Kim said:

But the question here is what is...and because of the different approaches, what is a MB remains unclear in some respects. But, in my opinion, anybody willing to go through the process deserves some special recognition...


 
 When we started the Univ of Montana's ONLINE Master's beekeeping series, we chose the MASTERS terminology, because that's what most people use as a SEARCH term when looking for ONLINE beekeeping courses.  

We also looked at all of the existing courses that we could find.  We then decided what we would include, what we would not, and what we'd add that no one else did.  

We offer a Certificate for each level - which has to be earned - you (each student) has to pass all exams and assignments and participate in the Discussion Forums.  If you don't pass, you don't get a Certificate and you can't take the next level course.  We also offer each level of the course for Academic Credit - a each  student who takes it gets a grade, and yes, one can fail the course or get an incomplete. 

I agree that the terminology is not standardized.  But neither is that of most University/College level course.  Biology 101 is likely to be different for every institution.  And a beekeeping course at one institution is not likely to be the same as at another. 

In terms of a potential student evaluating Masters Courses, I'd point to the syllabus as a first step.  However, you then have to consider other things such as the background and experience of the instructors, the overall approach, and the style of instruction.  For example, at the Apprentice Level, we have weekly exams and a written and video comprehensive exam.  At the  Journeyman level, we start with exams but by about the middle of the course we switch to more of a Graduate Seminar approach, assigning readings, conducting open Discussion Forums, and having students produce the outlines of a business plan, etc.  Our Masters level is being wrapped up at the moment and will be offered for the first time in spring of 2016.  We will have fewer exams at the third level of the series.  We will have even more individual student focused activities - we want to see whether the students can work through and find solutions to problems, develop plans, etc.  In other words, can they apply what they've learned in an informed manner.

Our focus is on fact/science based instruction.  We emphasize why specific things should be done, rather than what should  be done.  We're not much interested in how much trivia one can memorize.  We also focus on tried and true methods - there are reasons many of us use hives with standard sizes, bee space, frames.  We insist on learning how to monitor pests and diseases.  A microscope is a necessary part of the Journeyman level.

As per Christina's question about a fourth level (e.g., Craftsman).  Three multi-week courses do not cover every conceivable topic. We aim our students at Bee-L as one way of staying engaged in informed discussions.  I was very happy to see the new, 2015 Hive and the Honey Bee.  That's going to be the required text book for the Master's level - all 1056 pages!  But if you look at this long awaited tome, you'll see a significant change from previous revisions.  One of the obvious ones is adding molecular/genetic topics - from disciplines that did not even exist at the time of earlier editions.  Still, it doesn't cover all that we want  to include in our Master level course.

We've been talking about what the next steps need to be to address the continuing education issue raised by Kim.  Special Topics, renewals of Certificates (maybe  something akin to Board Certified for MDs, ??).

We're open to ideas.

For those of you on Bee-L who have taken our Apprentice and/or Journeyman  classes, we hope after the first of the year to add a new capability - guest instructors who will be available 'live' for short presentations and Q&A  using multi-point video conferencing embedded in the course.  We'll be testing that in January to see if it actually works.  We limit our course sections to 40 students.  In theory, all 40 could be online, in a Skype-like format, with the  guest.  Hope it works.

Regardless, we're adding guest instructors for specific topics.

Jerry




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