Fall 2026
Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century
Dates: September 26, 2026 – December 05, 2026Day/Time: Saturday 4:00 AM - 6:00 AM EDT
Level: 400-Level, Masters-Level
Certificate: Education
Education certificate requirement: Core course.
Instructor: Rana Al-Surkhi, Al-Quds Bard College
Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century is a foundational course in the GHEA21 Certificate in Education, designed and coordinated by the AUCA Institute of Education and Bard College. As part of a structured certificate pathway for upper-year undergraduate students and graduate students interested in education, the course introduces central questions, theories, and practices that shape contemporary teaching and learning. It provides a launching point for further academic and professional work by helping students examine how learners develop, how classrooms become communities of inquiry, and how pedagogy, culture, identity, and context shape educational experience.
Because students in the certificate program may enter from different disciplines and with different levels of classroom experience, the course treats participants as emerging educators, reflective practitioners, and inquirers into learning. Students will connect course readings, seminar discussions, observations, and their own educational histories to foundational issues in lesson planning, instruction, assessment, and the creation of effective learning environments, which are central concerns of the Certificate in Education.
The course also models the kind of responsive and reflective pedagogy it asks students to study. We come to the seminar table with core texts, concepts, and learning goals, but we will use students’ questions, experiences, and disciplinary interests to determine where deeper attention is needed. In this sense, the course serves both as an introduction to educational theory and as a shared inquiry into what meaningful teaching and learning require in the 21st century.
Credits: 1.5 US / 3 ECTS