Curriculum

During Years One to Three in the Program, students take year-long Core Seminars with other members of their Cohort, following the same course sequence. Year One - Educational Inquiry and Foundations Year Two - Learning, Instruction, and Human Development Year Three - Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Policy Analysis

Year Two includes a course on Community Service and Service Learning, dealing with the larger networks of human services and support in which educational institutions are embedded. Each student also completes a Specialization Area (a minimum of four courses from URI and/or RIC), organized around the individual student's own research interests. There is a required core of courses in research methods, supplemented by more advanced work in methods applicable to a student's Specialization Area and dissertation topic.

Throughout the Program, students participate in biweekly Field Research Seminars (EDP 641) that combine members from the 1st-year, 2nd-year, and 3rd-year cohorts. Co-taught by professors from RIC and URI, these seminars provide a forum for students to present their evolving research areas, questions, and methodologies. Feedback and discussion help to develop each presenter's research ideas - en route to the dissertations - swhile also sharpening the research tools of other members of the seminar.

A defining feature of this Ph.D. Program is the premium placed on research training. Potential applicants should be aware of the central importance of this research training to the Program's mission, as reflected in its guiding tenets.

1. Educational improvement and reform are extremely complex processes. They will be more successful if guided by thoughtful, rigorous research.
2. Accordingly, graduates of the Program must be voracious and discriminating consumers of research that has addressed the assumptions, structures, and impact of America's educational institutions and practices.
3. Guided by this research, they must be prepared to design alternative approaches and programs, then evaluate them in fine-grained ways that will contribute to the systematic improvement of education.