Academics

EDUC 4940 (a) Special Topics in Education: Lifelong Learning and Sustainability, 4 credits.  Course meets together once a week and fieldwork consists of online educational mentoring. 

When the pandemic struck in Spring of 2020, members of the Global Network of Learning Cities were rapidly exchanging responses, lessons learned and materials.  A Learning City, or Learning Locality, is a community that embeds lifelong learning for innovation, fun and problem-solving into the fabric of daily life.  Find out how communities around the world are reshaping themselves as ecosystems of learning opportunities and localizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Rediscover your inner lifelong learner while considering how best to create conditions, policies and practices to support learning  and sustainability multiple scales and contexts.

EDUC 2200/DSOC 2100 Introduction to Adult & Lifelong Learning, 4 credits. Course meets together once a week and fieldwork consists of online educational mentoring.  

Start with a growth mindset, add a commitment to social justice, and stir in skills and knowledge for designing and facilitating learning, and, voilà!—a tasty dish to fuel professional, recreational and intellectual development—for life.  Most are very familiar with formal education, yet we live in a world of limitless opportunities for learning along a continuum of types and settings. In this course, we not only study principles, theories and methods of andragogy (adult learning) we apply what we learn by becoming educational mentors of adult learners here on our campus.

EDUC 4940 (b) Special Topics in Education: Teaching English to Adult Learners, 2 credits. Course meets together once a week and fieldwork consists of online educational mentoring of a Cornell employee English Language Learner.  

What is it like to live in a country, but not feel able to communicate clearly with people around you? How is learning a new language as an adult different from childhood language learning? What do teaching and learning look like, when the teacher and learner do not share the same language to use as their means of communication? Through reflections on readings, simulations, roleplays, and weekly online fieldwork with a Cornell employee who is an English Language Learner, students will consider these questions to deepen their understanding of what it means to learn a language as a non-native speaker. Students will apply TESOL methodologies to the needs of their learning partner and receive feedback from learning partners, classmates, and instructors on their lesson planning and delivery in order to strengthen their teaching practice. In the process, students and adult learning partners will also learn from each others’ situated experiences, and increase their awareness of educational, social, political, and economic issues involved in global migrations and language learning.