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Use education as a tool for social transformation with our online MA Education degree
Deepen your knowledge and critical appreciation of contemporary educational practice on our highly flexible, self-guided, 100%-online programme.
At QMU, you’ll build on your existing practical experience, considering your own positionality when educating or being educated. The perfect stepping stone to senior leadership roles, your understanding of education as a social, cultural, and political practice will help you tackle key issues at local, national, and global levels.
Our distance learning MA is designed for educators, practitioners, and professionals seeking to enhance expertise, drive career progression, or prepare for further study and research.
Why choose QMU?
Exceptional quality, online learning that works around you
No matter where you are in the world or which area of education you want to work in, the online MA Educational Leadership from Queen Margaret University can help. Delivered entirely online, the course is designed to fit around the busy schedules of working professionals. Choose flexible online learning that lets you continue your career while pursuing your ambitions.
Gain the expertise for the modern educational landscape with an online master’s
At QMU, we take an action-based and community-orientated approach to education – reflecting on teaching and learning experiences through a social science lens.
Via our intuitive online learning environment, you’ll study the role of education in the development of emancipatory educational policy and practice. Explore diverse, global education settings, consider the impact of educational research alongside educational practice, and develop research and reflective skills to advance teaching and learning outcomes.
Skills and knowledge you will gain
Throughout your online MA studies, you can expect to develop advanced knowledge and professional capabilities to support your practice and future career.
You'll develop informed, critical insight into education as a social, cultural, and political practice within local, national and global contexts.
Support learners and communities with diverse needs as you examine inclusive, sustainable, and equitable pedagogies and frameworks.
Your combination of leadership skills, policy expertise, and awareness of change processes will help you make high-level decisions in educational environments.
You'll reflect on your own educational practice and apply key theories to optimise teaching and learning opportunities.
Contribute to our understanding of effective educational practice as you design, conduct, and evaluate ethical research using a range of methodologies.
Key knowledge and skills taught on this course:
- Analyse contemporary educational theory, policy, and practice
- Reflect on individual professional practice
- Upskill in educational technologies and approaches
- Gain skills for effective educational leadership
- Explore educational principles, frameworks, and pedagogies from a global perspective
- Engage in evidence-based decision making in educational settings and contexts
- Design and conduct ethical educational research.
Where an MA Education can take you
As an online MA Education graduate, your analytical, reflective, research, and professional skills will be applicable across a broad range of educational and related careers.
Depending on your individual goals, you could work across formal, informal, and non-traditional educational settings. These include schools, higher education, training organisations, health and social care, community education, international education, and beyond.
Your possible career pathways could include:
teaching and educational practice
education policy and development
inclusive and specialist education
educational leadership and management
digital and educational innovation
research and higher-level study.
You don’t have to choose between a costly career break and investing in your employability. Our 100% online MA Education programme is flexibly designed to help you access postgraduate study around your current job.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to be a teacher to take this MA?
No, this course is pertinent to those working in a variety of contexts with both children & adults.
Do you offer any other online master's education degrees?
Yes. As well as our online MA Education, we also offer:
Does this online programme differ from your on-campus programmes?
The key difference is that this 100% online master's programme offers complete flexibility, with no in-person requirements. Designed to fit around your lifestyle, its accelerated format allows you to progress your studies quickly while balancing work and other commitments.
Is this programme right for me?
This programme is ideal if you want to advance your career in education, training, policy, or leadership through self-led, distance learning that works around you. It will also suit you well if you want to align professional development and practice with contemporary thought and develop critical thinking skills relevant to education.
Programme Modules
This module provides a broad introduction to education from a range of different theoretical, political and historical perspectives enabling you to critically analyse contemporary educational issues in your home countries and internationally.
The aim of the module is to provide you with a range of specialised skills and knowledge in the use of digital technologies. This module will provide a critical appreciation of how to use digital tools within educational contexts.
This module aims to introduce you to the notion of the ‘reflective practitioner’ and teachers as ‘agents of change’. Brookfield’s lenses of reflective practice are revisited as a model for developing a critically reflective questioning stance towards practice. Important issues of teacher professionalism, professional values and identity are explored through political, policy and theoretical perspectives giving you an understanding of what it means to be an ‘activist teacher’ in the 21st century. You will learn about the role of reflective practice within the wider professional development agenda, including the need for CPD over the career span and for professional learning leading to achievement of the Standard for Full Registration.
This module will introduce and explore the complex relationship between the ideals of inclusive education and the realities of educational practice. Activities will be designed to include consideration of implications for a range of stakeholders and education policy, in addition to theory and practice.
This module focuses on strategic thinking and planning to meet the challenges of the 21st century in our global world. Disruption continues to challenge even the most robust educational systems around the world and therefore school leaders will need to be prepared to face these challenges effectively. During tumultuous times we need to move beyond crisis management and engage in strategic leadership to meet the needs of learners and communities during emergencies. Therefore, you will be introduced to strategic leadership thinking and planning for times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. You will gain a deep understanding of the role strategic leadership plays in sustaining effective teaching and learning that enhances outcomes for all learners even during the most disruptive times, but also how strategic leadership can move us beyond reactionary crisis management and develop resilient systems.
This module will provide opportunities for you to reflect on different approaches to teaching visual, verbal and written texts through critical literacy. The module will look at how to design learning environments and develop learning activities that promote critical literacies, taking an inclusive, sustainable and creative approach that incorporates digital technology to plan, teach and assess learning.
This module will provide opportunities for you to reflect on different approaches to numeracy and mathematics pedagogy, specifically looking at how to design numeracy and mathematics learning environments and develop numeracy and mathematics learning activities that are inclusive, sustainable, creative and incorporate digital technology to plan, teach and assess numeracy and mathematics.
This module will provide opportunities for you to reflect on different approaches to engaging learners, specifically looking at how to design academically rigorous, learner-centered learning activities that are inclusive, sustainable, creative, and incorporate digital technology to plan, teach and assess across curricular areas. This module will critically examine and practically explore different pedagogical approaches to engaging learners, including but not limited to play-based pedagogy, outdoor learning, project-based learning, and digital learning.
This module will provide opportunities for you to critically reflect upon the research methods used in education, as well as the duties of the researcher in terms of ethical practice, research integrity, and communication of findings.
This module will explore ethics for the social sciences and working with human participants across a variety of culturally informed social settings. You will understand the importance of ethical principles in order to protect the dignity, rights and welfare of research participants throughout the planning, organising, managing and disseminating research.
This project enables you to build upon your programme modules to develop and apply the skills of research and independent inquiry to a self-selected project which contributes insights and advances understanding to a subject, field or profession. You will be required to design and undertake a small-scale independent research project, relevant to your field of study and/or professional practice, reflecting on the application of the insights you generate. You will be required to exhibit a professional approach, academic rigour, independence, critical thought and self-direction with the input of a supervisor.
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Start the application process here. You have the option to either pay for your degree in full at the start, or pay per module.
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