Joseph Epstein/Jill Biden Controversy over Ed.D.

[mamselle]

It's also possible that some Ed.D.'s have shown value added in the recent need for online education.

Perhaps it's a time whose idea has come.

M.

[kaysixteen]

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, mamselle?  Are you implying that somehow more online Ed.D.s would be a useful and worthwhile objective? 

[mamselle]

No, just observing that, with the increased need for online ed. over the past several months, those in Ed.D. for whom online teaching was a significant part of their training may have been able to make contributions in places that were less well-prepared or had fewer support people in place for such teaching modalities.

A friend/parent of one of my students with a dctoral degree in material science also did an Ed.D. to be able to oversee the online ed. offerings at her R1. Her emails blew up to 500 a day on March 17th, and have yet to abate,, really..

The whole school was essentially at her doorstep, and the fact that the need for her expertise was tied, not to her highly respected science background, but her familiarty with educational design for online teaching, seems to have shifted several more curmudgeonly faculty who originally decried the Ed.D program to a grudging respect (fawning, synchophantic need) for her services when it became clear that classroom teaching as they knew it would not suffice.

Not all Ed.D.s have this expertise and not all online instructors need an Ed.D. to do their work well, obviously.

But there may have been a functional intersect between those that do and those that do...and that may contribute to a "value-added" perception that didn't exist in the same way before.

M.

[marshwiggle]

Not all Ed.D.s have this expertise and not all online instructors need an Ed.D. to do their work well, obviously.

But there may have been a functional intersect between those that do and those that do...and that may contribute to a "value-added" perception that didn't exist in the same way before.

M.

It may vary by location, but around here they're mostly for people who want to become education bureaucrats; most of the courses and program options are about education policy, management, etc., with very little about actual pedagogy.

[writingprof]

Not all Ed.D.s have this expertise and not all online instructors need an Ed.D. to do their work well, obviously.

But there may have been a functional intersect between those that do and those that do...and that may contribute to a "value-added" perception that didn't exist in the same way before.

M.

It may vary by location, but around here they're mostly for people who want to become education bureaucrats; most of the courses and program options are about education policy, management, etc., with very little about actual pedagogy.

Same here. If you're a secretary who would like to become provost, the EdD is your ticket.

[jimbogumbo]

Not all Ed.D.s have this expertise and not all online instructors need an Ed.D. to do their work well, obviously.

But there may have been a functional intersect between those that do and those that do...and that may contribute to a "value-added" perception that didn't exist in the same way before.

M.

There are some very good discipline based programs, Teachers College at Columbia being one of the premier programs. Many excellent researchers I know actually have Ed.D.s. I'm pretty confident most of you have experience with central administrators who have degrees in educational leadership or administration.

It may vary by location, but around here they're mostly for people who want to become education bureaucrats; most of the courses and program options are about education policy, management, etc., with very little about actual pedagogy.

Same here. If you're a secretary who would like to become provost, the EdD is your ticket.

[mamselle]

I adjuncted and/or was an EA for a couple of schools that took Ed.Ds very seriously, in different areas--one was the one in online learning, the other more policy-like, but with international policy in the mix.

Both had strong research interests, also: the first in rehabilitative learning for specialists in a variety of differential abilities and diagnoses, the second in the policy areas mentioned. (I had to create/format/produce self-published booklets for US-AID programs for the second).

So, yes, there's a bit of variance.

M.

ETA: Yes, jimbogumbo, along the lines of what you're saying, if this line (which got buried in the dread quote function) was your intended post:

There are some very good discipline based programs, Teachers College at Columbia being one of the premier programs. Many excellent researchers I know actually have Ed.D.s. I'm pretty confident most of you have experience with central administrators who have degrees in educational leadership or administration.

[jimbogumbo]

Sigh. Indeed, it was.

[writingprof]

There are some very good discipline based programs, Teachers College at Columbia being one of the premier programs. Many excellent researchers I know actually have Ed.D.s. I'm pretty confident most of you have experience with central administrators who have degrees in educational leadership or administration.

This is true. It is also true that small, insular colleges use the Ed.D. to keep the outside world at bay. Here's the scam, in four easy steps:

1) Graduate a pliable "C" student.
2) Give him a starter job in admissions or (internal) marketing.
3) Send him to a thirteen-month, tuition-free, one-night-a-week Ed.D. program on campus.
4) Promote him to a serious administrative position with real power over faculty.

It isn't enough to say that I've seen this happen. Rather, it describes the career of literally every administrator I work for.

[financeguy]

I generally believe that managing something is a different skill set than a specialist has so the argument that someone "doesn't have the training in my specialty and therefore can't mange me" is anathema to the entire big-picture nature of managing anything. That said, I'm not prepared to accept that an Ed.D. provides someone with alternate skills to function in that management or administrative capacity rather than giving an option for those that didn't want to put in the work or time for a Ph.D.