Doctor of Education (EdD)

[Music]

Text on screen: Program Spotlight: Doctor of Education (EdD)

Text on screen: Trezette Dixon, EdD ’23, Professional Educator, Webster University Adjunct Faculty

Trezette Dixon

I'm pursuing a Doctorate of Education with an Emphasis in Transformative Learning in a Global Community.

Text on screen: Yin Lam (Nicole) Lee-Johnson, PhD, Associate Professor, Director of EdD Program

Yin Lam (Nicole) Lee-Johnson

This flexible emphasis is for people who are really care about social justice. And then how do we transform the status quo of inequities in educational systems?

[Footage of a student’s hands paging through a book]

Text on screen: A Holistic Framework: Fostering Scholarship, Research and Leadership

When we build a program, we want to make sure that there are four major elements in it. There is theory, research, practice and leadership.

Text on screen: THEORY, RESEARCH, PRACTICE, LEADERSHIP

So for the theory building, I think for any doctoral program, students have to learn some of the academic constructs and for research they have to learn how to conduct research with the methods. So we have qualitative and quantitative research methods classes, and we want to make sure they also use the most up to date software for data analysis.

[Image of laptop with words on screen that reads: Data Analysis Software: JASP/SPSS NVivo/DeDoose

For the practice, we want to make sure that dissertation projects are practical in the field, that they have application or meanings that they can be utilized, or they would transform the field, whether in the school building or among a school district.

Text on screen: Our emphasis is on transformative learning in the global community.

Trezette Dixon

It has definitely changed the way that I perceive our students and how they learn and how our programs support our students. I feel that it's changed me as a critical thinker and looking at various programs and policies that exist and how we can make them more equitable for all students.

[Footage of student on laptop]

Text on screen: Flexible Learning: Online and Global with Apprenticeship

I think the flexibility of the program being online and being engaging at the same time works for me as a professional, working full time as a mother, also as a person that takes care of their elderly parent.

Yin Lam (Nicole) Lee-Johnson

For the online modality, people would use a canvas system and then they read and write. But then we also have a lot of interactive components.

Text on screen: Though media creation, this program provides students with imperative skills for the digital age.

Trezette Dixon

I think that having that flexibility, but also having the engagement through video journaling and video blogging with my cohorts and also my professor really helps me to stay engaged, stay encouraged and really succeed in the program.

[Image of two people in suits shaking hands]

Text on screen: Mentorship and Community: Providing Students the Support they need to Succeed

Yin Lam (Nicole) Lee-Johnson

Even though our courses are online and asynchronous, we intentionally build community in our program for our students.

Trezette Dixon

I've been a part of conferencing or convening, as we call it as well.

[Image of Yin Lam and Trezette at a conference, a poster for the American Educational Research Association Annual Convention 2023]

And then also being a part of a peer mentorship program where students that are currently in the program have the opportunity to mentor those who are starting their program.

Yin Lam (Nicole) Lee-Johnson

So during the mentorship meetings and they would have one on one discussion on career building, how do I get a job that's relevant to the degree? Where to look for those jobs? How do I create my dissertation topic and how do I find a right dissertation chair for my project?

Text on screen: The EdD program is a member of The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED).

So our projects are usually very applicable in the field, and I see them using that after graduating. So they would go provide like professional development talks within the school district and then they would go to conferences, present the ideas. They write books and write chapters and publish in journals about their projects. So those are what we intend for our students to do when they graduate.

Text on screen: Build on knowledge and skills to complement your passions and professional goals.

Trezette Dixon

With my degree, I would love to transform the world one student at a time, and by doing that, using the research and what I've learned through the program to create a more equitable environment for all students and create supportive systems where all students can thrive. And this is impacting our students not just in the U.S., but globally.

[Webster University logo animates on screen]

Text on screen: webster.edu/SOE

[Outro music]