Graduate Certificate in Educational Studies
The Graduate Certificate in Educational Studies (GCES) provides you with opportunities to enhance your knowledge and skills in a disciplinary focus of your choice.
The GCES is a flexible, part-time, varied-delivery program that facilitates studying without taking a leave from your career. You will be engaged in authentic tasks and experiences directly linked to your focus area. Courses may have both synchronous and asynchronous components, including online (Zoom) class sessions.
Attend an online information session - registration links available on each program's home page.
Questions? Contact us at gcesinfo@ualberta.ca.
Starting in Spring or Summer 2025
Starting in Summer 2025
2025 - 2026
Each disciplinary focus is a four-course (12 credits) experience designed to help you stay current in the field and address emergent needs of each area. Courses are provided in face-to-face, online, and blended formats. The program is offered using a cohort model to facilitate the development of a professional learning community. Certificate goals include:
- Deepen and extend knowledge and skills of specialized and evolving areas within the field of education and to appreciate the ambiguity and limits of knowledge
- Apply educational research to improve professional practice and to school improvement
- Integrate relevant local, provincial, national and international contexts and issues with educational research to address complex issues systematically and creatively
- Collaborate with other educational professionals, including teachers, policy makers, curriculum developers, and paraeducational specialists to build personal and collective professional capacities and expertise
- Communicate information, ideas, problem and solutions to non-specialist audiences
These are graduate-level, credit courses, requiring between five and ten hours of coursework per week in the fall and winter terms (13 weeks). Courses offered in the spring and summer terms are condensed (six and three weeks respectively), so the amount of time spent on coursework is increased. This includes time spent on readings, assignments, presentations (group and individual), and writing papers.
Other cohorts may be developed based on need. Download our general information flyer, or contact us at pluadmin@ualberta.ca.
Ladder in to a Master's Degree
Alternatively, the GCES can ladder into the M.Ed. Elementary Education, Curriculum and Pedagogy, or Secondary Education - contact Dr. William Dunn at wdunn@ualberta.ca.