approval
June, 2023