EDI800: Collaboration and Learning in Diverse Communities

Credit Hours:
3
Estimated Hours Per Week:
20

Overview

This course focuses on the education leader's skills in building community far beyond the school walls, integrating the resources of the town and state into the school environment, and extending the resources of the school into the neighborhood.  In this course, candidates explore three themes:

  • Diversity as an asset to individual students and the community
  • Building community relations
  • Communication in a diverse learning community

The course project, Internship Portfolio: Collaboration and Learning in Diverse Communities, is a key assessment designed to demonstrate mastery of the ELCC professional standards. Each candidate is responsible for developing with his or her internship site supervisor and colleagues at their internship site a One Year Action Plan for Partnerships as part of the course project, in which the candidate analyzes and evaluates current and relevant literature on effective partnerships with school, home, and community stakeholders.

Building on the base of best practice, candidates audit the internship site for evidence of partnerships that are already in place. They then create a plan for change that leads to greater school, home, and community mutual support. The plan will be supported by a presentation to a subset of affected stakeholders.  Finally, the candidate reflects on plans for implementation.

Course Learning Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

  • Analyze and evaluate ELCC Standard 4, sub-elements 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and ELCC Standard 3: Field Experiences and Clinical Practice.
  • Investigate and synthesize the literature on the role of school, family, and community partnerships in positively affecting student achievement.
  • Investigate and synthesize the literature on diversity and equity in American public education and promote practices that appreciate and use diverse language and cultural and social resources.
  • Working with a learning community, explore current practices that support school, family, and community partnerships.
  • Incorporate a learning community's diverse cultural, social, and intellectual resources.
  • Working with a learning community, build and sustain positive relationships with school, family, and community partners.
  • Reflect on their plans and/or evaluate their implementation of changes against ELCC Standard 4.
ENROLLMENT
To enroll in this course, please complete the online application.

Prerequisites

  1. Student Support Counselor permission required for this course.
  2. EDI791

Required Texts
EDI800 texts are available from the JIU/Follett Bookstore