Educational Studies (Ed.D.)

In conjunction with the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, this program is designed for working educators (with a completed Master’s degree). The Ed.D. is completed in as few as three years (with the average being 4 years). The program supports ten to twenty highly motivated educators who come from a variety of backgrounds, including pre-K–12 schooling, teacher education, professional development positions, higher education, teacher-leadership, and advocacy roles, and community education programs. Cohort participants make this journey together with dedicated graduate faculty who support individuals in their study and improvement of their own educational practices. Within a collegial and supportive environment, students analyze problems of educational practice to understand the relationship between theory and practice and to use knowledge for making meaningful differences in real-world settings.

All required coursework will be available at a distance (although often as synchronous coursework that requires availability during Central time zone evening hours). However, students also select six ‘choice’ classes, and distance students may find that a few desirable non-required courses (including short-term travel study-linked classes) expect in-person presence. Finishing the program entirely from a distance, however, is both possible and typical.

This program is an intellectually rigorous and contextually responsive program of study in which educators address challenges of practice in order to create and sustain effective teaching/learning contexts in the concrete realities of P-16 classrooms, work, and community settings. Our approach allows educators to be actively engaged in their professional working environments while exploring theories, ideologies, and applications in sustained dialogue with peers and faculty. The program conceptualizes scholarship of practice as “both substance and process,” critical to educators who can analyze, evaluate, model, and teach in a cross-section of educational settings (Shulman, et al., 2006).

The next cohort starts in Jan. 2025 with applications due by Oct. 1, 2024.

I. Core Principles and Pedagogies of the Program of Study

• Teaching, learning, and curriculum are complex activities that exist within the larger social, cultural, and political contexts framing educational settings.
• Teaching, learning, and curriculum are best thought of as practical action -praxis- action that is intentional, situational, and thoughtful.
• Theory and practice infuse one another; therefore, successful graduate education must intertwine theory/practice relations.
• Cohort learning offers opportunities to learn from each other and foster ongoing dialogue and connections beyond the degree.

II. Features of the Program of Study

• Cohort organization: Allows full-time educators to complete an Education Doctorate in less than four years through the combination of evening seminars, online learning, and intensive study in the summers, deliberately connecting the world of practice to doctoral studies.
• Inquiry Oriented: Fosters practitioner-based action research in preparation for the conduct and documentation of the capstone project.
• Core Interdisciplinary Experiences: Offers cross-disciplinary and cross-emphasis coursework perspectives and traditions cultivating a culture of collaboration, debate, and dialogue across scholar/practitioners.
• Arts of the Practical Coursework: Enables educators to concretely consider the nature of learners, learning, teachers, and teaching from multiple perspectives and within the concrete realities of varied educational settings.

III.  Programmatic Features of the Ed.D. Coursework for the 2021 Cohort

        Programmatic Features of the Ed.D. Coursework for the 2023 Cohort