UNE Online has been delivering fully remote graduate courses for over ten years, and this experience has shown that online education is an art with proven techniques that lead to high-quality learning experiences. To help their students face the challenges and struggles of online learning during a pandemic, the Education team designed two online certificate pathways for individuals to become knowledgeable with online learning design and obtain the skills necessary to be able to successfully teach, design, and create meaningful online learning experiences for their own students.
Image provided by UNE Online.
The two new graduate certificates are:
Graduate Certificate in Designing Learning Experiences
Graduate Certificate in Teaching Online
Both certificates consist of four 3-credit classes (for 12 credit hours total), can be completed in as few as eight months (or four 8-week terms), and can be started at any one of our six start times per year (two in each of the spring, summer, and fall semesters). These courses are all 100% online and taught by a dynamic faculty of practitioners, researchers, and educators.
Once a student has completed one of these graduate certificates, they can roll those 12 credits into UNE’s 30-credit online Master of Science in Education (MSEd) program to earn their master’s degree at a later date.
Additional highlights of their new graduate certificates include:
Technology Agnostic Course Development
These graduate certificate courses were developed to be technology agnostic, which allows participants to practice developing courses in the learning management system (LMS) used by their organization. If they don’t have an LMS, they’re provided with other available web-based tools. When it is time to show their instructor what they have built, they will do a demonstration walkthrough of their as-built course.
Ideal For a Variety of Audiences
These certificates are designed to primarily assist K-12 educators, higher education professionals, and corporate trainers in providing the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve success in the online learning realm. However, any individual looking to acquire online learning design skills are recommended to apply. This could be someone that’s aspiring to work in the field of instructional design or someone that is looking to turn their in-person class (cooking, art, sports, etc.) fully online.
This Skill Set is More Important Now Than Ever
Modern education needs agile instruction, including the ability to quickly pivot to online learning when other modalities become unavailable. By earning one of these certificates, graduate students will be equipped with the skills and techniques needed to become experts in online learning design.
“As an educator, I have seen the challenges with the shift to emergency online learning,” said Jayne Pelletier, Ph.D., Director, Graduate Programs in Education at UNE Online. “However, working at UNE Online has given me a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look into how quality online courses are developed. Our new certificates are designed to teach the essential online course development skills to anyone with an interest in online learning. With those skills, they can develop great online courses for learners of all ages.”
Image provided by UNE Online.
UNE Online is currently in the Top 60 Online Graduate Education Programs in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 rankings. U.S. News & World Report’s rankings are based on collected data from more than 1,800 colleges and include such factors as acceptance rates, number of faculty, student-faculty ratios, and graduation and retention rates. A full write-up on their methodology can be found on the U.S. News & World Report rankings website.
Both certificates are currently enrolling for the Spring A session set to begin January 6th, 2021. For more information, contact education@une.edu or click here to learn more.
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