M.Ed. Program Course Overview

The distance-learning M.Ed. in Humane Education is 32 credits and consists of five core content courses, two courses in research methods, a residency training week, practicum, independent learning project (ILP), and thesis.

Core Content Courses:

• Introduction to Humane Education: This course introduces students to humane education and explores innovative educational philosophies and methods, exciting and effective ways to approach teaching and learning, and positive communication skills and conflict resolution. Forming the foundation for the issues courses that follow, Introduction to Humane Education invites students to examine the ways in which they can more fully model their message as an educator and bring the underlying concepts of good communication and teaching to their students as they incorporate the important issues of human rights, environmental ethics, animal protection, and culture.
  

• Environmental Ethics: This course covers a range of environmental issues, such as global climate change, population, endangered species, pollution, and resource and energy use. It offers a solution-oriented approach to environmental challenges, balancing the study of environmental problems with the cultivation of positive ideas for creating sustainable and restorative systems that benefit people, animals, and the earth itself. Environmental Ethics examines how we might teach about environmental challenges in a comprehensive manner that grounds them within issues of culture, human rights, and animal protection.

• Animal Protection: This course covers a variety of animal issues, such as animal agriculture, experimentation, hunting and trapping, and companion animal concerns. It explores different philosophies regarding the inherent rights of other sentient animals to be free from exploitation and abuse, and encourages students to grapple with and determine for themselves their own ethics regarding nonhuman animals. As with all courses, Animal Protection examines the ways in which humans, animals, and ecosystems can be protected and respected for the good of all and helps students develop techniques for teaching about complex issues in a positive manner that invites dialogue and positive solutions.

• Cultural Issues: This course explores the many ways in which cultural norms influence ideas, beliefs, and actions. Covering consumerism, media, advertising, globalization, public relations, economics, and politics, this course provides a foundation for understanding the ways in which people, and the choices they make, are shaped by their culture. Cultural Issues enables students to become aware of the cultural influences in their own lives and to become effective at giving others the tools to think critically and creatively. By recognizing the ways in which our thoughts and behaviors are often molded by culture, we gain the ability to determine more consciously our behaviors and actions.

• Human Rights: This course examines a range of human rights issues, including escalating worldwide slavery, child and sweatshop labor, genocide, and civil, gay/lesbian, disability and women's rights. It also examines acts of human courage, compassion, and kindness and invites students to find in themselves and others sources of deep and abiding humaneness, both as a model of human goodness, and as examples for exploring the ways in which humans can solve our conflicts and stop oppressing and exploiting others. As in the other courses, Human Rights examines the links between various forms of cruelty and uncovers solutions that will benefit all people, while also benefiting the environment and other animals.

Each core content course includes readings, videos, and assignments that will educate you on a wide range of topics and will offer insight into solutions to relevant problems. You will become well-versed not only in the individual content areas, but in the connections that link them.

Other Course Requirements:

• Individualized Planning Seminar (IPS): Students begin their M.Ed. in Humane Education with a planning seminar designed to enable them to successfully proceed through the program in a manner best suited to their goals and vision. Students complete relevant self-assessments, a mission statement, an academic plan, course proposals, and a summary of learning. The IPS is a core requirement of Cambridge College. 

• Practicum: In order to become an effective humane educator, students need practice implementing what they have learned. A teaching practicum enables students to apply what they’ve studied by designing and presenting a humane education program. The practicum may be a series of classes, a course, a week-long camp, a teaching website -- even a business plan for a humane education company. The practicum must be approved by IHE faculty and can be done at any point during the program.

• Research Methods I and II: The Research Methods courses are the first part of the Individualized Learning Project (ILP), a core requirement of Cambridge College. The ILP can be a thesis, a curriculum, a film, a humane education manual or workbook – any project of substance that draws upon and extends a student’s knowledge of humane education. The Research Methods courses represent the first two chapters of the ILP, in which the student develops a full project proposal and completes a review of literature. Students have the option to take Research Methods as one four-credit course, but are encouraged to take it as two two-credit courses. 
  

• Independent Learning Project (ILP): The ILP is the completion of the project proposed and researched in Research Methods. The completed ILP is three chapters long and represents not only the culmination of the student’s studies, but also a creative contribution to the field of humane education. The topic must be professionally and socially relevant, challenging, and appropriate for the student’s vision. In the project the student demonstrates the ability to integrate theory, research skills, academic course work, and professional experience and goals.

• Residency: M.Ed. program students are required to attend a five-day residency with IHE faculty at the Institute in Surry, Maine. This intensive training is offered during the summer only.

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