M.Ed. in Adult Education

M.Ed. in Adult Education
Enhancing Lifelong Learning

Are you an education professional or practitioner looking to impact the lives of adult learners? The M.Ed. in Adult Education program at Ashland University will help you advance the practice of learning and teaching to increase adult achievement.

What to Expect in the M.Ed. Adult Education Program

While there are 50 million youth enrolled in the U.S. K-12 education system, there are over 250 million adults who are increasingly seeking formal, lifelong learning related to the following:

• Health and wellness
• Economic and workforce issues
• Encore career development
• Cultural and second language contexts

With a Master’s of Education in Adult Education, you will learn how to design and implement a range of curricula and programs for adult learners. You'll learn how to provide solutions for adult learners facing challenges in educational growth, professional development, and more in order to help them redefine the boundaries of their potential, and to find their life's callin

Solidifying Success

The Bureau of Labor Department indicates that employment opportunities in adult education will increase by more than 21% through 2025 and beyond. This is linked, in part, to emerging trends in the U.S. that include:

• The need for adults to develop skills for encore careers due to technological and economic changes in society
• The increasing migration of second language residents to the U.S. and of U.S. adult populations globally due to workforce issues
• The emergence of health and wellness concerns related to the U.S. adult population that implicate rising health care costs

Each of these trends is associated to the need for formal adult education and training programs, and a necessary rise in the number of trained educators and education leaders in adult education work settings.

Program Highlights

The M.Ed. in Adult Education is a 30 credit hour program:

• The 15-hour graduate core meets the national standards for Graduate Programs in Adult Education.
• EDAE 501 Methods of Teaching in Adult Education
• EDAE 503 The History and Philosophy of Adult Education
• EDAE 505 Adult Training and Development in the Workplace
• EDAE 601 Program Planning and Management in Adult Education
• EDAE 603 Adult Development, Continuity and Change
• The 12 credit hour cognate of your choice allows you to personalize your degree (see options below).
• Students can also design their own career-focused cognate with faculty advisement from across the university.
• The 3 credit hour Capstone Inquiry course applies your Adult Ed learning to a real-world project or research project.

Customize your degree with a cognate

Communication: Designed for any sector. Communication is an important skill in every field.

Required:

• COM 510 Introduction to Graduate Studies in Communication
• COM 520 Data Informed Decision Making

Select 6 credit hours from the following list:

• COM 620 Strategic Communication
• COM 640 Organizational Communication
• COM 650 Risk and Crisis Communication
• COM Elective courses

Criminal Justice: Designed for criminal justice professionals.
Select 4 from:

• CJ 510 Constitutional & Legal Issues
• CJ 520 Seminar in Criminology
• CJ 530 Critical Issues in CJ
• CJ 540 Ethics and Justice
• CJ 560 Criminal Justice Policy

Ed Tech: Designed for the PreK-12 educational sector.

• EDCI 512 Networking & Tech Infrastructure in Schools (pre-req = EDCI 522)
• EDCI 522 Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century
• EDUC 507 Understanding Statistical Research

Select one from:

• EDCI 538 Designing and Implementing Professional Development for the Technology Leader
• EDCI 633 Organization and Transformational Change Through Technology

Organizational Administration and Change: Designed for the business sector and sub-fields like training and development, human resource management, and organizational change.

• MBA 501 Organizational Design, Development and Change Management

Select 3 from:

• MBA 503 Operations Management
• MBA 505 Financial Management
• MBA 507 Marketing Management
• MBA 511 Managerial Accounting
• MBA 540 Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship

• Health Determinants and Academic Indicators (SNP 518)
• Educational Strategies for Healthcare Providers (SNP 520)
• Healthcare of the School Community (SNP 525)
• Interprofessional Collaboration: The School Nurse and School Support Services (SNP 528)
• School Nurse Internship (SNP 680)

* The amount of internship credit required is determined by verification of the type of previous experience as a nurse in a school setting.

Seminary: Designed for the Christian faith-based sector.

Required courses:

• BSG 5501 Engaging Texts and Contexts

Select 3 courses from:

• CHS 5500 The Story of the Christian Faith
• CLD 6630 Leading the People of God
• CTH 5520 Christian Theology for the Kingdom of God
• MSS 5501 Kingdom Mission in a Global Community
• NTS 5511 Introduction to the New Testament
• OTS 5511 Introduction to the Old Testament (Part 1)
• OTS 5512 Introduction to the Old Testament (Part 2)
• SPF 5540 Spiritual Formation

TESOL: Designed for the educational or business sector and leads to a Teaching English as a Second Language certificate in addition to the M.Ed.

• EDCI 534 Language Acquisition & Elements of Linguistics for Teaching English Language Learners
• EDCI 535 Integrated Teaching Methods for English Language Learners
• EDFN 533 Culturally & Linguistically Diverse Learners
• EDFN 646 Educational Assessment

Custom: Graduate work in other fields not listed above can be completed on a case-by-case basis.