Creative and Innovative Solutions to Accommodate the Growth of a Professional Practice Doctoral Program

• Main Authors: Craig A. Mertler, Danah Henriksen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University Library System, University of Pittsburgh 2018-03-01
• Series: Impacting Education
• Subjects: creative thinking; innovation; action research; online activities; developmental learning
• Online Access: http://impactinged.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/ImpactingEd/article/view/55

This essay describes one institution’s struggle to grow its EdD program by adding an equivalent online version of a successful face-to-face program. One of the challenges faced was that of creating a comparable experience for online students to share their ongoing action research, an activity that had long been part of the face-to-face version of the program. An innovative, all-day, virtual doctoral research conference was developed and implemented. We describe our creative rethinking of the original event, towards a new, successful, and fully-online redesigned event. Although the event continues to be refined, the inaugural event proved to be a successful solution to the challenge of transferring all components of a face-to-face program over to its online equivalent. Feedback from students who participated in the conference is shared, and recommendations for other EdD programs is offered.