Doctorate In Education
When research universities were established in the late 19th century in
the United States, they primarily awarded doctorates in the sciences and
later the arts. By the early 20th century, these universities began to
offer doctoral degrees in professional fields. The first professional
degrees were awarded in medicine and law. Shortly thereafter, in
response to the societal demand for expert practitioners, doctorates
began to be awarded in education.[1] The first Doctor of Philosophy
(Ph.D.) degree in the field of education was granted at Teachers
College, Columbia University in 1893. The first Doctor of Education
(Ed.D.) degree was granted at Harvard University in 1921. The Ed.D.
degree was then added by Teachers College in 1934.From the very
beginning there was a formal division between the Ed.D. and the Ph.D. in
education, and the growing popularity of the applied doctorates was met
by faculty in the arts and sciences questioning their legitimacy. They
argued that practical and vocational aims were inappropriate for
doctoral study, which they contended should be focused on producing
scholarly research and college professors. The Ed.D. and the colleges of
education that granted them continued to face criticism through the
1980s. In 2013 Harvard University, the first institution to award the
Ed.D. degree, will accept its last Ed.D. cohort and instead will begin
offering the Ph.D. in Education for the 2014 academic year. The Ed.D.
currently is awarded in several countries in addition to the United
States (see below).
The
Doctor of Education (Ed.D. or D.Ed.), Latin: Doctor Educations, is a
terminal doctoral degree that has a research and/or professional focus.
It prepares the student for academic, administrative, clinical,
professional or research positions in educational, civil, private
organizations or public institutions.
School classrooms are now increasingly equipping themselves with info
tech tools designed to enrich the learning experience and guide
pupil-teacher interaction. Joel Klein, former New York City Schools
Chancellor and now CEO of Amplify, News Corporation’s education unit,
declared on leaving the NYC post that he was convinced of two things:
“If we didn't see a dramatic technological change, we were not going to
be able to move this country forward, and second of all, that the
private sector had to get much, much more involved.” Accordingly,
US-based multinational media organisation News Corp brought in Klein to
head up Amplify with a view to bringing the business sector into the
public education field, and that’s just what he has now done. The new Amplify tablet
is a 10-inch Android-based slate, which will be per-loaded with study
materials in line with the school curriculum. As part of the
subscription service, Amplify will also provide schools with
infrastructure for storing pupil data.
Tools for students and teachers
The new Amplify device is one of the first-ever tablets customized for
the use of school students and their class teachers. With simple, clean
interface and intuitive functioning, the device is attractive and easy
to use, characteristics which will be crucial for its adoption by K-12
primary and secondary students. It comes with distinct pupil and teacher
packages, both either wife- or LITE-connected. The students’ interface
is designed to help them work through their lessons and class exercises
and also enables them to access extra information from educational
platforms such as per-loaded Khan Academy videos
or from the internet. Meanwhile the teacher’s device comes loaded with a
range of software monitoring and intervention tools enabling him/her to
spot pupils in need of one-to-one assistance, provide tutorials and
correct students’ work easily. Features include a template to create a
mini-quiz in real time to test students’ comprehension. Promoting this
‘blended learning’ approach – a combination of tech and traditional
teaching methods – Amplify now plans to begin marketing the device and
package initially to middle schools. The intention is also that students
take their tablet home at night and continue to use it, for example to
play educational games which help them to learn outside the classroom
setting.
Enhancing the classroom experience
The Amplify package potentially enables administrators and teachers to
distribute and control unified curriculum content across a whole class
or even an entire grade at district level. The company also argues that
this approach could help to overcome technological inequalities that may
exist between students, as many schools may well be able to finance
their purchase of Amplify tablets and subscriptions through the US
Education Department's ‘Race to the Top’ grant programmer, thus ensuring
that all students are able to work with the same platform in school and
at home. And even if grants prove not to be obtainable, the tablet
itself ($299) is less expensive than others, like the iPad. Not least,
the tablet has the potential to bring connectivity to every classroom
and familiar school students with the language of the online world. “We
wanted to use the language of the Web,” underlined Stephen Smith,
President of Amplify Access, the division that produces the tablet in
collaboration with hardware manufacturer Asus. The Android-based
open-source device also gives teachers plenty of room for man oeuvre.
Nevertheless, while it may be an attractive product, the Amplify Tablet
is entering a market crowded with competitors, including online commerce
giant Amazon, trying to tap into primary and secondary classrooms.
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