Part-Time Doctoral Degree in Out-of-School Learning at the University of Pittsburgh

Responding to the needs of professionals looking to advance their careers, the University of Pittsburgh offers a Doctor of Education (EdD) in out-of-school learning. The part-time EdD is a three-year cohort-based degree program designed around the needs of working professionals with very clear timelines and an on-line course delivery model.

The program is intended for experienced professionals who aspire to be transformational leaders in out-of-school learning. Prospective applicants might currently work in museums, out-of-school time (OST) settings, libraries, digital media/technology, university outreach/extension, policy groups and think tanks, life-long learning programs, parks, environmental centers, arts-based organizations, community settings, youth development, or the many other areas where we explore learning environments that exist outside of classrooms. Program faculty are expert in connecting research and practice and have experience across a wide range of out-of-school settings, audiences, and learning arrangements.
                                                            
Out-of-School Learning students are part of a larger, multidisciplinary EdD cohort of students from eight different specializations in education, offering rich opportunities for collaboration and broad learning about education. The core EdD curriculum covers educational foundations and methods of practitioner inquiry, while the specialized out-of-school learning curriculum focuses on informal learning theory, organizational processes, applied life-long learning, and evidence-based change and evaluation.

The program has one-week of intensive on-ramp sessions in Pittsburgh during the first summer. After that, in addition to on-line work, most students in the EdD program come to Pittsburgh for occasional Saturday sessions with the entire EdD cohort. Students in the out-of-school learning program can opt for this on-line/face-to-face model or could choose a predominately on-line model. Students who do not live in Pennsylvania can apply for merit-based scholarships to help offset the cost of out-of-state tuition.

We will launch our first cohort in May 2017. Applications are due February 1, 2017.

For more information:

Kevin Crowley, crowleyk@pitt.edu
Tom Akiva, tomakiva@pitt.edu
Jennifer Russell, jrussel@pitt.edu