All LTEC PhD students must complete one advanced instructional design core course to develop skills in instructional design (ID) and the application of learning theory. This is required even for students who took ID courses in their Master’s curriculum. Students who do not have any background in instructional design may be required to take additional instructional design courses to enhance their knowledge and skills. The PhD Design Core consists of the following:
- Instructional Design Studio – LTEC 701 LTEC Doctoral Seminar Core (9 credits minimum; 3 courses)
The specialization seminars are intended to establish crucial elements of scholarly inquiry so that students have substantive knowledge of the field, think theoretically and critically, frame fruitful research problems, see research as socially situated, join research to appropriate methods of inquiry, collect and analyze data, and communicate with various audiences about research. As early as the first semester, students develop a paper for an international conference as part of seminar activities.
A minimum of two seminars (see below) are required as a part of the cohort experience to provide structure for the program and help develop a scholarly community. Different seminars may also be offered and can be taken as electives. Typically the two seminars included in the PhD schedule are:
- LTEC 750C – Seminar in Educational Technology Issues: Online Communities
- LTEC 750E – Seminar in Educational Technology Issues: Research
Students take at least one additional seminar (see below) as part of their advanced course work in the semester in which they begin work on the comprehensive examination and develop a dissertation proposal (LTEC 760), and must continue to enroll in this three-credit seminar each fall/spring semester until they officially enter candidacy by successfully passing a defense of their dissertation proposal.
- LTEC 760 – (Advanced) Seminar in Educational Technology Theory