Skip Navigation
Urban Education

The 15-credit Graduate Certificate in Urban Education will assist the early-career certified teacher and other teaching professionals in understanding, valuing, and contributing to the rich diversity of schools and communities in urban and urbanizing settings in order to enhance learning outcomes for all students.

Through course activities and individual preparation, participants will demonstrate an understanding of and competencies in:

  • engaging children in classrooms with positive behavioral climates
  • demonstrating high quality standards-based teaching practices within the context of urban settings
  • providing children with engaging and culturally sensitive learning activities
  • communicating effectively within the school and parent community
  • engaging community resources to enhance learning experiences
  • building leadership capacity within the school setting
  • linking school and classroom practices with systemic initiatives

Information Session

View an online information session that took place on September 30, 2009 with Dr. Margaret Brown to learn more about the program. The session can be accessed at http://connect.johnshopkins.edu/p94157026/.

Required Courses

880.603 Educating the Whole Child: Teaching to the Developmental Needs of the Urban Child
This course will focus participants’ learning on child and adolescent development consistent with developmental pathways: cognitive, linguistic, emotional, social, and physical. Topics include the needs of urban school children relative to health care, nutrition, differentiation, inclusion, special education, gifted education, arts education, higher order thinking and creative problem-solving.
880.611 Culturally Responsive Education
In this course, participants will explore, critique, and create lessons and activities that utilize all learners’ intellectual, social, and emotional styles that make up their cultural ways of knowing and doing. Participants will be introduced to a variety of strategies and practices that link home, school, and community experiences that nurture and foster students’ strengths and accomplishments. This course will emphasize the creation of classroom environments that are affirming, respectful and intellectually rigorous.
880.613 Teaching, Learning and Leadership for Successful Urban Schools
This course will examine the principles, policies, and practices of leadership and instruction that promote effective schools. Students will be exposed to the Effective Schools Correlates, the principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools and numerous efforts on the local and state and federal level designed to improve the quality of education particularly as those practices and policies affect urban student achievement. Students will weigh the traditional patterns of teaching, learning, and governance with current federal, state, and local standards and new evidence-based, collaborative practices. Emphasis will be placed on examining models and methodologies currently in use in Baltimore City Public Schools and other local metropolitan areas. Students will use this research and knowledge as a basis for selecting effective methods that could be adapted to their particular setting.
880.615 Creating Family and Community Partnerships for Urban School Improvement
Based on numerous studies that demonstrate the importance of parents and communities being involved in children’s education, this course seeks to improve communication and partnership among all constituents. In this course, students will investigate those practices and policies that have demonstrated successful coalitions, design activities to engage, equip, and empower families and communities to become active partners in school improvement efforts, identify resources that promote advocacy for policies that allow schools to become welcoming and affirming centers for community and family engagement, and learn and use positive means of communication to improve relations among schools, families and communities.
880.617 Urban School Reform
This course examines systemic school reform movements in the urban school context. School reform occurs at many different levels, from the classroom level with individual teachers, to the national level with federal mandates. We will explore reform at different levels and analyze the theory, policies, practices, and controversies of various mechanisms of reform, including the K-8 movement, small high schools, school choice (charters and vouchers), mayoral control, merit-pay, and alternative routes to teaching. Participants will synthesize information about school reform in urban schools and systems and will reflect on their role in this process. Final evaluation of reform strategies will be grounded in the effect these reforms are having on improving learning for all students in urban schools.
 

The information below includes program-related disclosures provided pursuant to federal regulations issued by the United States Department of Education on October 29, 2010, required for title IV eligible certificate programs that lead to gainful employment in a recognized occupation.
 
1.            CIP Code: 13.0101 Education, General
2.            Credential Level: Post-Baccalaureate Certificate
3.            Program Length
                a.            Credits: 15
                b.            Weeks: 45
4.            Occupations, by name and SOC Code, for which the program prepares
               students, including links to O*NET occupational profiles:
25-1081.00 Education Teachers, Postsecondary 
25-2021.00 Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education  
25-2022.00 Middle School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education
25-2031.00 Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education
25-2052.00 Special Education Teachers, Kindergarten and Elementary School
25-2053.00 Special Education Teachers, Middle School  
25-2054.00 Special Education Teachers, Secondary School  
5.            Costs of Program Completion (2012-13): $10,905
                a.            Tuition & Fees: $10,155
                b.            Books & Supplies (if not included in tuition/fees): $750
                c.            Room & Board (if applicable): Not Applicable
6.            On-time Completion Rate* (2011-12): 30%
7.            Job Placement Rate: Not Applicable
8.            Median Loan Debt upon Program Completion* (2011-12): $0
                a.            Title IV debt: $0
                b.            Private Educational Loan debt: $0
                c.            Institutional Financing debt: Not Applicable

*Note: In accordance with US Department of Education guidelines, the On-time Completion Rate and Median Loan Debt upon Program Completion figures published here were calculated based on the data for all 2011-12 program completers who graduated from Title IV eligible gainful employment certificate programs sharing the 13.0101 Education, General CIP code.

Contact Us

Faculty Contact
Dr. Eric Rice

Academic Coordinator
Lori Scott

 

Stay Connected

SOE Talk - Education Blog
SOE Newsroom

Facebook Icon Twitter Icon LinkedIn Icon