Character Education Development Certificate

Bring Character Education, Social, and Emotional Learning to Your Classroom

Character education — emphasized as vitally important in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and other founders — has arguably fallen by the wayside in the modern era. However, the benefits of focusing on character education, and social and emotional learning, in public school education are profound.

Our online Character Education Development Certificate program is a golden opportunity to enhance your skills in this essential yet often overlooked discipline, giving you the opportunity to take an individual course or work toward earning a certificate with multiple courses.

Offered through the University of San Diego’s Division of Professional and Continuing Education in collaboration with the university’s School of Leadership and Education Sciences – Character Education Resource Center, the program prepares you to apply best practices to plan, deliver and assess character education in the classroom.

Certificate Requirements

To earn the USD professional development certificate in character education, students are required to successfully complete four individual courses, which can be accomplished in as few as two semesters. Learn more about the University of San Diego’s Professional and Continuing Education Certificate Benefits and Policies. See course titles and tuition fees in the chart below.

Learning Method Information

Online Self-Paced

Our online self-paced courses are similar to online fixed-date courses, but are designed to give you a six-month period from time of enrollment to complete all assignments. Your instructor will provide feedback via written responses on your assignments and exams. Grades are based on completed projects, assignments and exams.

How is the self-paced course structured? Like fixed-date courses, online self-paced courses are asynchronous meaning that you can work on your assignments anytime; the difference being there are no assigned due dates in self-paced courses. The content is divided into learning modules. Each module will cover one or more topics. Within each of the learning modules, you can expect the following components:

• Module introduction that outlines what you can expect to learn in the module.
• Required readings (textbook, articles, journals, websites, etc.) and presentations (audio and/or video).
• Assignments (which may include: written assignments, quizzes, blogs, etc.) based on the readings and presentations.
• Module conclusion to review the topics and what you should have learned.
• Typically, there is a final project, paper, or exam due in the last module that culminates all of the topics covered in each of the learning modules. You’ll find that the design of the learning modules has a rhythm to help you manage your time in the course.

What Is Character Education? [Definition]

The U.S. Department of Education describes it as follows: “Character education teaches the habits of thought and deed that help people live and work together as families, friends, neighbors, communities and nations.”

In practice, the federal agency says: “Character education is a learning process that enables students and adults in a school community to understand, care about and act on core ethical values such as respect, justice, civic virtue and citizenship, and responsibility for self and others. Upon such core values, we form the attitudes and actions that are the hallmark of safe, healthy and informed communities that serve as the foundation of our society.”

Historically, America’s public school’s used to focus on character education and civic virtue,” according to the Department of Education. “The founders of this country, including John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin, wrote about the importance of character education in maintaining the new republic. Those founders would likely be horrified by the loss of this goal, as they all cite character education as the way to create an educated and virtuous citizenry.”

Principles of Character Education

Character.org, a national organization founded in 1993 to foster character development in U.S. schools and communities, lists the following 11 Principles of Character Education, which it describes as guideposts for schools and educators seeking to implement character education:

• Principle 1: Core values are defined, implemented, and embedded into school culture.
• Principle 2: The school defines “character” comprehensively to include thinking, feeling, and doing.
• Principle 3: The school uses a comprehensive, intentional, and proactive approach to develop character.
• Principle 4: The school creates a caring community.
• Principle 5: The school provides students with opportunities for moral action.
• Principle 6: The school offers a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners, develops their character, and helps them succeed.
• Principle 7: The school fosters students’ self-motivation.
• Principle 8: All staff share the responsibility for developing, implementing, and modeling ethical character.
• Principle 9: The school’s character initiative has shared leadership and long-range support for continuous improvement.
• Principle 10: The school engages families and community as partners in the character initiative.
• Principle 11: The school assesses its implementation of character education, its culture and climate, and the character growth of students on a regular basis.

Character Education Development Certificate – Curriculum

The four courses that comprise the University of San Diego’s Character Education Development Certificate are:

• Instructional Strategies in Character Education — a deep dive into instructional strategies that have been found effective for teaching for character development.
• Character-based Classroom Management: Strategies & Practices — designed to enhance your knowledge and skill in managing all aspects of the 21st century classroom.
• Social-Emotional Learning and Teaching: Home, School, Work — this course examines the “what, how and why” of emotions and social skills that matter in school, at home and in the workplace.
• The Character Education Teacher as Model, Leader, and Collaborator — the purpose of this course is to provide educators with the knowledge and skills needed to take on both a leadership and a collaborative role in character education programs and initiatives in their communities, schools, and classrooms.

Enroll in individual courses of your choice or start the certificate program with any course to earn graduate level extension credits. Online self-paced courses are available anytime and allow for six months from enrollment date for completion. Key points about your online learning experience include the following:

• You can go online whenever is most convenient, completing your course or courses within six months of enrollment
• As long as you have access to the Internet you can complete assignments
• You’ll read articles and watch videos, and interact with educational resources provided by your instructor
• Instructor interaction and feedback are provided between assignments

Benefits of the Character Education Development Certificate Program

The benefits of character education in public schools and classrooms are incredibly significant, according to Jessica Lahey, a writer and English teacher who relates her experiences teaching character education and “core virtues” in an article in The Atlantic. Schools that teach character education, she says, report the following positive outcomes:

• Higher academic performance
• Improved attendance
• Reduced violence
• Fewer disciplinary issues
• Reduction in substance abuse
• Less vandalism

Additionally, she notes, “From a practical perspective, it’s simply easier to teach children who can exercise patience, self-control and diligence, even when they would rather be playing outside.” Such teachings, she says, make a huge difference in children’s “emotional, moral and intellectual development.”

Experienced Instructors

Our instructors, most of whom hold advanced degrees, are experienced subject matter experts who engage each student in a stimulating and participative learning environment. Click on individual course listings to learn more about our primary Character Education Development Certificate program instructors.

Frequently Asked Questions