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 in-person, asynchronous and/or synchronous components, including online class sessions on Zoom.
Questions? Contact us at gcesinfo@ualberta.ca.
Programs Starting in Fall Term (September)
The primary focus of the GCES - Prison Education is on teaching and learning in the specific context of carceral environments, including prisons, remand centres, correctional institutions, young offender centres and more. Through the program, students will explore the intricacies inherent in teaching in carceral environments, trace historical and current trends in prison education/programs, and develop strategies to maintain reflective practice. The program engages educators in interdisciplinary study of carceral environments, adult education and pedagogy, as well as course and program design.
The GCES - Teaching Students with Complex Communication Needs provides you with opportunities to enhance your skills as an educator responsible for providing quality instruction to students with complex communication needs, including those who require Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). See ß÷ßäÉçÇø’s Essential Components for Teaching Students with Complex Communication needs document for a description of students with complex communication needs. This certificate is designed for teachers, learning coaches, and related health professionals who want to enhance their knowledge and practice working with students with complex communication needs who require AAC to meet the demands of their everyday communication.
The GCES - Trauma-Sensitive Practice is designed specifically for teachers, health-care professionals, and school staff (consultants, leaders) to build multi-perspectival knowledge and skills required to meet a wide-range of needs of children, youth, and adults, including trauma-based responses. Such understanding will be developed through strategies, methods, and intercultural pathways for diverse learning contexts. Trauma-sensitive pedagogy, trauma-informed practice, and trauma-specialized knowledge, as theory and praxis frame and shape the courses comprising the graduate certificate. The four courses are built in an experiential sequence to extend understanding underpinning neurobiological, evolutionary, psychodynamic, and collective (intergenerational, transgenerational, ecological/place, war, violence, etc.) trauma theories.
Program starting in Winter Term (January)
The GCES – Elementary Music Teaching and Learning is designed for aspiring and practicing elementary music educators. This highly experiential program provides both foundational and practical knowledge and skills in music teaching and learning for young children focusing on music pedagogies including Orff, Kodály, popular and world music with an emphasis on identifying ways to enhance your own teaching. The courses are designed to blend research and best practice, and focus on creating inclusive and supportive environments for all music learners.
Mentoring is an extremely effective investment of time and talent to realize the potential and growth of staff. Teaching is complex and pre-service teachers enter the field with basic theoretical and pedagogical knowledge and understandings, but the actual practical ‘doing,” and analysis of “what was done,” is where they advance their praxis. The GCES - Mentoring and Leadership will advance the educator’s self-efficacy, knowledge, and skills related to mentoring. The courses are designed to blend theory with practice and enable mentors/leaders to become more skilled in supporting the development of those they mentor.
Note: applicants must be part of the Supporting Mentor Teachers Project.
The primary focus of the GCES - School Librarianship is to explore/investigate current issues and challenges for those working or hoping to work in school libraries/learning commons in K-12 schools. This program will engage in the study of contemporary issues, research, and cutting edge practices for building quality school library programs, whether it be in ß÷ßäÉçÇø, other Canadian provinces, or in International contexts. This online program will provide opportunities for interchange and interaction among those working in, or interested in working in, a school library learning commons. We will share ideas and critical reflections and engage in inquiry about the role of the teacher/school librarian.
Programs starting in Spring Term (May)
The GCES – Elementary Music Teaching and Learning is designed for aspiring and practicing elementary music educators. This highly experiential program provides both foundational and practical knowledge and skills in music teaching and learning for young children focusing on music pedagogies including Orff, Kodály, popular and world music with an emphasis on identifying ways to enhance your own teaching. The courses are designed to blend research and best practice, and focus on creating inclusive and supportive environments for all music learners.
Programs starting in Summer Term (July)
The primary focus of the GCES - Contemporary Literacy Education: K-9 is to explore/investigate current issues and challenges in literacy education in the kindergarten to middle years grades. This program will engage educators in the study of contemporary theories, research, and cutting edge literacy practices, with an emphasis on identifying ways to enhance their own teaching, whether it be in ß÷ßäÉçÇø, other Canadian provinces, or in International contexts.
The GCES – Elementary Music Teaching and Learning is designed for aspiring and practicing elementary music educators. This highly experiential program provides both foundational and practical knowledge and skills in music teaching and learning for young children focusing on music pedagogies including Orff, Kodály, popular and world music with an emphasis on identifying ways to enhance your own teaching. The courses are designed to blend research and best practice, and focus on creating inclusive and supportive environments for all music learners.
The GCES - Indigenous Education offers professional learning for in-service teachers supporting their growth as more effective teachers of First Nations, Métis and Inuit ways of being, knowing and doing. The program addresses subjects of particular interest and need in deepening understanding of and ability to engage with mandatory foundational Indigenous knowledge as per TQS # 5: Applying Foundational Knowledge about First Nations, Métis and Inuit. Courses run in the summer term (in-person, on-campus) as part of the Summer Institute in Teaching Foundational Indigenous Knowledge.
The key to long-term sustainability for Indigenous languages lies in the ability of individuals and communities to protect, preserve, promote, practice and pass on their languages to the next generation. The GCES - Indigenous Language Sustainability provides students the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by Indigenous language communities in Canada and around the world, as well as the strategies that can support the intergenerational sustainability of those languages. The courses offer a blend of theory and practice, weaving together Indigenous knowledges and worldviews with the latest research on practical approaches to sustaining Indigenous languages in the home and community.
In the GCES – Mathematics Education, students will be challenged to examine their assumptions about mathematics learning alongside cultural, historical, and contemporary research and varied perspectives on learning. Mathematics pedagogy and learning will be explored through research and professional literature, experiential learning, and reflection. We will draw upon examples from Indigenous traditions and peoples, wisdom traditions, and mathematics education for social justice. This exploration will include the qualities of playful engagement, and the characteristics of tasks that encourage play in PreK-12 mathematics classrooms and beyond.
Society is continuously evolving alongside and as a consequence of developments occurring across the fields of science. Scientific literacy, that includes the development and enhancement of students’ knowledge, reasoning, dispositions to life-long science learning, and the ethical use of scientific knowledge, is a key goal of science education worldwide. The GCES – Science Education will advance science teachers’ knowledge and skills in facilitating the development of scientific literacy and mandated learning outcomes in their students. The courses are designed to be relevant to all science teachers; they blend theory with practice and are taught by university professors and leaders in science education pedagogies and practices. The certificate is delivered online using a variety of synchronous and asynchronous formats.
Proficiency in everyday and academic English supports English language learners' academic success. The GCES - Teaching English Language Learners is designed to equip educators with specialized knowledge and skills to effectively teach English through subject matter content. An emphasis is placed on integrating language learning with academic content, making it ideal for teachers working with English language learners (ELLs) in diverse educational settings.
Education is continuously evolving alongside the integration of new technologies to support and enhance teaching, learning, and problem-solving. The GCES - Technology in Education - will advance practicing teachers' self-efficacy in leveraging technology to support pedagogy. The courses are designed to blend theory with practice and are co-taught by educational technology leaders and university professors. The certificate is delivered online in a synchronous and asynchronous format.
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
- The Master of Education in Educational Studies (MES) program (online only).
- Students in the GCES Mathematics Education, Science Education or Technology in Education may prefer to ladder in to the MES STEM program (online only).
- Students in the GCES Structured Literacy and Reading Science may prefer to ladder into the MES SLRS program (online only).
For more information on these MES programs, contact mesinfo@ualberta.ca. - The M.Ed. Elementary Education, Curriculum and Pedagogy, or Secondary Education - contact Dr. William Dunn at wdunn@ualberta.ca (online or on-campus).
Note: Completion of a GCES does not guarantee acceptance into any master's program.