The Master's in Education (MEDU) Program is designed to be user-friendly, and to recruit a new population of educators and graduates of undergraduate programs holding a first Teacher Certification. The program emphasizes teaching and learning and provides a necessary emphasis on integrated learning. The program's integrated curriculum will prepare teachers as leaders and to be more effective and innovative in classrooms, in schools, and in communities. Instruction via technology is employed, where relevant, as one medium of instruction. Consequently, all students enrolled in this program are required to have Internet access. While students will participate in various modes of learning, evaluation, and research, a significant focus of this MED Program is that students will develop those characteristics necessary to be effective leaders in various educational arenas. This focus will be an element of each Thematic Unit and will highlight the recursive nature of teaching and learning. Students who successfully complete the MED Program may apply for the Principal's Certification Program, but are still required to meet that program's other requirements.

Various educational researchers consistently note that attention to integrated curriculum, diverse instructional strategies and assessment methods, reflective inquiry, and learning within a cohort structure is necessary for effective instruction in the 21st Century. Each of the six Thematic Units has been developed around these issues and, consequently, contributes to an innovative, high quality teacher education program.

The concept of integrated learning has important implications for the relationship of practice and research. Its emphasis is on centrality of knowledge in learning. While students will study the traditional disciplines and issues in public/private education, they will also explore the educational implications. The Masters in Education curriculum is more than a stringing together of unrelated courses or separate competencies. It is an integrated and sequential approach designed to engage students in organizing, structuring, integrating, and revising what is known about teaching and learning, the elementary, middle, junior-high, and high-school student, the family, and the community milieu from which students come.

The program consists of thirty-six semester hours divided into six Thematic Units of six-credits each taken over a two-year period. All students begin the program in the fall semester as a cohort. This format has the added benefit of encouraging graduate students to establish and maintain a supportive network and a more systematic process for scheduling classes and moving through the program together. In the first year, students will enroll in MEDU-661 in the fall, MEDU-662 during the succeeding spring semester, and MEDU-663 in Summer Session I*. In the second year, students will enroll in MEDU-664 in the fall, MEDU-665 in the spring, and MEDU-666 in Summer Session II.