Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning Online

Deepen your understanding of up-to-date best practices in online/digital learning environments with the Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning online program. Delivered 100% online, this Ed.D. program offers you the tools and qualifications you need to stand out as a specialized digital practitioner and instructor.

Apply by: 6/5/24
Start class: 6/22/24 Apply Now

Program Overview

Learn about our 100% online Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning

Rise as a subject matter expert in the ground-breaking field of cyber learning when you earn the online Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning degree from St. Thomas University. With a keen focus on shaping quality leaders in digital education landscapes, this highly specialized online Ed.D. prepares you to authentically engage with pupils across multiple virtual platforms.

In the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning online program, you will strengthen your pedagogy techniques to include an array of technological instructional resources, discover new ways to promote technical skills that can be transferred to real-world settings, and learn to embed safety precautions when teaching students how to collaborate in digital learning environments. Plus, you will gain top-level leadership styles that resonate across wide audiences.

As a doctoral student, you will benefit from a dissertation that can be defended 100% online. Taught by respected faculty with extensive experience in their fields, this versatile online Ed.D. in digital instruction also offers reasonable admission requirements that allow applicants with a second master's degree to transfer in up to 18 credit hours (6 courses). No education degree or teaching background is required.

In the Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning Instruction online program, you will learn to:

  • Incorporate best practices related to e-learning instruction
  • Gain a solid understanding of emerging and pedagogically relevant resources
  • Develop comprehensive and innovative multimedia programming and curricula
  • Discover supportive ways to help students grow as digital citizens
  • Respond to the changing needs of diverse organizations
  • Develop educational leadership skills and effective team-oriented approaches for teaching and learning to maximize the performance achievements of all learners
  • Demonstrate scholarly behaviors such as reflection and problem-solving with skills for designing, critiquing, and implementing research relevant to effective practice
In the Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning Instruction online program, you will learn to:+
  • Incorporate best practices related to e-learning instruction
  • Gain a solid understanding of emerging and pedagogically relevant resources
  • Develop comprehensive and innovative multimedia programming and curricula
  • Discover supportive ways to help students grow as digital citizens
  • Respond to the changing needs of diverse organizations
  • Develop educational leadership skills and effective team-oriented approaches for teaching and learning to maximize the performance achievements of all learners
  • Demonstrate scholarly behaviors such as reflection and problem-solving with skills for designing, critiquing, and implementing research relevant to effective practice

Digital Instruction Career Opportunities

  • Instructional Designer
  • Instructional Leader
  • Distance Learning Instructor
  • Manager
  • Teacher
  • Professor
Digital Instruction Career Opportunities+
  • Instructional Designer
  • Instructional Leader
  • Distance Learning Instructor
  • Manager
  • Teacher
  • Professor

Total Tuition $50,000
Duration As few as 40 months
Credit Hours 60
Apply Now

Need More Information?

Call 855-215-4021

Call 855-215-4021

Tuition

STU’s budget-friendly tuition can be paid as you go

St. Thomas University prides itself on offering a quality private school education at public university prices. Our pay-by-the course tuition for the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning online degree program is affordable and priced with the working student in mind. Financial aid may also be available for students who qualify. The e-tuition is the same for both in-state and out-of-state online students. Each course has a technology fee as noted in the below table. The total tuition shown is inclusive of the fees.

View additional tuition information+

Program Per Credit Hour Per Course Per Program
Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction & Distance Learning $800 $2,500 $50,000

Tuition breakdown:

Total Tuition $50,000
Per Credit Hour $800

Calendar

Our application deadlines and course schedules

At St. Thomas University, we offer multiple start dates to accommodate busy schedules. Here you can find deadlines for your application, documents, and tuition payment for the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning online program.

View full calendar  + 

TermStart DateApp DeadlineDocument DeadlineRegistration DeadlineTuition DeadlineClass End DateTerm Length
Summer 15/11/244/24/244/29/245/3/245/8/246/21/246 weeks
Summer 26/22/246/5/246/10/246/14/246/19/248/2/246 weeks
Fall 18/17/248/1/248/5/248/9/248/14/2410/11/247 weeks
Fall 210/12/249/26/249/30/2410/4/2410/9/2412/6/247 weeks

Now enrolling:

Apply Date 6/5/24
Class Starts 6/22/24

Need more information about our online programs?

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toward earning your degree?

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Admissions

Here is the admission criteria for the online Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning program

The admission process is the first step toward earning your online degree. Familiarize yourself with the requirements for the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning online program, along with information on required documentation.

Admission Requirements:

  • Free Application
  • 3.0 GPA or higher
  • Master’s degree
View all admission requirements +

Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning Admission Requirements

The following are required for admission to the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning online program:

Official transcripts can be sent to St. Thomas University through Parchment and National Student Clearinghouse. Unofficial transcripts and other documents can be uploaded via your Admissions Portal or emailed to [email protected].

Courses

Here are the topics you’ll study in our online Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning program

To complete the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning online program, students must complete 24 credit hours of core courses, 15 credit hours of specialization courses, 9 credit hours of research courses and 12 credit hours of dissertation courses for a total of 60 credit hours. All program requirements, including the successful defense of your dissertation, must be completed within seven years of first enrollment in the doctoral program.

Courses in this program are seven weeks long. Courses during the two summer terms, however, are six weeks long.

Expand All
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course examines current and emerging issues and trends impacting education. Topics may include socially and culturally responsive teaching, teacher resiliency, trauma responsive classrooms, differentiation, student stress and mental health, grit, emerging technologies, flexible classrooms, and cultivating creativity. Topics will be dependent upon student interests and current national trends. Emphasis will be on developing, analyzing, and clarifying beliefs and practices as they relate to education.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
In this course, students will analyze the theory and practice of leadership and address motivation, sources of power, change processes and group dynamics. The characteristics and abilities associated with effective leadership will also be examined. Students will also explore the diversity of leadership theory and the impact of diversity on leadership.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course is an analysis of issues of ownership, control, ethics and accountability. It employs a stakeholder framework, emphasizing an educational institution’s social and ethical responsibilities to both external and internal stakeholder groups. The course further establishes how ethical or moral considerations are included in the public issues facing educational organizations and the decision-making process of leaders.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Drawing on the five-phase model of the change process, this course uses real-world examples to examine the design, development, implementation and maintenance of educational innovations and improvements.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course will prepare students to restructure and create empowering environments in their organizations. A body of research will be reviewed to provide an empirical framework that can be used to draw conclusions about strategic management and leadership in organizations striving to provide an empowering environment in the 21st Century.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course presents an analysis of major contemporary social problems with attention given to controversial issues common in the workplace. Included in this course is an emphasis on theory, structure, and the effective practice of diversity as they relate to directors, managers, employees, students and faculty of academic organizations who are involved in a diversified workforce.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course examines various approaches to developing and managing public policy. It is intended primarily for leaders who are department heads, policy developers, managers and executive officers in organizations, higher education, schools, school boards, governments and statutory agencies responsible for formulating or managing policies.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Social media for all organizations consist of a range of web-based applications that allow anyone to disseminate information to online communities. The focus of this course is for students to assess the role of a social media presence in creating an online social or extended community for an organization's current clients, employees and friends; promote an awareness of the organization among potential clients; expand the mission of the organization; and build an identity and brand image.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course focuses on pedagogical theories as they relate to instructional design, and on existing and emerging models of instructional design. Topics include major schools of thoughts on how people learn, instructional and learning theories, and instructional design models and principles.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course is designed to develop students’ technical skills in multimedia design and development for instructional purposes. Topics include visual design principles, desktop publishing, digital graphics, and digital audio and digital video.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course serves as an overview and focuses on providing students with an introduction to the emerging technologies and pedagogically relevant resources to promote student learning in all organizations. Students will be introduced to the ideas, research, and terminology associated with learning and giving instruction in current complex digital environments, whilst also engaging in trying to understand the needs of future digital learning environments as technologies continue to develop as online learning evolves.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course challenges students to define digital literacy and digital citizenship in a way that helps them to lead organizations of digital instructors and educators to provide excellence in instructional practice, collaborative inclusion, and safe learning environments for all students. This course also challenges students to think beyond a definition to the practical application of digital literacies and citizenship to organizations/institutions and all of their coordinated leaders, employees, students, and other stakeholders
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Organizations are systems within which humans are continually developing structures that influence their action. This course helps students become designers and members of organizations which engage in practices that encourage organizational learning. Students will examine ways that organizations create learning cultures as well as leadership strategies that foster growth, creativity and risk-taking while managing innovation, change and future planning.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course focuses on applying the principles, practices, and strategies for conducting research in the social sciences, particularly dealing with the interface of the human dimension in the social and behavioral sciences.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course examines theory and practice in the design, conduct, analysis and interpretation of experimental, quasi-experimental and survey procedures for program research and evaluation. Development of basic skills required in the understanding, planning and executing of a research study will be covered.
Duration: 6 or 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course explores the methods and procedures used in qualitative research. Topics include the philosophical basis for the method; the conceptualization of research questions; the selection of appropriate research designs; data collection; manual and computerized data analysis; and the drawing of inferences.
Duration: 16 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Students will develop a dissertation or action research plan in collaboration with their chair. This course and the accompanying content create the trajectory for the culminating research experiences within the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership program. Additionally, students will develop an introduction to the problem, background, context, and abbreviated theoretical framework, purpose of the study, research objectives/hypotheses, significance of the study, investigator scope, definition of term, and an organizational timeline for completion of the dissertation/action research process.
Duration: 16 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Students will submit their IRB application and develop their literature review, including theoretical and/or conceptual frameworks. Additionally, students will develop their research methodology/design, including research purpose, objectives/hypotheses, data treatment, data collection, and data analysis.
Duration: 16 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Students will collect and analyze data associated with research in collaboration with the chair and compose the findings and results section of the dissertation/action research process.
Duration: 16 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Students will compose the resulting implications, recommendations, and study limitations. Additionally, the student will prepare a formal presentation for the chair and committee members in hopes of successfully defending their dissertation or implementing the results from their action research process.
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