Education Specialist in
General Education (EdS)

Your communication abilities have a big influence on your professional reputation. In this course, you’ll develop skills to establish yourself as a competent professional with strong communication skills. You’ll learn competencies related to written, oral, and visual forms of communication appropriate to specific media and audiences. You’ll also explore how the iterative nature of preparing communications and integrating feedback into your work products can support your development and advancement as a professional.

Leadership during times of change can be challenging. This course supports your professional development as an effective leader of educational organizations during periods of change. You’ll explore strategies and techniques for self-reflection, evaluating culture, integrating stakeholder feedback, and incorporating data as part of improvement processes. To conclude the course, you’ll synthesize these skills to design a comprehensive improvement plan that addresses a specific problem within an educational organization.

This course introduces you to the research process by exploring its underpinnings, examining its paradigms, and investigating the foundations of qualitative and quantitative methodologies used in educational studies. You’ll identify criteria for the development of quality research studies that are ethical, accurate, comprehensive, cohesive, and aligned. Specific course topics involve the ethics of conducting research; data collection and analysis techniques; and issues of feasibility, trustworthiness, validity, reliability, transferability, and rigor. The goal is to familiarize yourself with the concepts and skills associated with conducting theoretical and applied research.

A focus on qualitative research methodology and the designs and methods used to collect and analyze data in educational research. You’ll examine the principles of qualitative research and explore commonly used designs (also referred to as qualitative traditions or genres) with a focus on application and feasibility. Qualitative data collection and analysis methods will be examined for their suitability with regard to the research design selected. Alignment between qualitative designs and research methods, issues of trustworthiness, and the responsibilities of the qualitative researcher will also be explored.

An exploration of quantitative research methodologies and associated designs and methods. You’ll examine paradigmatic perspectives along with the tenets and conventions of quantitative research. Topics for examination include feasibility, validity, reliability, variable operationalization, inferential designs, and analytic software applications used within the quantitative research paradigm. You’ll also look at the components of quantitative research designs that support meaningful studies within the field of education.

As the capstone to your EdS studies, you’ll work with a specific educational program relevant to your current or future professional aims. You’ll review the related literature and evaluate data to inform your development of potential solutions and future areas of research related to your identified problem. Finally, you’ll reflect on your personal learning journey throughout the EdS program.

ED-7003 School Law

Although most local education authorities have their own legal counsel, all stakeholders benefit from a working knowledge of school law, especially those laws pertaining to the rights and responsibilities of school personnel and students. In this course, you’ll analyze state and federal legislation that impacts a variety of local school policies. Legal foundations for health, safety, attendance, and discipline policies will all be addressed along with policies for the rights of students, teachers, parents, guardians, and other stakeholders.

ED-7009 Educating a Diversity of Learners

Because today’s learners differ in gender, sexual orientation, age, cultural background, experiences, and abilities, today’s educators must be able to appraise, assess, and argue the best means to reach such a variety. In this course, you’ll explore different means to address the nature of cultural diversity, its sources, and its importance to educators. You’ll also consider how districts can plan and prepare to meet the needs of diverse students, taking into consideration epistemological and axiological perspectives unique to many cultures.

ED-7012 Educational Leadership

This course examines the theories, philosophies, and professional standards related to educational leadership. You’ll also study diversity, equity, and inclusion in the context of school leadership. By the end of the course, you’ll develop a personal leadership approach and promote ethical behavior and decision-making in order to become an effective leader within your particular educational setting.

ED-7014 Practices in School Organization

In this course, you’ll explore the organizational structure of schools and school systems, and their relationships to and effects upon school programs, teaching strategies, testing and measurement, and program evaluation. You’ll consider the way schools are organized around time, space, and other resources. Organizational dynamics are explored, and there’ll be an opportunity to engage operational factors that influence the school climate, including human resources, organizational outreach, and capacity. Finally, you’ll investigate ways and benefits of engaging stakeholders in organizational practice.

ED-7016 Supervision and Leadership in Schools

This course surveys the real world experiences and common challenges encountered by school leaders. You’ll study organizational behavior with an emphasis on the practical relevance of educational leadership in this new era of accountability and high-stakes testing. Topics include development theories and collaborative planning models to enhance distributed leadership, professional learning communities, parental involvement, and sustainable leadership for student growth.

ED-7013 Financial Issues in Schools

This course prepares you to apply general principles of education finance in any pre-K-12 setting. Beyond revenue and expenditures, you’ll be prepared to address ethics, equity, and student achievement as core components of the budgeting process. You’ll also learn to demonstrate the principles of financial accountability through your communications with various stakeholders in schools, administrations, and across the community.

^*Courses listed are examples. Upon acceptance to the program, your initial plan will include these courses. You’re encouraged to choose your EdS General Education courses based on your personal and professional goals, and to work with an advisor to revise your course plan to your interests.