Teaching and Learning with Simple Interactions

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The following courses are currently offered at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Course Descriptions can also be found in the Harvard Graduate School of Education Course Catalog.

H210V 1: Empowering Human Relationships Across Developmental Contexts

Instructor: Junlei Li
J-Term and Spring (2 Credit Course) (Requires Permission by Instructor)

Course Description:

In this module, we will seek to understand and improve the quality of human interactions across a widerange of developmental contexts (both cultural and institutional), from orphanages to classrooms and from early childhood to youth development. The driving question is: How do we encourage, enhance, and empower the human relationships around children and youth in adversity? By learning from what ordinary people do extraordinarily well in relationships with one another in simple, everyday moments, we can nurture intuition into intention, grow communities of practice, and plant seeds for sustainable systems change. The course weaves together “understanding” and “applying.” Part of the course will focus on applying developmental theories to examine actual practices (on video) in authentic field settings of human development. Part of the course will focus on developing and using a relationship-focused tool and theory of change to improve practices, programs, and policies. The contexts chosen for this module focus on children experiencing adversity in both US-based and international settings. This module has limited enrollment by application. The application requires both a simple petition in my.harvard and a response to a short survey.

HDE PCE (Human Development and Education Program Core Experience): Developmental Insights: Connecting Human Development Throughlines Across Research and Practice

Instructors: Junlei Li, Stephanie Jones, Dana McCoy

Note: This is a core program experience that is available to those enrolled in the Human Development and Education Program at HGSE.

Course Description:

In our Fall Program Core Experience, we will examine the human development throughlines – consistent and shared themes – connecting across science and practice. Can we identify universal human needs and capacities while recognizing the diverse expressions of humanity? How do both the quantity and the quality of developmental experiences matter? Can simple solutions be helpful in addressing complex human development challenges? Are there useful ways to grow ideas in education besides replicating evidence-based programs? Do we develop interventions for communities, or with communities? Most importantly, as we pursue research and practice to advance equitable opportunities for human development and education, how might we transform the ways in which we understand ourselves, the communities we serve, and the possibilities for ideas and actions? Each of these throughlines will be developed with case illustrations to showcase how the science of human development in a particular domain (e.g., language development, motivation, identity, relationships) has shaped research and real world practice in both positive and sometimes counterproductive ways.

More important than the specific cases, students are invited and encouraged to connect these throughlines with your own personal and professional experiences, insights from other courses, and the ways you envision applying them to your future work.

Students will: a) learn how to be critical consumers and creators of the science of human development; b) review evidence from research and existing practice to understand what we know and what gaps remain in a chosen impact area; and c) integrate knowledge, experience, and need in a particular developmental context to develop a “theory of change” for research or practice. The Program Core Experience is required for and limited to first-year students in the Human Development and Education Ed.M. program and Ph.D. students seeking HDE Ed.M. degree. The experience is focused on building community within the HDE Program, learning through dialogue and feedback, and reflecting to connect knowledge with experience.