These are the main courses that I teach:

EFN 299: Schools and Communities. In this course, the aim is to introduce students to the social and cultural nature of classrooms and schools.  This knowledge is used to determine what choices are made when constructing these communities and how these choices affect those who live in them.

SCED 399: Pedagogy in Secondary Education.  This course is a field-based course where the basic experiences for secondary teaching are addressed.

EFN 398: Social and Historical Contexts of Education.  This course looks at the social landscape on which schools are constructed.  We look into the ways in which larger social and historical processes create conditions that define the learning communities found in a society and reflect on what responsibilities this places on professional educators.

EDFN 520: Social Problems in Education.  This course is based on learning a problem-analysis approach, using concepts and techniques from the social sciences.  We attempt to construct an adult learning community as one of our primary means to address social problems.

EDFN 521: Cultural Foundations of Education.  This course explores the cultural aspects of class, school, and local/national communities.  Emphasis is placed on the issues confronting professional educators and using an adult learning community atmosphere to examine the cultural roots of these issues.

My teaching approach is that of a Deweyan pragmatist--re-set for the 21st Century through social constructivism and organized around principles of adult learning.  These labels mean that I believe my role is to create a learning atmosphere and invite students to take on whatever learning they are ready for.  My classes rely on a high degree of student engagement.  They are highly structured but are pro-actively responsive the students' efforts to define their own rhythms of growth.  Our  joint aim is gaining of intellectual and professional competencies more than gaining graded credentials.

Social Nature of Learning.  Human knowing is strongly influenced by social relationships.  Learning is particularly responsive to these relationships.  My research interests have focused on the social and cultural dynamics of learning communities and their effects on individuals' growth and development.

My primary concerns are with the construction of local, interpersonal community.  I tend to use theories of small group dynamics to explore the social aspects of these relationships and folklore studies to interpret their cultural dimensions.  I tend towards critical pragmatism, viewing schools as crucial sites for engaging in political actions that create for everyone their rights and responsibilities of full human growth.