USC Rossier School of Education, based in Los Angeles at the University of Southern Calif, aims to improve learning in urban education locally, nationally and globally. The work is field-based, in the classroom, and online, and reflects a diversity of perspectives and experiences. The school is also very innovative in how it teaches and became the first traditional, nonprofit education school to offer degrees online (through a collaboration with 2U Inc.)
Rossier (pronounced "ross-EAR") has a long history in education.
Education classes began at USC in the 1890s. The Department of Education was established in 1909 and the School of Education was established in 1918. It was renamed Rossier in 1998 following a donation by alumni Barbara J. and Roger W. Rossier.
In 2009, the Rossier School of Education initiated its first online program in the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program. The online program has transformed Rossier: between 2010 and 2014 the school graduated more than 2,000 Master of Arts degrees in teaching (MATs), more than any other traditional nonprofit college or university. (Between 2005 and 2010, the school graduated fewer than 200 MAT students.) Equally important, says Dean Karen Symms Gallagher, she feels that the quality of education is strong.
Master of Arts in Teaching degree, with support from U2, in 2009. Since then, it has graduated more than 2,000 students who work in 947 school districts around the world, most of them in high-need areas.
In early 2014, Rossier’s Dean Gallagher announced the school was launching additional online degrees:
Doctor of Education (EdD) in Organizational Change and Leadership, slated to begin classes in January 2015.
Three Masters of Education programs got underway in September 2014:
- School Leadership: aimed at preparing principals and other school leaders;
- Learning Design and Technology: aimed preparing professionals for educational program design primarily in non-traditional education environments;
- Teacher Leadership: for experienced K-12 teachers to acquire advanced research and effective teaching methods.
“We’ve learned that technology is not a panacea,” Gallagher says. “You have to know what you want people to know, and then use multiple ways of teaching.”
