The Doctorate in Education (Ed.D.) in Educational Practice and Innovation bridges the gaps among theory, research, and practice to promote excellence and innovation in teaching, learning, and leadership within and across educational contexts, while stressing the importance of diversity within those contexts. Students must complete a concentration in Curriculum Studies, Education Systems Improvement, Learning Design and Technologies, or STEM Education.
The Curriculum Studies concentration emphasizes concerns for equity and social justice, self-knowledge, cultural issues, and human growth and development through a balanced approach to diversity education consisting of theory and practice. This concentration provides an in-depth understanding of the theory, history, concepts, current techniques, strategies, and issues of diversity in schools, as well as other social institutions and community settings; and facilitates self-reflection for engaging in social justice education.
The Education Systems Improvement concentration develops capacity for school and district improvement with capabilities that include advanced understandings of inquiry and improvement science, organizational culture and change, transforming schools, districts and communities, economics and district finance, education policy and reform, school board relations, and systemic challenges and problems in urban and rural contexts. This concentration:
- prepares practitioners with a strong foundation and strategies for systems improvement;
- prepares practitioners with advanced understandings of district, state and national policies; and
- develops scholarly practitioners to use principles of improvement science to solve systemic problems of practice in their contexts.
The Learning Design and Technologies concentration develops capabilities essential to the design, development, implementation, evaluation, and research of technology-based learning, instruction, and training (e.g., computer-based training, multimedia development, technology integration, assistive technology modifications, online education, and distance learning). This concentration:
- prepares practitioners with sound principles and techniques of instructional systems design plus leading-edge technological competency;
- prepares leaders for the meaningful integration of educational technology in teaching, learning, and performance environments; and
- develops scholarly practitioners to solve significant problems of practice within their respective contexts.
The STEM Education concentration of the Ed.D. emphasizes content and pedagogy related to integrated approaches to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) instruction in PK-12 settings. Through the use of instructional methods, such as project-based learning, the STEM Education concentration provides in-depth instruction related to the integration of science, technology, and engineering and mathematics practices. The STEM Education concentration prepares practitioners and instructional leaders to:
- engage with and solve significant problems of practice within education settings related to STEM fields;
- develop, integrate, and evaluate integrated STEM instruction; and
- leverage project-based learning as a model for STEM practices.
Learning Outcomes
- Students understand issues of diversity in school curriculum from an institutional or structural perspective
- Students utilize political economic and social mechanisms to equitably shape school curriculum
- Students consider how the concepts of race ethnicity class gender and sexual orientation intersect in school curriculum.
- Students demonstrate early proficiency at dissertation research skills successfully complete the Prospectus and submit the Doctoral Program of Study (DPOS)
- Students explore interpretive frameworks in a general educational setting
- Students examine the relationship of the frameworks to human diversity
- Students analyze the impact of the noted relationships upon established curricula.
- Students demonstrate traits of an Education Activist through the theoretical and conceptual constructs and outcome measures of the dissertation.
- Students finalize the Dissertation in Practice with Plan of Action to extend and expand their research at the classroom district state and/or national levels.