Education Specialist (Ed.S.) in Leadership and Learning- K-12 Educational Leadership

The Education Specialist (Ed.S.) in Leadership and Learning; K-12 Leadership will teach you best practices for leadership behavior, technology implementation, action research design and methodology, project management, and more.

Enjoy Flexibility – 11 courses with start dates every 2 weeks
Choose Where You Learn – Online courses
Affordable Monthly Payments

Explore critical legal and policy-based issues and investigate the main components of building or managing a successful educational organization. You will acquire creative problem-solving strategies for enhancing your surroundings.

The degree is centered around 3 elements:

  • Collaborative and ethical leadership
  • Transformational leadership
  • Reflective scholarship

Through practical, real-world applications, learners will gain adeptness with leading educators to create continuous and permanent change that impacts student learning and classroom practices.

Inside: EDD830 Leadership Theory

Is this program for you?

Individuals seeking greater knowledge and skills in educational policies affecting K-12 classrooms, technology integration strategies, and techniques for positively influencing school culture would benefit most from this Education Specialist degree.

We understand trying to fit education into an already busy schedule. We created interactive, flexible, facilitated, online courses designed to fit around your lifestyle.

This program is not designed as a teacher certification program, and different states and municipalities often have specific requirements concerning different degree programs. Depending on your goals for this program, please check with your local and state regulatory requirements for program acceptance.

Benefits of an Education Specialist Degree

  • Continue professional development
  • Grow your educational philosophy
  • Pursue senior roles
  • Familiarize yourself with new technology tools

For more information about the program, see the Academic Catalog.

Admission Requirements

  • Application – A completed application.
  • Master’s Degree Transcripts – Official transcript demonstrating a conferred master’s degree from an institution that is accredited by a CHEA recognized accrediting body or an international equivalent, with a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 or greater.
  • Military Documentation (Optional) – A copy of the most recent orders; or a copy of DD214 (This can be requested from the National Archives.)

Courses:

    The emphasis of this course is on leadership with the focus on the application of leadership concepts and leadership skills. Through the examination of a wide array of different leadership theories, the student gains knowledge and skills for a plethora of theoretical paradigms and models, which can be used to influence others towards positive and lasting change. Working with teams and dealing with the politics and power within an organization are also examined in depth.

    3 Credits
    Required Books

    This research course examines the basic principles and techniques of doctoral scholarship, and offers an overview of the development of theory and research logic, explores the relationship between theoretical and empirical constructs, and provides a wide variety of specific research methodologies, including the scholarly publication process. Students study the principles of the scientific method and research design techniques common to both qualitative and quantitative research, including sampling methods and data collection techniques. Material includes examination of various research methods including electronic searches and retrieval methods. Students learn to critically read research papers and articles, and are introduced to the writing techniques necessary to produce expository and analytical papers to the standards of publishable work. This course is a prerequisite for all other doctorate courses.

    3 Credits
    Required Books

    This course examines a meaningful and sophisticated understanding of motivation and emotion. Blending motivation and emotion with leadership builds a powerful sense of tolerance and meaning in many domains of life: home, school, workplace, clinical setting, athletic fields, healthcare, and interpersonal relationships. The course deeply explores individual emotion, mindset, and interventions. A leader can use this knowledge to motivate individuals and evaluate how emotion drives behavior to obtain the best performance out of their employees and relationships in all facets of life.

    3 Credits
    Required Books

    Creating strategic change that lasts is a fine art of every successful leader. Throughout this course, students examine what the best leaders do to create an atmosphere where employees in the organization can flourish. The focus is on learning essential behaviors that promote a high-energy culture.

    3 Credits
    Required Books

    This course begins to ask the doctoral student to reflect on past courses, studies and articles that support and build upon personal areas of interest. The course is designed to challenge students to think about an area of interest and begin develop a comprehensive research topic aligned with their professional goals. Students expand on the research topic, identify appropriate theories, methodologies and consider research design. At the end of eight weeks, students will frame the beginning of a doctoral research dissertation.

    3 Credits
    Required Books

    This is a course on modern educational psychology and its application in enhancing the quality of classroom teaching. Each module will focus on one or two major factors affecting the quality of learning and explain how a range of theories and up-to-date research can be applied in the classroom. Cognitive factors, including cognitive development, intelligence, learning styles and thinking skills are covered in detail, and additional influences, including motivational and emotional factors. The final three modules are concerned with professional issues and address the effective use of information learning technology, teacher stress and the conduct and application of educational research. This course is aimed at all training and qualified teachers. It is clear enough to be comprehensible to those new to psychology, teaching, or both—but at the same time, challenging, and up-to-date enough to be of interest to the experienced practitioner; particularly those undertaking higher degrees in education. Finally, we will demonstrate how education research is conducting. Education differs from comparable professions, such as medicine and psychology, in that although there is a thriving field of professional research, it takes place largely in isolation from professional practice. Perhaps most obviously, teachers may wish to use research to evaluate aspects of their own practice.

    3 Credits
    Required Books

    This course provides a historical overview of educational leadership and organizational behavior, investigating the many useful theories that assist the educational leader and the fundamental processes inherent to effective school administration. Throughout the course, organizational theories are presented within the context of their usefulness in informing practice. Direct relationships and applications are made to the environment of school principals and superintendents. Theories and concepts are explored in the historical context as it is important to recognize the larger social, cultural, and economic forces that influence all organizations, particularly schools.

    3 Credits
    Required Books

    This course is designed to provide educators and others with a broad overview of the legal aspects of the organization, operation, and control of education in the United States. Topics covered include the limits of compulsory education; the relationship between public education and religious institutions and practices; the nature of a constitutional right to education; the adequacy and equity of school funding; the balance between federal control through statutes, like the Every Child Succeeds Act, and state control over curriculum; school governance; the rights and responsibilities of students; traditional and novel torts in the educational environment; and the rights and responsibilities of educators.

    3 Credits
    Required Books

    This course will introduce assessment methods for gauging necessary educational improvements and how these are implemented in a variety of areas across the educational spectrum. This course also provides a focus on technology as an implementation of educational improvement. Students will analyze the use of technology in education and formulate a paper on its implementations, benefits and concerns. This course will reflect on educational improvement from personal, historical, philosophical, legal, and job related perspectives. Texts and research based supplementary reading build the foundational information to strengthen students’ preparation for the dissertation process. Through research data gathering, students will have the opportunity to build a framework for learning and analyzing continuous improvement methods in education from a variety of perspectives.

    3 Credits
    Required Books

    This course explores how technology can contribute to meaningful learning, achieving deep understanding of complex ideas that are relevant to the lives of students. Emphasis is on the effectiveness of learning supported, technology-based curricula with a focus on history, suggesting models and approaches for teacher professional development required to effectively implement technology in the classroom.

    3 Credits
    Required Books

    This course is designed to provide students with additional research tools used to solve everyday problems through a process of inquiry and developing solutions to significant problems in the workplace. This useful strategy can provide the leader a design for decision-making based on data and supportive research.  This course satisfies the Proctored Exam requirement for this program.

    3 Credits
    Required Books
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