University of Akureyri

The M.Ed. program is intended for those who have completed a bachelor’s degree or an equivalent degree, and have a professional certificate in the areas of teaching, training, and care therapy or related fields. The aim of the program is to educate students for such work in the school system that requires further education in educational sciences, as well as to enhance their competence for studying more. The maximum time is four years. If the student applies for doctoral studies he or she should get him- or herself aquainted with the enrolment requirements of the university in question. A MA degree program is also offered.

Structure of Study
The student has equal access to courses offered in the M.Ed. and MA programs, except the thesis. In the beginning, the student is enrolled in an area of specialisation or in a general program. He or she can at any time change that enrolment. The teaching is conducted in four local phases each semester but otherwise the studies are conducted with various distance learning methods. It is possible to study full-time, but the student can determine his or her pace of study. Maximum time of stydy is four years. Attendance is required to a certain extent. Areas of specialisation are comprised of core courses that are the same in all areas of specialisation, mandatory courses in the area of specialisation, thesis and elective courses. The thesis must be written about a topic in the area of specialisation the student is enrolled in. The organisation of the particular areas of specialisation is explained in Table 1.

Students can apply for taking a part of the program at another university, see rules about exchange study.

The committee of appraisal evaluates which previous studies can be evaluated into the program if students apply for that. Students must familiarise themselves with the rules. Requests for appraisal should be sent to the Office of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Area course

Table 1

Courses in Studies of curriculum and teaching methods are taught in cooperation with the Post Graduate Teaching Certificate Programme. These courses are only open to students enrolled in that special area in their Diploma and Masters Degree Studies.

Elective courses

Table 2.

In Table 2 is an overview of elective courses in the 120 ECTS M.Ed. program, as well as an overview of when it is planned to offer them. In the table there are only courses that are not a part of specific areas of specialisation. Students can choose as electives courses that are core courses in any area of specialisation, although they are not enrolled into that area. This applies to almost any course except thesis. This is, however, not applicable to courses that are co-taught with courses in the PGCE program.

Fall 2011