The Doctorate of Education in Applied Learning Sciences combines the development of specialist skills with the application of theory to diverse learning environments. Graduates gain the skills and credentials to excel in education or corporate environments. Tailor your studies to your professional interests. With UOnline, you can apply your coursework to a real-world situation in your cumulative project.

A Cumulative Project in Place of a Dissertation

Coursework with Real-World Application

Students enrolled in the Doctor of Education in Applied Learning Sciences program complete a cumulative project rather than a dissertation. The project builds on the artifacts produced in multiple courses. It provides an opportunity to synthesize what has been learned throughout the program and apply it to a real-world situation. Students may present artifacts in written, digital, or multimedia formats like film.

This project addresses a local problem or issue in learning. Students work with a partner organization of the University or their place of employment. You can choose to work with other students and in small groups on the project. Collaborative projects are typically more complex than individual projects and require supplementary materials documenting the contribution of individual students.

You can choose to complete your project in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, or Mandarin.

Engage in the Design and Implementation of Learning Innovations

Focus your learning on areas of personal or professional interest. Choose from a range of electives, including research in higher education, design for formal learning environments, and design for workplace-related environments.

• TAL 704 - INTRODUCTION TO THE LEARNING SCIENCES

  This course provides an overview of the learning sciences. Foundations for Applied Learning Sciences include the dominant foci of learning, evidence, and design. They attend to important themes related to social justice as well as cultural diversity, variability, and inclusion. Students will explore various perspectives and research on domain-specific and domain-general learning in and out of schools, especially those typically considered in the learning sciences field. Students will also examine how these perspectives provide insight into what it means to learn and know. The course objectives include the following:

  1) Understand critical questions addressed in research on learning;
  2) Understand foundational and modern theories and perspectives in learning;
  3) Understand how various learning theories are applied in domain-specific and domain-general research contexts and their limitations;
  4) Develop and articulate your perspectives and research questions on learning.

  Credits: Three (3)

• TAL 600 - HUMAN LEARNING

  This course provides an overview of major theories of human development from childhood through adulthood. The course will focus on the following:

  • The individual learner as influenced by the individual-learning and social-learning processes;
  • The interrelationships between human learning and development;
  • Social settings for learning such as classroom, business, and informal learning environments;
  • The applications of learning theories and models;
  • The learning of language(s), content, social practices, and reasoning processes, with an emphasis on how social, cultural, and linguistic diversity interacts to create variation in human learning.

  Credits: Three (3)

• TAL 652 - ASSESSMENT OF HUMAN AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

  This course provides an overview of the assessment of learners in the educational, business, workplace, and informal settings, with an emphasis on considerations related to cultural and linguistic diversity. Topics include classroom-based assessment, high-stakes assessment in educational settings, testing for job placement and certification, and program evaluation. Among the assessment techniques to be covered are cognitive interviews, the analysis of group-based processes, discourse analysis, and focus-group work.

  Credits: Three (3)

• TAL 602 - ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

  This course provides an overview of how organizations adapt and change, including changes that constitute learning. Changes in shared values, structures, and practices can facilitate or hinder an organization’s capacity to gather, select, and process information, to retain that information, and to act upon knowledge valued and created by members. Emphasis is placed on how the careers participants fit within their employment or field placement sites as learning organizations and how their efforts can help their sites to learn.

  Credits: Three (3)

• TAL 705 - DESIGN OF ONLINE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

  This course provides an overview of technology applications in learning environments, including history, theoretical foundations, design processes, and available technologies. The course includes an exploration of online learning applications and software, instructional design considerations, and curriculum development for online settings. Topics could include multi-literacies, digital youth network, media, and connected learning, web-based learning, AI, and machine-based learning models.

  Credits: Three (3)

• TAL 706 - DESIGN OF FORMAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

  This course on instructional design provides an overview of theoretical approaches to learning that can be used to analyze learning environments and learning goals for the creation and sequencing of learning activities. It also covers how resources can be deployed in support of effective learning. Topics can include the use of theoretical learning trajectories, tenets and applications of universal design, and social support and intellectual scaffolds for learning.

  Credits: Three (3)

• TAL707 - DESIGN OF WORKPLACE RELATED LEARNING

  This course deepens the understanding of workplace training and professional development by relating learning to needs assessments; instructional design techniques; program planning, marketing, and delivery techniques; and the evaluation of adult learning programs within a variety of organizational settings. Emphasis is placed on constructing training and professional development programs that are meaningful to a diverse workforce and that achieve individual and organizational improvement outcomes.

  Credits: Three (3)

• AFFECTIVE, RELATIONAL AND CULTURAL FACTORS AND PROCESSES IN LEARNING

  This course explores the impacts of non-cognitive factors on learning and the inter-relationships among what are usually thought of as cognitive and non-cognitive spheres of learning. At times, there may be conflicts between cultural practices as found in learning settings (including classrooms, businesses, and informal learning environments) and the practices into which learners have been encultured by families and communities. Other times, an individual’s identity and the imparted values in a learning environment may work synergistically. The course critically examines the sources of these factors on human and organizational learning programs and practices.

  Credits: Three (3)

• INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH IN TEACHING AND LEARNING

  TBD (Course under development).

  Credits: Three (3)

• QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

  This course provides an overview of the history, nature, characteristics, strategies, and ethics of qualitative research methods. Students will evaluate various types of qualitative studies, including design, sampling, data collection processes, data analysis, and reporting.

  Note: Applied Learning Sciences students should focus their work on methods of observing and describing variability in human learning.

  Credits: Three (3)

• QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

  In this course, basic statistical procedures will be discussed, including measures of central tendency, variability and relationship, sampling, and statistical significance tests.

  Note: Applied Learning Sciences students should focus their work on methods of observing, quantifying, and describing variability in human learning.

  Credits: Three (3)

• TAL 709 - APPLIED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN LEARNING SCIENCES, SEMINAR 1

  Students define and conceptualize a group-based project on learning within their particular employment settings. Groups will develop and implement a plan for a well-focused first effort. The project and its results may be submitted digitally, in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, or Chinese. Each team member will submit a paper defining their unique contributions to the project, outlining how the work was built from the course work. Individual contributions must be substantive and should be complementary. An advisor must approve projects before it is implemented. If a language other than English will be employed, it must also be approved by faculty who will review and grade it.

  Note: Students may take up to three terms to complete this course. The course may be used to meet the continuous enrollment requirement of the University of Miami Graduate School.

  Credits: One (1) to three (3)

  ELECTIVE

  • Qualitative Research Methods
  • Quantitative Research Methods
  • Transfer of credit option

  Qualitative Research Methods
  This course provides an overview of the history, nature, characteristics, strategies, and ethics of qualitative research methods. Students evaluate various types of qualitative studies, including design, sampling, data collection, data analyses, and reporting.

  Note: Applied Learning Sciences students should focus their work on methods of observing and describing variability in human learning.

  Quantitative Research Methods
  In this course, basic statistical procedures will be discussed, including measures of central tendency, variability and relationship, sampling, and statistical significance tests.

  Note: Applied Learning Sciences students should focus their work on methods of observing, quantifying, and describing variability in human learning.

• APPLIED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN LEARNING SCIENCES, SEMINAR 2

  Students build upon, (re)define, (re)conceptualize, (re)develop, and (re)implement their group-based project from TAL7JJ by using the research methods employed in its evaluation. The project and its results may be submitted digitally, in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, or Chinese. Each team member will submit a paper defining their unique contributions to the project, outlining how the work was built from the course work. Individual contributions must be substantive and should be complementary. An advisor must approve projects before it is implemented. If a language other than English will be employed, it must also be approved by faculty who will review and grade it.

  Note: Students may take up to three terms to complete this course. The course may be used to meet the continuous enrollment requirement of the University of Miami Graduate School.

  Credit: One (1) to three (3)