New course proposals

The following new course proposals have been submitted to the Faculty Senate Office for review and approval and is listed here for faculty review and comment. Comments on any new course proposal should be submitted to Ernest May, secretary of the Faculty Senate, at senate@senate.umass.edu.

EDUC 632A “Educational Policy, Research & Administration: Fundamentals of Test Construction” 3 credits; Instructor: Stephen G. Sireci; Enables students to construct educational assessments using a variety of item formats such as multiple-choice and performance-based items. The entire development process, including item writing and item review are covered.

EDUC 751 “Scaling Methods for the Behavioral Science” 3 credits; Instructor: Stephen G. Sireci; The purpose of this course is to introduce and explore scaling methods essential for research in the social sciences. This course covers techniques of unidimensional scaling, multidimentional scaling, and classification. Prerequisites: Students should have a basic understanding of univariate and multivariate statistics.

EDUC 753 “Professional Seminar in Educational Research and Evaluation Methods” 3 credits; Instructor: Stephen G. Sireci; This course gives students experience in significant practices in educational testing/evaluation. Topics covered include computer-based testing, assessment policy, new directions in evaluation and validation, and how to write research reports.

EDUC 756 “Advanced Measurement Seminar” 3 credits; Instructor: Stephen G. Sireci; This is a seminar course for advanced students in psychometric methods. Topics addressed include performance-based assessment, standard-setting, computer-based testing, automated test construction, large-scale assessment issues, and test translations methodology.

JOURNAL 435 “Web Design for Journalism” 4 credits; Instructor: Brian McDermott; Students will learn to build a website using Dreamweaver, create simple projects in Flash, navigate HTML, and JavaScript, understand basic principles of graphic design, and discuss different approaches to presenting journalism online. Prerequisites: Students must take JOURNAL 301 “Introduction to Multimedia Reporting, or JOURNAL 397G “Multimedia Reporting, or have instructor’s consent to enroll.

EDUC 749 “Multilingualism & Society” 3 credits; Instructor: Theresa Austin; Drawing on sociolinguistic, narrative and historical studies, we explore how sociocultral dimensions of bilingualism and biculturalism are researched. Also sociopolitical theories are examined that account for historical responses to educating bilinguals.