Foundations of Education

Overview

Introduces the major task for this week.

Graded Tasks

  • prepare for your seminar this week

Introducing the Education System In...

In preparation for your seminar this week, choose a country (other than Canada) that begins with the same letter of your first or last name (or an adjacent letter).

For example, a student named Jane Doe could choose a country that begins with one of the following letters: I J K C D E.

Imagine you work for the immigration office in the country you have chosen. Your supervisor has asked you to write a short overview which introduces the K-12 educational system in the country you have chosen. (You can choose to restrict your focus to elementary or secondary education should you wish.)

Read the seminar question below (which repeats the above text). In preparation for your seminar this week, write out an answer to the following question. Your TA may call on you to share all or a portion of your answer in the seminar:
Q2.1: Imagine you work for the immigration office in the country you have chosen. Write a short overview which introduces the K-12 educational system in the country you have chosen. (You can choose to restrict your focus to elementary or secondary education should you wish.) (Answer Length: 150 - 200 words | Format: Sentences)
Seminar Question
📌 For each week there is a seminar, you are required in advance of the seminar to write out answers to the question(s) that are posed for that week at this course website. (Many of the questions are quite short. The one question for this week is longer.) Your TA may call on you to verbally share your written answers (or parts thereof) with the other students in your seminar.

It is your responsibility to prepare for your seminar well ahead of time by thoroughly reviewing the week's course content at this website, also writing out full sentence or point form answers (as noted in the question) to the seminar questions that are posed.

Suggested Writing Strategies

Here are some suggested strategies for approaching this task:

1. In choosing a country that begins with the same letter of your first or last name (or an adjacent letter), pick a country that interests you and for which there is a good selection of online English language information sources. (If you speak a second language, you are welcome to draw on this skill, although your summary must be written in English.)

2. Research the K-12 educational system for the country you have chosen, focusing on either elementary or secondary education (or both).

3. Write a draft of your summary. Read the draft to yourself (out loud can be very helpful) to ensure that it is well organized and reads well. For example:

  • Begin the summary with an introductory paragraph which provides a general overview of the country's educational system (i.e., elementary, secondary, or both).
  • Divide the summary into paragraphs. Normally, a single paragraph expresses a single idea.
  • Optionally use headings should you wish.
  • For this summary, there is no need to provide a concluding paragraph.
  • Spell check your summary. (Although you won't be submitting a written copy of your summary, this is always good advice.)
4. Consider having a friend read your summary to provide feedback.
📌 For your final task this week, navigate to the "Weekly Poll' page under Week 2. The course content for each week of the course ends with a poll.