Next Cohort Begins: Summer 2026
Applications for our next cohort are being accepted through January 5, 2026.
We do not admit students on a rolling basis and will review all submitted applications after the deadline.
Program Overview
The Teachers, Schools, and Society (TSS) EdD program in Curriculum and Instruction reinvents doctoral-level education as innovative, job-embedded professional learning that supports educational leaders, change agents, and advocates in cultivating the skills of practitioner scholarship.
The TSS EdD program is not intended to prepare educators for positions in research-intensive universities but instead supports practicing educational professionals as they draw on educational theory and research, and the expertise of colleagues and UF faculty, to identify, examine, and address pressing problems of practice in their unique contexts. TSS EdD students work full time as teachers, administrators, and other educational professionals as they engage in online coursework directly related to their work as educators.
Program Requirements
Students in the online Teachers, Schools, and Society (TSS) EdD program in Curriculum & Instruction must meet the following minimum requirements. (Note: these are minimum requirements and doctoral committees may require additional credits/tasks.)
- A master’s degree from an accredited US college
- Attendance at the summer institutes during the first three summers of the program
- Successful completion of written and oral qualifying examinations
- Successful proposal and defense of a doctoral dissertation
Students are required to complete coursework in the following areas. (Note: these are minimums in each area and will not total the number of credits needed in the doctoral degree.)
- TSS Courses: 21+ credits
- Research Courses: 12-18 credits
- Advanced Research/Dissertation Research: 18-21 credits
- Elective (transferred from Masters degree): up to 30 credits
Years 1 and 2
TSS Courses:
EDG 7252: Perspectives in Curriculum, Teaching, and Teacher Education
EDG 7224: Critical Pedagogy
EDG 7359: Professional Development and Teacher Learning
EDF 6616: Education & American Culture
EDG 6930: Schooling and the Marginalization of Students
EDG 6017: Writing for Academic Purposes
EDG 6047: Teacher Leadership for School Change
Research Courses:
EDG 6226: Foundations of Research in Curriculum and Instruction
EDG 7982: Practitioner Research: Theory and Practice
EDG 6228: Qualitative Research for Practitioner Scholars
EDF 6416: Quantitative Methods for Evaluation in Educational Environments
EDG 7365: Practitioner Research: Data Collection and Analysis
EDG 6648: Research Design in Curriculum and Instruction
Years 3 and 4
Advanced Research/Dissertation Research:
- EDG 7979: Advanced Research (Quals/Capstone) (6 credits)
- EDG 7980: Dissertation Research (Capstone) (12 credits)
This program is designed as a cohort experience with students beginning the program every other year. Because of the intensive cohort nature of this program, it is highly unlikely that graduate credits beyond the master’s degree will count toward this doctoral degree. Online courses are typically sixteen weeks in length. Courses will be scheduled so students can complete the program in a timely way, with standard time to completion being four years. In addition, there are three week-long summer institutes at which attendance is mandatory. The first institute is virtual and the second two are in-person at UF (always during UF summer break week).
Qualifying exams are required for each student to advance to doctoral candidacy. The written portion of the exam has three components: 1) a brief biographical statement, 2) a shift in thinking essay, and 3) a proposal for the capstone project. The oral component of the exam includes a presentation of one’s work as a practitioner scholar completed during the program, as well as questions posed about the written portion of the exam.
Each student will culminate their capstone experience with a dissertation defense occurring in a public forum. Students will demonstrate conceptual and practical competence and a critical stance in three core areas of expertise.
Core Area of Expertise
- Thoughtfully apply historical and theoretical constructs to today’s most pressing problems of practice
- Skillfully enact research-based and equity-oriented practices in the areas of curriculum and instruction
- Intentionally and systematically consume and conduct research about contextualized problems of practice
Teaching and learning philosophy
The TSS program faculty members define signature pedagogy as the salient pervasive teaching practices within this program. Assumptions about teaching and learning that undergrid the TSS pedagogy are:
- Learning is a recursive, long-term, collaborative and social process that happens within Communities of Practice. These are “groups of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn to do it better as they interact regularly (Wenger, 2006, from http://ewenter.com/theory/index.htm). Students will join communities of practice such as online communities, inquiry groups, and summer seminars.
- Learning is driven by inquiry.
- Teaching is a complex endeavor that requires the development and application of conceptual and practical tools.
- Effective teaching and learning is highly context dependent.
- Developing the capacity to address the most pressing problems of practice today requires a commitment to equity for all children.
Key Features
Each key feature of the online EdD program in Curriculum & Instruction specializing in TSS corresponds to one or more of the Carnegie recommendations for effective professional practice doctoral programs
- A clear focus on the scholarship of teaching
- The identification of a “signature pedagogy” to guide the work
- Grounding students’ work in their own educational contexts to create authentic “laboratories of practice”
- Dissertation experiences in which doctoral students study local problems of practice to make change and improvements in their own local contexts (districts, schools, classrooms)
ED.D. in Teachers, Schools, and Society Program Requirements
- A master’s degree from an accredited U.S. college or university, or a degree deemed equivalent by the University of Florida Office of Admissions.
- A minimum grade point average of 3.0 upper-division (last 60 credits) undergraduate work.
- An acceptable grade point average for previous graduate work.
Program Highlights
Entry: Masters degree in relevant field
Typical Course Load: 9 credits per semester
Full-Time/Part-Time: Part-time
Application Deadline: See dates published by the college
Program Completion: 4 years