Undergraduate Courses

The course description should also be updated to: This course examines the historical relationship between education, the American Dream, and achievement culture. Students explore how individualism, capitalism, and self-sufficiency have shaped education and connect these foundations to today’s toxic achievement culture. Key questions frame the course: Who has mattered in shaping education? How does mattering buffer against toxic achievement culture? Why is mattering essential for understanding educational history and current culture?

Satisfies Liberal Arts CORE, Societies and Social Sciences for Steinhardt students.

A broad-based study of acoustic phonetics including acoustic theory and measurement; distinctive feature systems; integration of physiologic and perceptual characteristics with concomitant acoustic features.

This course provides students with background on the historical & sociological foundation of education in the United States. It examines the role that education has played in advancing civil & human rights I it explores the ways in which education continues to be implicated in the maintenance of social inequality in American society. Through readings, lectures, films & class debates, students will gain an understanding of some of the most complex & controversial issues confronting education today including: affirmative action, Bi-Lingual Education, Special Education, the achievement gap, school choice & vouchers, & the role of race & culture in student achievement.

Through the lenses of power, resistance, and identity, this course provides an introduction to American social movements from the 1950s to the present. Drawing from history, sociology, and politics, it examines a range of social movements, including: civil rights and Black Power, second and third wave feminism, gay and lesbian liberation and LGBT movements, and Right-wing mobilization. The course also examines the question of how social activism on both the political Left and Right has changed over the past fifty years.
Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and Social Sciences.

Using a medical model perspective, this course is designed to help students develop a working knowledge of the structures (anatomy) & functions (physiology) of the speech, swallow, & hearing mechanisms across the lifespan that disrupt communication & swallowing. Anatomy & physiology of the nervous system, subsystems for speech (respiration, phonation, articulation, resonance), hearing, & deglutition are discussed. A detailed study of normal structure and function is requisite for the identification of speech & swallowing disorders.

This course examines the current developments in contemporary art over the past decade – the art of ‘now’ – from the viewpoint of an artist’s practice & working ideas, looking at current global art production in aesthetic, economic, & social contexts. The major movements in painting, photography, sculpture, installation & performance are examined. Readings will be drawn from first hand interviews & point-of-view accounts, reviews, & critique; a major emphasis on interviews & online studio visits will accompany the texts. Guest artist lectures & off-site museum & gallery viewings will complement the weekly visual presentations & theory conversations.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Expressive Cultures for Steinhardt students.

'Art: Practice and Ideas' examines key developments in the visual arts from modernity to the present. Focusing on the ways in which representations both create and reflect the values of a society, the course introduces students to the full range of expressive possibilities within the visual arts, covering painting and sculpture, as well as photography, film, video, conceptual art, and computer media. Topics to be covered include classical, modern, and postmodern relationships to politics, vision, the mind, the body, psychology, gender, difference, and technological innovation. Students will see and understand how artists have integrated perceptions of their historical moment, as well as physical and social space, into creative practices that have, in turn, had a significant impact on the culture of the time.

Liberal Arts Core/MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Expressive Cultures for Steinhardt students.

Review of the essential mathematics for statistics. Collection & tabulation of data; the properties of frequency distributions; histograms; boxplots; measures of central tendency, dispersion & correlation; tests of hypothesis using the normal curve, the T distribution, the F distribution. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Quantitative Reasoning for Steinhardt students.

This course explores the civil rights movement roots of Berkeley’s historic student revolt, the reasons for the Free Speech Movement’s success in attracting student support and changing campus policy, its impact on the history of free speech, and on the rise of both the New Left and the Reaganite Right. This course ends with reflections on the state of free speech on campus in our own century when that freedom is often slighted, dismissed or weaponized by student groups on the left and right and the corporate groups that subsidize them, leaving us with the question of whether the Free Speech Movement is still relevant to the campus scene today.

How many types of people are there? When and how will you die? Will you make money? Is the system fair? This fully online course introduces students to topics in data science, probability, and statistics through big life questions. Students learn to code in the R language and use simulation-based methods rather than equations for inference. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equiv - Satisfies Quantitative Reasoning for some Steinhardt students; check with your Academic Advisor

Examination of key issues facing families & governments in raising children for a 21st century global society. Topics might include: economics & politics affecting child well-being nationally & internationally; child-rearing challenges faced by families & government in low, middle, & high income nations, public (government) & private (family, business and charitable); the role of science & participatory/democratic processes in increasing the effectiveness of public & private investments in children.

Through readings, case studies, & observation students will examine specific cognitive abilities that are crucial for everyday activities. Students will study brain functions in normal & brain-damaged populations & will learn about different cognitive rehabilitation approaches from a multidisciplinary perspective. Students will also learn about theoretical approaches designed to address cognitive & perceptual impairments such as attention, orientation, executive functions & more. Emphasis will be on cognitive problem identification: the evaluation process, & presentation of different treatment approaches in rehabilitation science. Course is appropriate for students interested in pre-health, nursing, speech pathology, education, psychology, linguistics, & neuroscience.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Natural Science

Focuses on understanding people in their social contexts; integrates social action & psychological research in culturally diverse contexts; introduces community psychology & perspectives on intervention & social change; & considers how contexts are powerful in shaping a human behavior.

Explores the politics of civil conflict, peace-building, & the role of education in promising violence or peace. Explores the role of external actors (international organizations, bilateral donors, non governmental organizations), local actors (civil society associations, nationalist & ideological state factions), & their influence on education systems during was & emerging peace. Readings & discussion will focus on humanitarian action, human rights & development, nationalism & ethnic conflict, the political economy of post-conflict education, & the politics of promoting education in early reconstruction & peace-building. Case studies will include Afghanistan, Colombia, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, & West Bank/Gaze, but students will be encouraged to explore cases of their choosing.

This course is designed to be accessible and approachable for people
who will be future teachers of elementary school mathematics. It is
also intended for people who want to broaden their knowledge in mathematics
and experience it as a relevant, challenging, and enjoyable field. It is
not intended for math majors. It will be taught as a problem-based course,
that allows for students to explore and develop new ideas, and apply them
to real life situations. The course builds on intuitive understandings of
fundamental ideas of counting and chance and moves gradually to more
formal knowledge of combinatorics and probability concepts and techniques.
The learning experiences offered throughout the course are designed
to facilitate student interactions and active role in the learning process.

Liberal Arts Core/MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Quantitative Reasoning for Steinhardt students.

Aimed at students who expect to read & interpret, rather than conduct, statistical analyses, this course is designed to help students become better & more critical consumers of quantitative evidence. Using research studies discussed in the popular media & focused on currently debated questions in education & social policy, the course covers key concepts in quantitative reasoning, basic statistics, & research design. Research readings will focus on topical issues regarding early childhood & K-12 education & other social policy issues that affect children.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Quantitative Reasoning for Steinhardt students.

Aimed at students who expect to read and interpret, rather than conduct, statistical analyses, this course is designed to help students become better and more critical consumers of quantitative evidence. Using research studies discussed in the popular media and focused on currently debated questions in health and human development, the course covers key concepts in quantitative reasoning, basic statistics, and research design. Research readings will focus on topical issues regarding food and nutrition, exercise, sleep, education, and child development.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE-MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Quantitative Reasoning only for students whose Program of Study does not include a Statistics Course-see your Advisor for more information.

This course examines how cultural memory is enacted through visual culture in a comparative global context. It looks at the rise of a memory culture over the last few decades, in particular in the United States, Europe & Latin America, & how this engagement with memory demonstrates how the politics of memory can reveal aspects of nationalism & national identity, ethnic conflict & strife, the legacies of state terrorism, & the deployment of memory as a means for further continued conflict.

Dance is an integral & defining component of cultures throughout the world & throughout history. This course introduces students to dance as a live & performing art through a variety of experiences including attendance at live performances, examination of videos & theoretical texts, & physical participation in the practice & performance of dance. Through discussions, written assignments, & the creation of original dance compositions, students will explore the history & cultural relevance of a variety of forms of dance within their own lives, larger society, & the global community beyond.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE-MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Expressive Cultures for Steinhardt students.

A comprehensive overview of human development from conception through adolescence. Theories of developmental psychology are related to research findings, & implications are drawn for practical issues.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society & Social Sciences