Program Outcomes & Structure

Program Outcomes

Our Ed.D. program outcomes are aligned with the Carnegie Project on the Educational Doctorate (CPED) guiding principles, as follows:

The Professional Doctorate in Education:

• Is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice.
• Prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities.
• Provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships.
• Provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions.
• Is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry.
• Emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice.

Overall Program Structure

JWU’s unique program offers:

• An 8-weekend synchronous class schedule across a 16 week semester:
  
  o Friday evenings (synchronous, online)
  o All-day Saturday (synchronous, in the JWU Providence Harborside Campus)
  o Asynchronous online delivery between scheduled weekend sessions

• Small classes, so you can develop a relationship with professors who are leaders in the field

• Application of course learning directly to your work environment — your laboratory of practice — to provide value in real time

• Personalized advising during the dissertation phase to support on-time completion

Through your coursework, you’ll learn to:

• Define problems, ask the right questions, think beyond the obvious, develop and test several alternatives, and choose the option that maximizes the results.

• Utilize existing research, data, and appropriate research methodology to develop and test alternative solutions, and choose the best course of action.

• Communicate appropriately to individuals and groups of various sizes to teach students, to persuade others, to mediate disputes, and to build convincing cases.

• Structure educational environments in which leadership roles and responsibilities are shared; in which the mission, goals and work are determined collaboratively; in which evidence overrides opinion, tradition and bias; in which decisions are made in a timely manner and communicated efficiently; and in which others are motivated to do more than they thought they could.

• Think beyond common constraints, take calculated risks, and advocate stretched goals in order to bring fresh perspectives to educational issues and problems and to open the way for new and potential promising solutions.

• Articulate a vision for technology utilization in order to model and promote effective uses; support teaching and learning; improve management functions; provide forward-thinking leadership and management to continuously improve organizations; and facilitate better understanding of social, ethical and legal issues and responsibilities related to a digital age culture.

• Recognize and consider the ethical and legal dimension of potential actions, practice and promote social awareness and ethical behavior, and encourage others to do the same.

• Exercise leadership to address the pressing issues of social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion in order to close achievement gaps for underrepresented populations.

Coursework Completion

You’ll complete your Ed.D. coursework in two years — 12 credits per semester — to form the academic foundation needed to proceed into your individual research and dissertation.

For those in the Principal Residency Network (PRN), you can expect to complete your coursework in three years, with your dissertation in the fourth year. After successful coursework completion, the university awards the Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies (CAGS) and students complete the Comprehensive Assessment.

Upon passing the assessment, candidates for the degree are assigned a major advisor, officially beginning the dissertation of the Ed.D. program in year three. With strong advisement and ongoing support from a committee of experts, the majority of candidates will complete the dissertation in the third academic year.

Those needing additional time will move into the extended advisement phase until such time as they are ready to complete. Note that there is a 6-year limit to complete, dating from the start of initial coursework in the program.