Welcome to Social Foundations of Education

Instructor Introduction Navigating The Course

Overview: Exemplar Course

Welcome to this online exemplar course!

The overall goal of this course is to showcase some of the ways in which a course can be taught and learned in an online environment. The course focuses on education, but many of the activities and assessments are the kinds of things you might see in any course offered through WSU’s Global Campus.

This sample course only includes detailed activities for the first five modules, which would take students approximately halfway through the semester. The remaining units are not active in this course, though they are outlined; this gives some sense of how a semester-long online class might be laid out, and what kind of workload and time commitment may be associated with it.

Regarding workload, please note that this is a graduate-level course, so the students who enroll already have a strong foundation in many of the concepts discussed and covered. Most students taking this course are working professionals already employed in the educational field, and this course aims to blend their career experiences with the concepts covered.

Overview: Social Foundations of Education

Welcome. This graduate course explores the many roles that schooling and education serve in US democratic society. We probe and reflect on the ways that schools and society are tethered as simultaneously reproductive and transformative systems.

Social Foundations of Education (SFE) weaves several disciplines and fields together in order to explore the forces that shape education. In the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic, schooling and education have perhaps never received such focus.

As a field of study, social foundations draws from disciplines and areas of study that include history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, religion, political science, economics, cultural studies, gender studies, LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) studies, comparative and international education, educational studies, and educational policy studies, as well as transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches. Students draw upon these inter/trans/disciplinary fields to develop interpretive, normative, and critical perspectives on education, both inside and outside of the physical school environment.

This course was designed with working professionals in mind, centered in graduate programs in Education Leadership, Special Education, Sports Management, and Curriculum & Instruction. It was designed to bridge to current practice spaces. The purpose is to question and understand how various forces and factors influence operational realities in which students (and educators) work or will work.

For students coming from outside of the public school system, a social foundations course supports the development of a more critical view, as public schooling in America impacts all of us, implicitly and explicitly. Issues include access to education, policy development and implementation, development of educational structures, social justice and democracy in schools, and more.

This semester, we will iteratively ground our study with the "here and now" as we collectively and respectively navigate the unprecedented waters of the global pandemic—a “quadruple” pandemic, as education scholar Ladson-Billings (2021) states, noting that “the COVID19 pandemic exposed many of the nation’s vulnerabilities—health care, economic, climate, and educational disparities—and put us all on alert” (p. 68). She issues a call to action, prompting us “to fundamentally rethink education and consider the pandemic as an opportunity to restart, or more precisely re-set education” (p. 68).

A social foundations course asks educators to go well beyond “best practices” and instead ushers in inquiry and asks us to think deeply about the relationships between education (formal and informal) and our society/communities at large.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) are established and must be clearly communicated for every Global Campus course. In this exemplar course, the SLOs below relate to the outcomes we hope for as you explore what it might be like to take an online course through WSU's Global Campus. On the syllabus, you will notice that the SLOs are different, as they are meant to provide an example of the types of outcomes that you might see in an actual online education course here at WSU.

By the end of the exemplar class, students will be able to:

determine the course expectations and requirements.
contact and interact with the course instructor.
successfully navigate the online course space.
participate in discussions and respond to classmates' posts.
complete quizzes in Canvas.
complete and submit a variety of assignments in Canvas.
succeed in an online course at WSU.

First Timers
Tips for Success
Your Next Step

Activate your official WSU email account if you haven’t already done so.
Make sure your computer meets the minimum technical requirements.
New to Canvas? Visit the Canvas Student Guide.
Review the Tips for Success tab on this page.
Please note that some of your reading assignments may include articles and/or book chapters placed on eReserves, or articles that you must locate in the WSU Libraries eJournal data base.
To increase the font size of Canvas use the zoom feature within your web browser. Most web browsers support using Ctrl + (Windows) or Cmd + (Macs) to increase the font size. Alternatively, you may follow the instructions specific to your web browser, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.

EXPLORE the course space:

Read the Syllabus thoroughly.
Note the required materials and make sure you acquire what you need as soon as possible.
Familiarize yourself with the Course Schedule and create a study plan. Check out the Canvas tools that can assist you with this, e.g. the Calendar, Syllabus, Announcements, etc.
Select the Help icon on the left-hand side to view support resources from Canvas and WSU.
ACCESS the course space early and often.
MANAGE your time: Create a detailed timeline or outline of all required activities to make sure that deadlines are met (see Course Schedule).
- Be proactive. Get started on assignments early. You never know when life might get in the way, including technology problems.
COMMUNICATE: Use Discussions to communicate with your instructor, fellow classmate. You are not alone in this class—reach out for assistance when you need it!

Review the Syllabus.
View the Course Schedule
Get started on your course by selecting Modules on the left-hand navigation.