Use Your Experience to Shape the Future of Health Care
You often hear about the health care worker shortage, but did you know there is also a shortage of health care educators? Undergraduate health care programs turn away thousands of qualified students each year due to an insufficient number of health care educators. Brenau is committed to providing an opportunity for you to be proactive and bridge this gap.*
Brenau University’s Ed.D., Higher Education: Healthcare Education Specialist degree is both challenging and empowering, offering a solid foundation in instructional theory, design and assessment. Whether you’re already devoted to shaping minds in higher education, or you’re bringing your expertise from Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy or Primary Care, discover your path to making a difference in health care education with this rewarding program.
Brenau’s Healthcare Education Specialist students embody the professional practices and inclusive ideals that are essential in the health care industry, and a core part of our values.
Potential career paths after graduation
Upon completion of this program, you will be qualified to:
- Satisfy professional accreditation requirements by holding an academic terminal degree.
- Seek leadership positions such as department chair or department dean in a health care academic field.
- Teach specialized health care content courses at the collegiate level.
- Adjunct for a university or college while keeping your full-time health care position.
- Facilitate health care education from home as an online university instructor.
Core courses
In our core curriculum, you’ll be challenged to understand the theory behind educational practices, and you’ll critically explore the evidence for those theories. Regardless of your concentration, you will progress through the following 21 credits with your cohort:
- ED 828 Legal Issues and Ethics—Understand the constitutional rights of students and educators; understand ethical and legal outcomes of student-instructor interactions and more.
- ED 845 Curriculum Design, Theory & Evaluation—Explore research-based practices for designing, evaluating, implementing and continuously improving curricula.
- ED 860 Leadership in Education—Explore models of leadership and leadership development while building your own capabilities for creative problem-solving through communication and interpersonal relationships.
- ED 865 Academic Program Assessment & Evaluation—Take a holistic perspective of program and student evaluation, learn strategies for planning and evaluating assessment methods, and more.
- ED 870 Educational Issues & Policy—Reflect and discuss current policy issues impacting the field of education and complete a research project based on an issue you feel is critical to the field.
- ED 875 Cultural Perspectives & Leadership—Explore how diverse facets of individual identity impact teaching and learning and look at systematic policy and other impacts on diverse students and instructors.
- ED 932 Future Trends in Education—Evaluate and discuss emerging trends in teaching and learning, as well as the societal, political and economic factors driving them.
Research and dissertation advising
You will take 21 credits focused on advancing your research skills and developing the capstone of your degree—your doctoral dissertation.
- ED 930 Advanced Research Methods—Build skills for analyzing data sets, evaluating research design and technique and designing research.
- ED 935 Intermediate Qualitative Research—Focus on quantitative research methods including ANOVA, MANOVA, regression analysis, non-parametric statistics including chi-square, and introductory clinical trial design in a practice setting.
- ED 940 Qualitative Research Methods—Comparisons and critiques of the major forms of qualitative research methodology and assessment of credibility, trustworthiness, reliability, and validity of studies that use qualitative designs are topics covered in this course. It will include development of research designs that can be used to inform therapeutic decision making and to assess intervention outcomes.
- ED 960 Dissertation Advisement 1: Literature Review—Begin developing the dissertation by posing questions and reviewing existing content to find a specific issue or problem to address.
- ED 965 Dissertation Advisement 2: Proposal—Build skills for designing the research for your dissertation, hone your proposal and begin developing the first chapters of your dissertation.
- ED 970 Dissertation Advisement 3: Collection of Data—With advisor approval, enter the main phase of research for your proposed topic and continue producing chapters for the dissertation.
- ED 975 Dissertation Advisement 4: Research Conclusion—Analyze your data, complete writing and revisions and prepare for oral defense of your dissertation.
- ED 980 Dissertation Advisement 5: Dissertation Continuation (if applicable)—Students who need additional time to prepare their dissertation or submit corrections can enroll in a supervised continuation course.
Courses: Higher Education: Healthcare Education Specialist Concentration
The courses available to the Higher Education: Healthcare Education Specialist students consist of advanced instructional content and pedagogy and are aligned to institutional standards. The courses challenge students to enhance their professional practice by producing research that deepens knowledge and applies connections between theory and practice. The four major courses required for this degree are:
- ED 852–The Health Care Educator: Faculty Roles and Responsibilities
- ED 853–Health Care Leadership and Professional Practice
- ED 856–Theory of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
- ED 858–The Art of Instructional Design
Shape the future of health care! Earn your Ed.D. in Higher Education: Healthcare Education Specialist with Brenau University! Get in touch today to start the conversation with us.
*source AACN