The Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction, no licensure route, prepares those who already have a Bachelor’s degree to become educators who are informed, reflective, and engaged contributors in their communities.  This non-licensure programs provides participants with knowledge, skills, and dispositions in the areas of  high impact teaching strategies, cultural responsiveness, instructional technology, and globalization of the curriculum and interdisciplinary teaching. 

Benefits of the program

• 100% online
• Can satisfy provisional licensure requirements if you hold a provisional license
• Could complete in one year (Summer – Fall – Spring; or Fall-Spring-Summer; or Spring -Summer – Fall) or take up to 6 years to complete at your own pace
• Career advancement
• Enhance and advance professional knowledge
• Preparation for a PhD or Ed D program
• Tuition discounts for current Virginia educators

Working closely with an advisor, students develop a highly personalized program of study that incorporates a number of professional learning elements, including reading, assessment, pedagogy in general and special education, curriculum design and development and perhaps advanced studies in content areas.

In addition to the coursework below, to earn the degree, you must also pass a comprehensive assessment in the final semester of your coursework.   You will have a choice of the following for this assessment;

• Professional teaching portfolio (this option is only available for educators concurrently working in a school);
• The National Evaluation Series (NES) assessment on professional knowledge (either elementary or secondary); and
• Scholarly research

30-Hour Concentration

Common Core (12 credit hours)

• EDET 620 - Education Technology: Applications, Applied Research and Integration
• EDEF 605 - Educational Research
• EDUC 670 - Basic Principles and Practices of Multicultural Education
• EDEF 607 - Educational Foundations

Categorical Elective Categories (18 credit hours)

For each of these below, students have a wide range of choices as to which class to take in each category (Categorical and Open Elective Choices [PDF])

• Teaching and Curriculum Development (3 credit hours)
• Reading (3 credit hours)
• Assessment and Evaluation (3 credit hours)
• Special Education (3 credit hours)
• Open electives (2-courses, 6 credit hours) if you can make a justification for the worth of a graduate-level class for your professional development, then it is likely that you can take it. Thus, the courses could be in education or could be in some content area of interest.