Full Course Description List:

EIDT, EMBA, ENGL Courses

(5 credits)

Students in this capstone course have the opportunity to showcase their skills and creativity by applying their knowledge of instructional design, learning environments, and multimedia tools to an authentic task. Connecting theory to practice, students work with a client or explore a case study to identify an instructional need and construct an appropriate solution.

Pre-requisites

• Completion of all other program coursework

(5 credits)

This is a project-based course in which students build on their basic knowledge of web design to learn more advanced design and development skills. Students apply their knowledge of web design, multimedia tools, and principles of visual literacy to the creation of a website. Students engage in assignments that emphasize the development of websites that incorporate multimedia elements for education and training.

Pre-requisites

• EIDT 2002
• EIDT 3002

(5 credits)

In this course, students learn the foundational principles and elements of the instructional systems development process, from analysis through evaluation. Students explore commonly used instructional design models, such as ADDIE, and learn how to apply them in an education or training environment. They gain an understanding of the preliminary phases of instructional design models, such as writing instructional objectives and conducting analyses. Students also focus on incorporating sound instructional strategies into the design and development of instructional systems and into the development of prototypes in real-world instructional settings.

Pre-requisites

• EDUC 5105

(5 credits)

Through this course students' knowledge will extend to application of the instructional design process. Students gain a deeper understanding of best practices for the implementation and evaluation of education and training programs. Emphasis is placed on delivery of instruction and the various strategies for assessing student learning both during and after instruction. Students demonstrate their learning by solving a real-world instructional or performance improvement problem.

Pre-requisites

• EIDT 5100

(3 semester credits)

In this course, educators learn the foundational principles and elements of the instructional systems development process, from analysis through evaluation. They explore commonly used instructional design models, such as ADDIE, and they learn how to apply them in an education or training environment. They gain an understanding of the preliminary phases of instructional design models, such as writing instructional objectives and conducting analyses. Educators also focus on incorporating sound instructional strategies into the design and development of instructional systems and into the development of prototypes in real-world instructional settings.

(3 semester credits)

This course is designed to extend educators' knowledge and application of the instructional design process. Educators gain a deeper understanding of best practices for implementing and evaluating education and training programs. They engage in a variety of assignments that emphasize the delivery of instruction and the various strategies for assessing student learning both during and after instruction. Educators demonstrate their understanding of course concepts by solving a real-world instructional or performance improvement problem.

Pre-requisites

• Intended to be taken after EIDT 6100

(3 semester credits)

Effective instructional design begins with an understanding of the learning process. In this course, the behaviorist, cognitive, constructivist, and social learning theories, and their relationship to instructional practices and course design, are examined. Factors that influence learning, such as learning strategies, motivation, and engagement, are also explored.

(3 semester credits)

In this course, educators take a systematic approach to the design and development of multimedia for instruction. They combine their knowledge of effective instructional strategies with the basic principles of visual literacy, web design, and multimedia design to develop effective and usable learning objects. Applying concepts learned in the course, educators gain practical experience creating an interactive learning experience, which they beta test in a learning management system.

(3 semester credits)

In this first of two multimedia courses, students take a systematic approach to the design and development of multimedia for instruction. Specifically, students will explore various applications within the Adobe Creative Cloud. Applying basic principles of visual literacy, students gain practical experience with text, graphics, and web design for the creation of interactive learning experiences.

(3 semester credits)

In this second of two multimedia courses, students take a systematic approach to the design and development of multimedia for instruction. Specially, students will continue to explore the various applications within the Adobe Creative Cloud, as well as Adobe Captivate. Applying basic principles of visual literacy, students gain practical experience with audio, video, and screen capturing for the creation of interactive learning experiences.

(3 semester credits)

Program evaluation is the final step in an effective systematic approach to instructional design. In this course, educators explore the models, principles, and practices employed in conducting effective and thorough evaluations of instructional and performance improvement programs. They learn how to select an evaluation approach; develop an evaluation plan; design or select data collection tools; and collect, analyze, and interpret data related to authentic cases.

(3 semester credits)

Effective instruction in an online setting requires strategies that leverage the unique characteristics of distance learners and online environments. In this course, educators apply their knowledge of instructional design and distance learning to analyze, select, and design instructional strategies that are most effective for engaging and teaching online learners. They learn methods for managing and delivering online instruction, with the goal of integrating effective strategies with course management tools and multimedia technologies in synchronous and asynchronous environments.

(3 semester credits)

Instructors are provided with the opportunity to reach beyond traditional practices and explore new ways of assessing student learning outcomes in the online environment. In this course, educators apply their knowledge of learning theory, assessment practices, and instructional design principles to the development of assessment strategies in online education and training environments. They review research and practical strategies for assessing student learning in synchronous and asynchronous environments.

(3 semester credits)

In this course, educators survey the research, models, and issues associated with improving human performance in workplace settings. They explore methods and techniques for recognizing and analyzing performance gaps, conducting needs assessments, determining appropriate instructional and performance support interventions, and measuring the results of implemented solutions. They engage in assignments that emphasize how to determine whether instructional or other performance support interventions are appropriate for addressing identified needs. Educators also use results from analyses to inform the design of job aids, instruction, and other performance support systems.

(3 semester credits)

The ability to manage and deliver training is an essential skill for human resource and performance improvement professionals. In this course, educators explore models, techniques, and best practices for managing and delivering training systems and modules. They focus on a range of topics, including managing the learning environment, selecting appropriate materials and assessments, and tracking learner performance and completion. Educators also explore technologies that support the planning, presenting, and managing of instructor-led and self-directed courses and training systems in face-to-face and virtual environments.

(3 semester credits)

Effective instruction in an online setting requires strategies that leverage the unique characteristics of distance learners and online environments. In this course, educators apply their knowledge of instructional design and distance learning to analyze, select, and design instructional strategies that are most effective for engaging and teaching online learners. They learn methods for managing and delivering online instruction, with the goal of integrating effective strategies with course management tools and multimedia technologies in synchronous and asynchronous environments.

(3 semester credits)

Instructors are provided with the opportunity to reach beyond traditional practices and explore new ways of assessing student learning outcomes in the online environment. In this course, educators apply their knowledge of learning theory, assessment practices, and instructional design principles to the development of assessment strategies in online education and training environments. They review research and practical strategies for assessing student learning in synchronous and asynchronous environments.

(3 semester credits)

This course is the culminating experience for the program. Educators are provided with the opportunity to exhibit their knowledge, skills, and creativity in an authentic situation. They demonstrate their ability to integrate instructional design principles and practical skills and apply them to a real-world learning or performance problem. Educators work with a client in a consultative capacity or explore a case study that may include front-end analyses; design, development, and implementation of performance support and instructional materials; and/or evaluation of an instructional or performance support program.

Pre-requisites

• Completion of all other program coursework

(3 semester credits)

An Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program is a journey of personal and professional transformation. As with a physical journey, this one begins "where you are" (in this case, as a leader and manager). Two of the key goals for this first course of the EMBA Program, then, include determining each person's status and setting the trajectory for the transformational journey. To help candidates begin, in this course, each student will develop the skills for critical reflection by asking questions like:

• What are each student's strengths and weaknesses and what is missing?
• What are each student's responsibilities as a leader now and tomorrow?
• How does the student make decisions as a manager/leader?
• What are the values that shape the student's behavior?
• How does the student deal with difficult problems?
• What are the student's aspirations?

Another important theme of this course is being a leader in turbulent times. Being an effective and genuine leader in a dynamic era requires an understanding of leadership concepts, how leaders think and act, and how various management styles impact situations and relationships within an organization. Yet, being an effective leader also demands a strong set of competencies such as motivating self and others, leading creativity in an organization, cultural intelligence, and navigating through ambiguity. Through a self-reflective process, work with an executive mentor, and accompanied by the study of key leadership concepts, each student will begin to craft a Personal and Professional Development Plan that will be utilized and further developed throughout the EMBA Program. This plan will serve as the road map for developing the leadership posture and competencies critical for success; and students will take their first steps toward applying the plan to their career during this course.

(3 semester credits)

Global markets are increasingly turbulent, and understanding how these markets work is critical to the student's success as a business leader. The course is designed to show how the student can use economic theory to frame the challenges associated with operating a firm in a competitive environment. To facilitate this understanding, students in this course integrate concepts of both micro- and macroeconomics. From a micro perspective, students study managerial decisions, particularly in terms of demand, supply, opportunity costs, profitability, and competitive strategies. Students also analyze real-world industries, markets, and firms using the key concepts of microeconomics. From a macro perspective, students develop the skills to create a basic model of the macro economy emphasizing real-world data and relationships. By the end of the course, students can evaluate and resolve economic problems in real time.

(3 semester credits)

In the first course of the Executive MBA, students were introduced to the notion of being a leader in an era of disruptive change. Students take this course to continue the discussion on disruptive change by focusing on the importance of innovation in achieving business success. Innovation is not an end result. Rather, through creativity and foresight, it is a way of thinking that enables individuals and organizations to define critical problems, identify possible solutions, and foster positive change more effectively.

In particular, students in this course focus on increasing their abilities as creative leaders, those who can readily apply imagination to resolve complex problems and who can unleash the creative talents of others by establishing a work environment that facilitates creative thinking. The ultimate goal of this course is to provide students with a set of proven creativity methods, skills, and strategies that enable innovative breakthroughs to occur in a much more deliberate and predictable manner.

To accomplish this task, students describe why creativity and innovation are considered crucial 21st-century skills; learn to manage their judgment, so that they become more flexible, tolerant of ambiguity, and open to new ideas and possibilities; employ a variety of creative thinking tools useful in resolving problems that do not have easy answers; apply design thinking principles aimed at user empathy and rapid prototyping; identify what creative leaders do to promote innovation in their teams and organizations; and recognize how a systematic approach to creativity enhances the probability of innovative breakthroughs.

(3 semester credits)

Accounting is a measurement process. Leaders are required to create meaningful measures. To do that they need to know what to measure, how to measure, and what the consequences of the measurement might be. Students in this course take a rigorous stakeholder approach and integrate fundamental managerial accounting topics with strategic analysis. By the end of the course, students are able to use accounting information within a firm to make effective business decisions, design control systems, and evaluate the impact on various stakeholder groups.

(3 semester credits)

Contemporary business environments are increasingly competitive, global, fast paced, and knowledge intensive. In these environments, effective use of human capital is crucial to an enterprise’s success and survival. In this course, students have the opportunity to learn practical issues such as planning and executing staffing strategies, creating and sustaining teams, maintaining influence in the organization, managing a global workforce, managing programs for productivity improvement, and planning and managing the human side of organizational change. This course will be especially useful for those planning careers as general managers as well as management consultants.

(3 semester credits)

The focus of this course is on the utilization of financial information for internal decision-making purposes. The course is designed for the executive who will be using, rather than producing, financial information. Students will cover a range of contemporary topics and techniques relevant to sound and ethical financial decision making using a stakeholder-analysis framework. This framework requires decision makers to develop an array of possible financial decisions and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each. The tradeoffs and consequences of each alternative are considered in terms of satisfying stakeholders’ interests while maximizing firm value. Students in this course will rely on critical-thinking skills to apply and, at times, challenge traditional financial theory, while balancing various stakeholder interests in the financial decision-making process.

(3 semester credits)

One of the most critical challenges for leadership in maintaining organizational performance is identifying core strengths and weaknesses within the organization and across the more general value creation landscape. Students in this course explore systems thinking as a process whereby problems are viewed as individual components within a larger system. A framework is provided for analyzing relationships within a system and for avoiding the risks associated with viewing problems in isolation. Learners will use systems-thinking tools to model single-, double-, and multiple-loop feedback systems, both at the micro and macro levels of analysis. In addition, students are introduced to scenario building and will examine how the practice of systems thinking lays the foundation for creating sustainable outcomes for organizations and society.

(3 semester credits)

A fundamental shift in the world economy is underway and is accelerating. No longer are national economic interests and business operations largely confined within well-defined geographic borders. Phenomena such as enhanced communication technologies, outsourcing, and the reduction in political barriers to cross-border trade have all contributed to the creation of a truly global economy.

Students in this course focus on the global environment of business and explore how the international sociocultural, political, legal, economic, physical, and historical environments impact business practices and policies. A key goal of the course is to provide students with the skills and methodologies required for developing business strategies on a global scale. In particular, students will identify the internal and external forces impacting an organization's ability to compete in the international marketplace.

(3 semester credits)

When students see a highly successful product they may wonder whether the product was itself truly innovative or whether the product was unremarkable, but the marketing program was exceptional. Not surprisingly, a clear understanding of the importance of marketing, as well as a grasp of effective marketing practices, is essential for anyone who wishes to achieve a position of leadership. In this course, students gain a working knowledge of both marketing theory and the practical application of innovative marketing strategies. Students also come to understand how product, price, place, and promotion contribute to the marketing mix as they explore research-based insights into consumer behavior.

(3 semester credits)

The purpose of this capstone course is to facilitate the integration of what students have experienced during their Executive MBA program. First, working with an executive mentor, students complete a Personal and Professional Development Plan that has both charted their transformational journey thus far and will serve as the starting point of the next phase of their career development. Second, students seek to integrate the knowledge they have gained through the program using the "lens" of developing business strategies capable of achieving sustainable competitive advantage.

To help students think in an integrative fashion, they will take the perspective of the CEO throughout the course. Students whose primary experience has been in one of the functional areas of management (e.g., finance, marketing) have opportunities to relate their experience to the contents of other functional areas and to develop the multifunctional perspective required of the general manager.

The most important outcome of the course is that students are able to think and act in a strategic (rather than a tactical) fashion. Overall, the course aims to improve the actual practice of management; i.e., the students' ability to manage a variety of strategic and operational situations. These situations may be complex, and students should be able to cope with a considerable amount of ambiguity.

(5 credits)

Students in this course are introduced to the basic elements of academic writing. Students' primary focus is on gaining fundamental skills necessary for writing college-level essays and research papers. They engage in weekly writing assignments for iterative practice with grammar, punctuation, and the formation of sentences and paragraphs. Through these assignments and a final reflective essay, students demonstrate effective academic writing and the skills requisite to ENGL 1001 - English Composition.

Note: This course will be considered an elective.

(5 credits)

Writing is a process. In this course, students experience the writing process by authoring a variety of activities and essays. This course enables students to practice writing with confidence and purpose in academic settings and the workplace. They explore fundamental aspects of writing, including audience, purpose, style, tone, and point of view, and they write in multiple genres, exploring personal, professional, source-driven, and reflection writing. Students build upon their personal, professional, and academic experiences to analyze and respond to various prompts using quotes, summarizing, and paraphrasing evidence. In a series of linked assignments that move from a personal narrative to a source-driven Career Narrative Essay, they explore conventions for personal, professional, and academic writing.

(5 credits)

Writing is a process. In this course, students experience the writing process by authoring a variety of activities and essays. This course enables students to practice writing with confidence and purpose in academic settings and the workplace. They explore fundamental aspects of writing, including audience, purpose, style, tone, and point of view, and they write in multiple genres, exploring personal, professional, source-driven, and reflection writing. Students build upon their personal, professional, and academic experiences to analyze and respond to various prompts using quotes, summarizing, and paraphrasing evidence. In a series of linked assignments that move from a personal narrative to a source-driven Career Narrative Essay, they explore conventions for personal, professional, and academic writing.

Pre-requisites

• HMNT 1001A

(5 credits)

Students in this course explore the basic tenets of written communication in a professional setting, including the importance of understanding audience and the purpose of the communication, as well as choices of modality and timing. Students examine examples of professional communication, such as business letters, briefing memos, procedural documents, proposals, internal and external e-communications, and strategic documents. Applying course concepts, students also engage in a range of applied assignments that reinforce fundamental writing skills, such as grammar and sentence structure, punctuation, style, citation, and word choice.

Pre-requisite

• HMNT 1001

(5 credits)

Students in this course explore the basic tenets of written communication in a professional setting, including the importance of understanding audience and the purpose of the communication, as well as choices of modality and timing. Students examine examples of professional communication, such as business letters, briefing memos, procedural documents, proposals, internal and external e-communications, and strategic documents. Applying course concepts, students also engage in a range of applied assignments that reinforce fundamental writing skills, such as grammar and sentence structure, punctuation, style, citation, and word choice.

Pre-requisites

• HIST 2050A

(5 credits)

Students in this course explore the basic tenets of written communication in a professional setting, including the importance of understanding audience and the purpose of the communication, as well as choices of modality and timing. Students examine examples of professional communication, such as business letters, briefing memos, procedural documents, proposals, internal and external e-communications, and strategic documents. Applying course concepts, students also engage in a range of applied assignments that reinforce fundamental writing skills, such as grammar and sentence structure, punctuation, style, citation, and word choice.

Pre-requisite

• HMNT 1001

(5 credits)

Students examine a variety of historical and contemporary literary works written by women in the form of essays, short fiction, drama, and poetry/lyrics. Topics include social change as it relates to women's experiences of work, family and community, health and well-being, education, and the future. Students use critical-thinking, reading, and writing skills to articulate an understanding of course themes.

Pre-requisites

• ENGL 1010

(5 credits)

Storytelling was a way for our ancestors to pass on values, spiritual beliefs, and history. One of the ways in which we continue this heritage today is through short fiction. In this course, students encounter the processes and concepts of creative writing through short fiction. Students examine established authors, narrative techniques, and structures, which they use as a guide to write short stories that model voice, purpose, and elements of story writing. Through this course, students gain critical-thinking and analytical skills in writing, revising, and publishing creative fiction.

Pre-requisites

• ENGL 1010

(5 credits)

In this course, students explore the creation of poetry and nonfiction writing for children and adults. Students analyze various forms of creative writing, including memoirs, personal essays, nature essays, prose poems, and poetry, by reading the works of established authors and modeling writing techniques in preparation for publication. They acquire essential skills in critical and analytical thinking to be able to write and revise creative works for adults and children.

Pre-requisites

• ENGL 1010

(5 credits)

In this course, students explore the creation of poetry and nonfiction writing for children and adults. Students analyze various forms of creative writing, including memoirs, personal essays, nature essays, prose poems, and poetry, by reading the works of established authors and modeling writing techniques in preparation for publication. They acquire essential skills in critical and analytical thinking to be able to write and revise creative works for adults and children.

Pre-requisites

• ENGL 1010