Starting my M.Ed. Program on 11/11

Well, after a few years of contemplation, comparison, and consternation - I have abandoned my MBA plans and lofty goals at degrees in leadership and strategy and have decided to get my second Master's as an M.Ed. in Adult Education and Training at the American College of Education (ACE).

https://ace.edu/degree-programs/masters-degrees/masters-education/master-of-education-in-adult-education-and-training/

The price is very good, the material dovetails into my previous degree program and they let me transfer in the max of three classes from my previous Master's degree bringing the total number of classes I need to take down to six classes and a capstone project for the M.Ed. I've gotten approval from my boss at work and his boss (it needs two levels of approval) to have the tuition covered by our company's tuition reimbursement program. I'm going to try to get this first class in before the end of 2024 to spread out the annual reimbursement costs over three actual calendar years.

I should be able to complete the entire program in 2025, but if I want to have it covered I will have to take a couple of classes in 2026 because the program total cost exceeds the maximum yearly tuition reimbursement total. Unless I can be billed for the totals and just space out the payments.

I'm still not sure this is 100% everything I really want, but I do want a second credential as I move into what I hope is the last decade of my career.

Maybe I'll find an inexpensive certificate program in business/ leadership, LOL.

I'll continue to post here about the journey over the next year if anyone is interested in keeping up with it or learning more about the ACE experience as an online education option. They offer programs in Healthcare, Education, and Business

Cheers,
-Acolyte

 

The American College of Education Experience 10.28.24


Before I chose ACE, I wanted to ask a few questions - I’m happy to say that my online and email inquiries about the M.Ed. programs were answered quickly - both by email and with follow-up phone calls from the university, This left a good first impression. The application process was also very simple. I filled out an online form, uploaded an “unofficial” transcript from my previous Master’s program and submitted the $50.00 application fee via an online payment. Any prospective students should note that this fee is waived at certain times of the year or through various promotions. Unfortunately there was no such promotion, so I paid the fee.


Within about a week, I received an email stating that I had been provisionally accepted to ACE, with full status being reserved until I submitted an official transcript of my grades from Anderson University.

I was glad to find out that Anderson University (SC) has joined a digital service that allows you to have transcripts sent electronically to other institutions - no more printing or faxing or registered mail. It's about time! This was not the case when I completed my previous Master’s program in 2019.


An online transfer credit evaluation form allows you to indicate which classes you are hoping to transfer that you feel should be equivalencies to corresponding required classes. ACE allows a maximum of three classes (9 credit hours) to be transferred from a previous degree. My first attempt resulted in two classes being approved as equivalencies but not the third. So I suggested a different equivalency for the third option and it was accepted. All done online - with a response received in a couple of days.


Like most colleges you are set up with an assigned email address and Microsoft 365 ID for utilizing all of the apps in the browser. So far, most of this goes as you would expect it to go for an online class. You can download and install a myACE app onto your phone and you can download and install the Canvas app using your institution's credentials. The myAce app has already been generating lots of notifications for me from the messages part of the app. They seem to have a social media “forum” type of function that allows you to start a “GroupMe” group for specific discussions about a particular class, instructor, or other topic. There seems to be a robust participation in those discussions. I did reach out to my assigned “student success coach” with some questions about changing my start date from January 2025 to November 2024 and some billing questions, and she got back to me within 36 hours so I think that is a very reasonable window.


I received an email stating that an admissions counselor will be in touch about switching my date to Nov. 11th, but as of now I have not heard back.

 

The American College of Education Experience 10.30.24


My enrollment counselor called yesterday and they moved my start date to 11/11.


My first course has not shown up in Canvas for me yet as the start date is Nov 11, but there are three “courses” currently assigned to me: Student Commons, Student Orientation and an APA Resource Guide. The orientation “course” consists of 27 modules totaling 110 minutes of video and “interactive” content. I’ve spent the past two evenings going through orientation. A lot of it is similar to what I experienced in my previous degree program, but it’s nice that they have laid things out so well here - including strategies for managing your time, what a typical week looks like for an online learner, videos about APA, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, attendance expectations, Canvas, etc. This is MUCH more information than I got in my previous degree program - we just dived right in and figured it out as we went. Not to say that there wasn’t help available at Anderson, but this is a very well-thought out, user-friendly ( for the most part) and resource-rich way to kick off the program.

 

I hope it goes well for you. I took a look at their website and was pleasantly surprised to see how reasonable their fees were. More educational institutions should do likewise.

 

Yes, I think ACE has done "everything right" over the course of their existence - even though they are a for-profit online college, they are a certified "B Corporation" - they don't accept federal student aid, which has kept their costs low - they've kept their course offerings focused, and they have made it easy to afford one class at a time. Including some fees, my invoice for the first class is $825. Very reasonable. and it's a 5 week class so I'll be done with it before Christmas.

 

If you ever want to MBA in the future you can always check out the MBA program over at Hellenic American University for $3000 later in the future. Best of luck with your M.Ed degree, let us know how you like ACE.

 

Thanks. Yeah, actually I think I was the first person here to post about the Hellenic American MBA.

 

Well, here is my proper thank you, haha. I actually finished the degree back in 2022.

 

Yeah, I was so glad someone took advantage of it - I couldn't at the time, lol.

 

I've always had positive impressions about ACE. Sure, for-profit, but low costs and regional accreditation. Plus, they've been a steady player in DL for two decades.

It looks like I'm going back to school. I have a client who will pay for it and pay me to go and live blog my experiences. More info to follow next year....

 

The American College of Education Experience 11.12.24

First week of classes - One small hiccup is that I moved my start date to 11.11 from 1.5.25 - All of my online apps updated and I have access to my proper course, but the mobile app still has me registered for the January class so it shows no activity at all. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app as well as logging out and logging back in, using the “sync data” function, and none of it properly updates my mobile app. I’m sure it won’t be an issue with classes going forward, but it’s a little bit of an annoyance when the tech doesn’t cooperate.


ACE definitely doesn’t want you to miss your classes - I’ve had texts and phone calls (with a pre-recorded message) over the weekend reminding me that classes started on Monday and providing phone numbers if I had questions - it’s a bit of babysitting it seems, but I suppose it’s better than just leaving you to figure things out on your own. I suppose I appreciate how much they want to remove any barriers to your focus on completing the material.

Using an app called “GroupMe” you can join a group that other students have set up for your particular class - I have the app on my phone and it has received a LOT of action - lots of people asking questions and interacting.

The class setup is pretty straightforward on Canvas and the weeks are pretty well laid out - watch some videos (lecture) create a post in the discussion forum and provide two answers to other posts in the forum. At least that’s what the first week looks like, the second week has an additional project - it looks like there will be papers and presentations due.

The videos are presentation style with lots of graphics and animations - mostly using what appears to be Vyond - an app that I use extensively at my job. In fact, this is more what I expected in my previous degree - an “online course” - my previous online Masters felt much more like a traditional class that was just being mediated by the online environment - lots of reading, writing, in person ZOOM meetings, etc., of course that was 5 years ago, so things might have evolved. It was also an accelerated program. We’ll see how the rest of the course goes. With only a 5 week class schedule, this first class will be done by mid December!

 

I hope you keep doing this. I've always suspected that ACE was a good situation. Your observations and experiences will help support or belie that notion. I will do the same when I get started next year (in a different thread, of course). I'll also be posting my blogs to the Human Capital Lab at www.humancapitallab.org. It is a totally non-commercial (everything's free) virtual community of human capital and talent development professionals. (Full disclosure: I'm its Executive Director, but nothing about my compensation is based on activity.)

 

11.18.24

First week of class done. The class is titled “Cognition and Critical Thinking”

assignments were:

• A “pre-course” survey/quiz that is not graded,
  
  
• A mandatory attendance form that you have to return for every class.
  
  
• A set of four videos (about 18 minutes of content) done in a lecture/presentation style
  
  
• Two recommended readings accessible through the online library
  
  
• A discussion post on the discussion board and two responses to other classmates on that board. Also, the instructor posts follow-up questions to your original post that you are expected to answer.
  
  
• There was also a “Getting to Know You” introductory post you were supposed to make with a little of your background and your position, etc.
  
  
• Finally there was a paper due - a rather short one that was to include a “graphic organizer” illustrating some of your personal assumptions about the application of Bloom’s Taxonomy, the classification of those assumptions (Paradigmatic, Prescriptive, or Causal) and how critical thinking could be applied to address them. Your tuition includes access to the online version of Canva for building graphics - and I noticed that when I signed in with my personal free Canva ID, it didn’t have the same sets of templates and options available than if I accessed it through the school portal - so they must have some kind of enterprise membership.
  

When you submit your paper (upload) there is a button for “Turnitin” , an application that will scan your paper for possible plagiarism and other errors. This is helpful for preventing even accidental plagiarism. All in all, with still finding my way around the interfaces and making sure I cited my sources and all that, I think I spent about 8-10 hours of work on the class this week - which makes sense. In my previous Masters, I think I was spending more like 12-20 hours per week on the classes - but they were accelerated. This coming week seems even lighter as we head toward the Thanksgiving holiday.


One thing that was a little confusing is there is an app called “GroupMe” that lets you form groups with others taking the same class. The group for this class was very active this week with everyone sharing about how they completed the assignments - one thing I found out was that while we all are taking the same class with the same materials and assignments, we have different instructors and they all had some of their own little tweaks to the expectations about how the paper would be completed, especially when it came to the “graphic organizer” part. That was something that seemed surprising in the group chat.

Some examples of the interfaces and materials:

 

Could you tell us a bit more about this "mandatory attendance form"? My impression had been that ACE was primarily asynchronous.

 

Hi. The class has so far been 100% asynchronous with no ZOOM meetings or anything to attend. The mandatory attendance form is basically just a checkbox form that confirms you will be participating in that particular class. It's due the first week of classes.

 

11.25.24

Second week of classes complete. This week there were three video lectures, a couple of readings, the weekly discussion posts on the discussion board and a rather short paper due - in fact, it wasn’t really a paper at all but another graphic that expanded on the graphic we had to create last week. Overall it was less of a time commitment than last week, but this week a three page paper is due that kind of summarizes what we have covered so far. This is unfortunate for a holiday week, lol.


I’ve found myself looking further and further outside the prescribed readings for additional information that supports my own positions, but I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. I also have to remember that, as in my previous Masters program, most of my fellows are teachers and are looking at the material from more of an “applied pedagogical” approach, whereas I am more concerned with adult learners (andragogical) and technologically mediated heutagogical application.


So far, as far as my grades are concerned, I have a 99.61% - I got docked a point for not engaging quite as thoroughly with the discussion posts this week. It’s hard to believe that once I turn in this week’s paper I will be more than halfway through this first class.

 

12.04.24

Third week of classes complete and halfway through the 4th week. By next Sunday, (12/15) this class will be over. Papers are now expected to be three pages and seem to be covering similar material, which makes it a little more difficult to find new things to say or new sources to cite, lol. The video segments are clear and easy to follow and the readings are in-depth enough to invite further exploration. My current grade is 99.47% having been docked a point here or there. Discussion posts and responses are due by Friday of each week. Papers are due by Sunday evening. I've found that by posing a question to the original poster in your responses or responding to an extra post will keep your participation score at the max, as it exceeds expectations. Grades are posted by Wednesday the following week, along with any notes from the instructor. I must admit that this has grown to be more challenging than it initially appeared, I think it’s because of the similarity in the writing assignments. I'm finding myself spending more time on it than I had hoped, actually.

 

Thanks for sharing this with us.

 

The American College of Education Experience 12.17.24


Well, the first class is now complete. The final project was due on 12/15 and included merging the papers we did the first four weeks of class into a single document with an opening and closing consisting of about two to three paragraphs each and we had to design a new graphic that illustrates what new assumptions (about critical thinking and Bloom’s Taxonomy, and I incorporated assumptions about the adult learner) we might take forward after this course. The result for me was a 14 page paper (including title page, references and the three graphics which each took up about a page each on their own.


We also had the weekly “discussion board” posts and requisite two responses that we had to post.


I spent anywhere from a minimum of 6 hours in a week to a maximum of about 10 hours in a week on this course. I barely interacted with the instructor, except in his comments on the assignments when grading them, and I reached out to ask about revising some of the content of the papers a bit before merging them into one document to make it more cohesive - he responded in less than 24 hours and said that I could as the individual assignments had already been graded.


My biggest criticisms about this course:


While the content for weeks 4 and 5 was important, it didn’t really contribute to the assignments we were turning in. Once you had set yourself up with the assignments on weeks 1-3, the direction of your final project was pretty well set. Secondly, there were three graphic design projects for this course - this doesn’t bother me as I design instructional media all day at my job - having said that, my graphics were probably the simplest and least fun graphics I saw - they were basically charts that met the requirements, lol. Although the instructor’s feedback was always that my graphics were “concise” and “easy to understand.” As most of my classmates are teachers, I think their instincts were to make things fun, and mine…were not. For those less inclined, the graphic requirements were a sore spot on the group chat for this course on the “GroupMe” app.


Personally, I think of every educational opportunity as an opportunity to “self-educate” - and I take most requirements listed for projects as “suggested minimums” and trust that as long as I answer the questions and include the required items, I can take some liberties with how I present the material or apply it. In general throughout my college experiences, that has held to be true. In fact most instructors are glad to see some original thought or the additional context provided by relating the material to examples from your personal or professional life. This proved true here as well. Although the course was about cognition and critical thinking, I spent a lot of time relating these concepts back to working with the adult learner since that is my experience, and the instructor’s feedback seemed to indicate that he liked this “take” on the material.


I’ve turned in the paperwork for reimbursement at work and I am enrolled in the next class, set to begin on January 6, and because of the three transferred classes from my previous degree, by Feb 10, I will be halfway done with this program.

My final scores were: 99.69%
633.00 / 635.00 points

Once the grades are officially posted, I'll share some of the graphics I built for the previous assignments to give you an idea of what passed for fulfilling the requirements. A lot of people made much better, colorful, and fun graphics using poster templates in Canva, an online design app. ACE provides you with an institutional access to Canva as one of their "digital tools" so you can use it for free, but I opted for a simple approach.