Master of Education
| Aspen's 36-credit Master of Education
(M.Ed.) provides opportunities for educators to improve
their teaching skills through mastery of the latest
educational theory. The program is flexible, to meet
the needs of a variety of educators. |
 |
Aspen University welcomes bachelor's degree holders who
have experience in primary and secondary school settings,
vocational-technical schools, and universities. We also
welcome bachelor's degree holders who train or teach in
other areas, such as business and industry.
M.Ed. Degree Completion Requirements:
- 36 Total semester credits (12 Courses- 3 credits each)
- Two Proctored Exams
Basic Core Courses
(12 credits)
700-Integrating Technologies across the
Curriculum
705-Research on Effective Teaching
710-Multidisciplinary Foundations of Education
799-Capstone Project (Prerequisite:
All other courses in the program)
Advanced Core Courses
(select four - 12 credits)
720-The Instructional Role of Assessment
725 Classroom Environments and Management
730-Curriculum Development, Implementation
and Evaluation
735 Current Issues and Challenges in Education
740-Ethics and Educational Law
745 Global Education and World Citizenry
Three Concentrations
(Students may elect two concentrations. One would serve
to satisfy the advanced core requirement.)
1. Educational Technology
750 Introduction to Online Learning and
Internet Research
751 Instructional Design
752 Multimedia for Educators
753 The Wired School: Emerging Technologies
2. Curriculum Development and Outcomes Assessment
760 Emotional Intelligence and Academic
Achievement
761 Curriculum Mapping and Assessment Data
762 Schools and Leadership
763 Academic Portfolios
3. Transformational Leadership
780 Leadership Basics
781 Educational Innovation
782 Shaping School and Community Cultures
783 Communicating and Framing Leadership
Issues and Decisions
Course Descriptions:
700-Integrating Technologies across the Curriculum
This course provides practical skills to meaningfully incorporate
technology into the classroom in order to enhance students'
understanding of the curriculum. Students will create a
portfolio; examine internet resources and evaluate educational
software.
705-Research on Effective Teaching
This course is a research based course that will require
students to survey the research literature on effective
teaching and schools. Research in a particular area, on-site
observations in a school setting, and post-observation and
analysis of observed teaching and learning will be examined
and compared to what the literature reveals is "best
practices".
710-Multidisciplinary Foundations of Education
This course will give students an opportunity to study the
dynamic and continuing impact of social, political, and
economic forces on American education. Students will be
introduced to the historical evolution of the public schools
to help them identify important social issues that can have
an impact on the educational system. Students will be required
to complete a major research paper.
720-The Instructional Role of Assessment
This course introduces and demystifies the entire testing
and assessment process. Equally as important, it not only
links testing and teaching, but also shows in specific ways
tests can be designed to support instruction. Content standards
are emphasized to the point of meeting and aligning with
school and district standards and outcomes. Given the current
climate of intense high stakes testing mandated by NCLB
and various state and district assessments, the course may
bring light not more heat to what educators increasingly
are facing. Above all, testing can be used to restore the
control and direction of outcomes.
725-Classroom Environments and Management: Differentiated,
Democratic and Collaborative Education
Two current forces are converging to invest classroom management
with greater importance. The first is the increasing number
and levels of disruptive student behaviors occurring in
the classroom. The second is pressure of high stakes testing
which has resulted in student disappointments, being left
back, and failures to graduate. What happily can be done
will be addressed in this survey and examination of classroom
management techniques.
730-Curriculum Development, Implementation and Evaluation
Cognitive performance is brain-wired. Learning pathways
have been identified for virtually all thinking and memorizing
processes. These physiological and electrical links now
supplement and bring greater precision to the standard developmental
models of Piaget and others. The next step is to tap this
cognitive science in the classroom and to develop lesson
plans and modes that are brain-compatible and thus more
effective which is the goal of this course.
735-Current Issues and Challenges in Education
The field of education like many others in transition stirs
often strong, controversial, and opposing views. The goal
of this course is to provide a forum for the expression
of such views. As such, the choice of spokesperson may vary
over time to reflect both changing issues and points of
view. The focus currently is on Gerald Bracey who has been
called variously a contrarian, a skeptic's joy, a modern
Don Quixote.
740-Ethics and Educational Law
Ethics and Educational Law will deal with the legal obligations
and ethical responsibilities of educators. The course will
present an overview of the general topics most commonly
experienced by educators including student privacy, gender
and disability law, constitutional rulings on prayer and
religious expression, discipline, and reporting issues.
The rights revolution of the 1960's and 1970's and associated
changes in our educational systems will be examined. Legal
problems associated with the use of technology will be examined
in light of the extensive use of computers in both public
and private schools. The rights of teachers, students, and
school administrators will be discussed within the context
of new Supreme Court Rulings.
745-Global Education and World Citizenry
The use of technology has changed the way that information
is distributed to include all corners of the globe. With
the spread of information people everywhere are exposed
to common ideas and concepts. The individual student's concept
of self must now include a vision of himself as a citizen
of the world. What individuals learn must also reflect an
understanding of those concepts, ideas, and knowledge that
world citizens must hold in common. As these commonalities
are identified they will, in turn, impact our educational
systems and their content. This course will look at the
current perspectives on world citizenry and present topics
for inclusion in global education.
750-Introduction to Online Learning and Internet Research
This course will provide students with an opportunity to
learn about online learning, teaching, integration, and
research issues. Participants will learn to use online databases
with success, develop critical thinking skills, and to formulate
effective search strategies in order to research and document
valuable and current resources. Students will exploit a
variety of Internet- and Web-based discussion and information-sharing
tools. Students will integrate best practices of content
authentication and validation into their research techniques.
Through a course-long research project on a global issue,
participants will examine various strategies for locating,
evaluating, citing, and applying information resources in
the research process. Information policy issues such as
censorship, privacy, and freedom of information will be
explored throughout the process.
751-Instructional Design
This course addresses ways instruction can best be structured
to facilitate effective, performance-enhancing learning.
Students will examine a wide range of delivery vehicles
focusing on the role key learning theories and principles
have played in the development, instructional design and
deployment of content. Students will examine the application
of learning theories to the design of synchronous and asynchronous
e-learning experiences, and the role of collaboration within
such environments. Students will gain a blueprint for designing
well-structured and compelling learning experiences. Students
will examine best practices for when and how to use different
media and delivery methods, and how to combine e-learning
to enhance traditional instructional methods.
752-Multimedia for Educators
This course focuses on the integration of multimedia and
hypermedia-based content within classroom curriculum and
instruction. Students will explore all aspects of integrating
media technologies with curriculum, instruction, and assessment
of student learning. The course will examine the wide range
of multimedia products available for a wide range of disciplines
and will provide students with selection criteria that will
help students identify the best content. Students will produce
a portfolio throughout the course based on best practices
for the integration of multimedia content within Internet-net
based courses as well as traditional classroom-based instruction.
Students will focus on the selection of multiple media content
for different learning activities and will construct lesson
plans that integrate multiple-media content into the curriculum.
Finally, students will create a sample multimedia lesson.
753-The Wired School: Emerging Technologies
Through this course, students explore state-of-the-art and
emerging technologies in information processing (software
development, hardware, and computer networking strategies)
appropriate for use in an educational environment. Students
will examine ways to integrate into the traditional classroom
tools frequently used in distance-learning environments
(discussion boards, synchronous chats, and application sharing).
Students will learn best practices for leveraging technology
for instruction and class administration. Students will
learn techniques and metrics managers can use to evaluate
a new technology's benefits and potential pitfalls and tools
to estimate the potential return on a technology investment.
Students will establish techniques for staying current with
new technologies in today's age of dynamic innovations.
760-Emotional Intelligence and Academic Achievement
The foundation for academic accomplishment lies in understanding
the student in the classroom setting; how the student learns
and how the student is prepared to learn. The purpose of
this course is to provide a comprehensive overview of the
linkage between classroom instruction, the socio-emotional
level of students, and planning and conducting of evaluations
of achievement.
761-Curriculum Mapping and Assessment Data
Assessment is as important as curriculum, but the two have
to work in concert. With the emphasis on outcomes assessment,
and validation of learning outcomes, educators are challenged
to establish that curriculum is applicable to the subject,
and that outcomes can be validated. This course examines
the process of mapping curriculum and how this provides
the confirmation that what is being assessed, is what has
been taught. The understanding of the linkage between these
concepts provides the roadmap for analyzing student work.
762-Schools and Leadership
The field of Education is constantly bombarded with new
and different theories on learning, on objectives, and on
predicting future direction. The ability to bring diverse
concepts into a manageable perspective requires the ability
to understand the components of leadership. The focus of
this course is to recognize what constitutes leadership
in education, and to comprehend the factors that determine
its future direction.
763-Academic Portfolios
Outcomes assessment is subject to the multiple methods of
capturing and displaying student data, but increasingly,
the Portfolio is found to be the device of choice, to house,
arrange, evaluate, and display student work. By merging
the techniques of portfolio development with relevant technology,
it is possible to showcase accomplishment, while subjecting
this same work to a variety of assessment strategies. This
course introduces the concept of the portfolio, and moves
that concept through to a tangible tool that can be manipulated
to address standards, assessment objectives, checklists,
and rubrics, to demonstrate student progress and outcomes.
780-Leadership Basics
The perennial fascination with leadership has acquired new
urgency in the fields of business and education. Global
competition has increased the need for higher levels of
productivity and innovation. National test standards and
accountability have raised the bar of school and educators'
performance levels. In both instances, boards of directors
and school boards look to leaders to provide solutions.
In education, however, the problem is compounded by overburdening
additional administrative layers and hamstringing of supervisory
options. Perhaps, more than ever before the old debate between
being a manager or a leader applies now to education. Nevertheless,
leaders do emerge and bring about major transformations.
How and why that happily still happens is the subject of
this course.
781-Educational Innovation
In order to be a transformational leader, one who is competent
as an agent of change, one must first be transformed as
an educator and person. Leaders must format creative ways
to deliver education and become prepared to take ownership
as a leader. Teachers are being given the opportunity to
create and work in new educational environments. These opportunities
increase the responsibility level of teachers and also lead
to new skills necessary for leadership.
Participants will experience personal reflection about who
they are, why they are educators, what they hope to accomplish,
and begin setting new professional goals as teacher-leaders.
Participants also will read and discuss the history of American
education reform in order to create a personal and professional
philosophy for leadership and reform. Readings, reflection,
discussions, and experiences will be used to help participants
work through their rationale and begin developing a personal
philosophy and the skills to become a transformational leader.
782-Shaping School and Community Cultures
Change in a culture, in education as in other organizations,
is a complex undertaking. Leadership for change, therefore,
is complex as well. What is necessary for transformational
change is recognition that leadership is key to large-scale
improvements. Transformational changes cannot take place
without considering the importance of culture in the environment.
Far too much emphasis is placed on reforming schools from
the outside via policies and mandates. It is time to consider
shaping school culture from within. Teacher-leaders, by
understanding their moral purpose, how change takes place,
how to build relationships, how to build knowledge as an
organization, and make coherence of that knowledge, can
create a positive, caring, and intellectually challenging
culture. This course will offer insights and examples of
how to build such a culture.
783-Communicating and Framing Leadership Issues and Decisions
With increased empowerment of employees in general and leadership
sharing in particular, leading and managing have increasingly
become a communication activity. In addition, as mangers
become leaders and employees become managers, that process
is less unilateral and more two-way, less restricted to
one sector and crossing over into many. As a result maintaining
vision, mission and meaning requires greater attention to
and finesse with interpersonal and interdivisional communications.
Indeed, increasingly how one communicates is how one leads
and manages.
Leadership is in large part a language game. Although most
leaders spend nearly 70 percent of their time communicating,
they pay relatively little attention to language as a tool
of leadership and influence. The goal of this course is
to treat leaders as managers of the meanings of their world.
In particular, the course introduces leaders to the skill
of framing which is not in-born but can be taught. Based
on extensive research and questionnaires, framing situations,
strategies and tools can be identified, analyzed and communicated.
The net result is leadership development which improves
not only the way decisions are made, but also the way they
are conveyed and ultimately implemented.
799-Capstone Project
The capstone project/research course allows students to
apply the knowledge and skills acquired in their courses
to their school or district environment. This project is
completely individualized; students are encouraged to select
projects that are of particular interest to them and that
will result in professional growth and benefit their school
or district.
Due to the extensive evaluation process, and the quantity
of work and research involved, the Capstone course has a
time limit of 6 months.
(Prerequisite: All courses in the program)
|
