SOME OF THE COURSE THEMES, TOPICS & CONCEPTS INTRODUCED SO FAR FOR WHICH YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE:
The three lenses for viewing, studying, and defining teaching
Shulman’s 7 types of professional knowledge for teaching
Vergara vs, California, the concept of tenure
The first four categories of complexity to contemporary teaching (that make teaching difficult) (I know that the 4th one has only been introduced—at this point you just need to know what it is)
Olsen’s 4 histories of teaching (from chapter 1)
Teacher retention/attrition: How many teachers leave before end of 5th year? Approximately how many teachers currently employed in the US? Staying, leaving, moving, shifting.
Horace Mann’s Common School Movement
Edward Thorndike and John Dewey (knowledge transmission vs. constructivism)
Melting pot versus salad bowl
Frederick Taylor’s and Elwood Cubberly’s influences. Schools as Factories Where can we get more info on this?
Elite ed versus mass ed
Social stability vs. reform
Theory vs. theory (Olsen, ch 2)
“The cognitive revolution:”
Transmission view of knowledge --> Constructivism: cognitive constructivism, sociocultural constructivism (including differences between them). Bruner’s spiral curriculum. What is intelligence?
Learning is social:
Piaget’s schema theory, assimilation & accommodation, equilibrium & disequilibrium
Vygotsky’s ZPD
Scaffolding
Learning is cultural:
Michael Cole’s research
Luis Moll’s funds of knowledge
Stephen Krashen’s affective fliter
Learning is political:
Elite vs mass education: a tension that structured the 19th & 20th centuries
Marx’s “historical materialism” as a critique of capitalism and reproduction of capitalist consciousness. Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), myth of meritocracy
Bowles & Gintis, correspondence principle, cultural reproduction, consciousness of
Inevitability

Critical Pedagogy:
Marxist origins of critical pedagogy
Teaching is always a political act.
Reproducing the status quo through education vs. transforming society
Freire’s notions of humanization/dehumanization, banking concept of ed, problem-posing concept of ed, conscientization, praxis. Traditional education as narration sickness.

For the actual midterm, you will see 4-5 of these following questions, and will have about 20 minutes to write a short essay for each one:
1. Choose three of Shulman’s seven knowledges of teaching: explain them and discuss why they are important parts of teaching. Also, briefly discuss how they connect in some explicit way to either Charles Baxter’s short story “Gryphon” or the Mouthrop, et al chapter.
1. content knowledge
2. general pedagogical knowledge
3. curriculum knowledge
4. pedagogical-content knowledge
5. knowledge of learners
6. knowledge of educational contexts
7. knowledge of history and philosophy of education

2. What are your own thoughts about the legacy of Horace Mann on U.S. schools? Discuss at least two course readings in your response. Offering a concrete example of your thoughts will likely strengthen your answer. 3. What are the four kinds of complexity to teaching?
a. teaching is inherently a sophisticated, difficult set of activities.
b. broader social and political context
c. broader demographic contexts
d. actual school and professional contexts within which any teacher exists Use both the second and third ones to discuss why teaching is harder (and richer) than many outsiders think. Also connect this to teacher attrition. Include discussion of two course readings in your response. 4. Why do contemporary schools (especially middle and high schools) in some ways resemble factories?
-Strong emphasis on schools to be efficient (Cubberly and Taylorson)
a. group students together
b. structured set of rules
c. aim to maintain the status quo
What are some examples of the factory model in contemporary schools? Why is the factory model a problematic way of organizing teaching and learning? How do Bowles & Gintis account for why schools in some