http://www.sjcme.edu/gps/masterscienceeducation.htm

Purpose and Program Objectives: School and Health Care Educators

The teaching and learning concentrations are designed both for practicing classroom teachers seeking to improve their skills and upgrade their qualifications or certification, and for professionals in other fields desiring a career change into teaching. Their main focus is on the classroom itself, and their primary goal is to increase instructional effectiveness in achieving desired learning outcomes, for adolescents and adults alike.

Most courses use two general approaches in pursuing this goal. The first is students’ assimilating the results of scholarly research on teaching and learning and integrating it with their individual experiences; the second is students’ examining and evaluating some of the many conflicting opinions on the appropriate content and methodologies of teaching. Both are intended to expand students’ perspectives, and thereby expand their abilities to make well reasoned choices on methods, contents, and results that would be most suitable to their individual circumstances.

The philosophy underlying the entire degree program has been termed that of facilitating “civil education”: teaching and learning which appreciates the uniqueness of individuals, acknowledges the human potential for lifelong growth, and stresses the importance of reasoned interaction in the search for meaning. Students in the M.S.Ed teaching and learning concentrations will:

• acquire an integrated body of knowledge related to teaching and learning;
• develop an understanding of learning styles across gender, cultures, developmental life stages, abilities and disabilities;
• integrate and demonstrate attitudes and practices that build on self and others’ resiliencies;
• research and critique a variety of issues connected to curriculum, assessment, instructional technologies and learning styles;
• establish connections among theories, research and practice;
• design, develop, and evaluate a final project that demonstrates growth in teaching & learning.

Purpose and Program Objectives: Administrative Management

This concentration is intended for both teachers and administrators, primarily though not exclusively working in public education, interested in initiating or enhancing a career in educational administration. Much of the program is applicable to use in community colleges as well. Its two main purposes are enabling participants to master the knowledge and techniques necessary for educational management, and to review and evaluate best practices from both the public and private sectors in order to select among the managerial options available to address their various courses of action.

The general approaches used in pursuing these purposes are similar to those in the teaching and learning concentrations. First, participants investigate the scholarly research on educational administration, and evaluate it in terms of their previous experience and expectations of the future; second, they review the debates over past and current issues such as motivating and developing professional employees, management styles and a unionized environment, financial and legal options and constraints, and social and political influences on future trends.

The concept of “civil education” underlies the administrative management concentration as well, in that both managers and employees are seen as unique individuals with the capacity for lifelong learning and growth, whose interaction, while regulated by legal and financial requirements, can be inspired by empathy and reason. Students in the M.S.Ed administrative management concentration will:

• be aware of different supervisory management methods, and be able to use goal-setting, feedback, reinforcement and delegation to enhance both satisfaction and efficiency;
• have appropriate knowledge of the legal and financial requirements and options of various administrative positions, and the ethical issues potentially involved with them;
• appreciate the advantages and drawbacks of different leadership styles, and the conditions which are favorable or unfavorable to them;
• be familiar with organizational planning and development models, and how individuals’ development goals may be matched with the organization’s;
• be able to see the educational organization as a subsystem of larger social and political systems, and be adept at recognizing the requirements for productive relationships.