Learning never ends for complementary and integrative health practitioners. MUIH Professional and Continuing Education programs provide ongoing professional development opportunities for practitioners in a variety of different fields. These programs are developed with a primary focus on learning and application.
Professional and Continuing Education programs award Continuing Education Units instead of academic credit upon successful completion of each course. These CEUs are accepted by various national and international professional organizations toward meeting ongoing professional development requirements in their respective fields.
How we award CEUs in MUIH PCE Courses
MUIH strives to maintain rigorous standards in the design and delivery of its Professional and Continuing Education learning experiences. Traditionally CEUs have been based on the amount of time spent in a training event, and when an associated professional organization follows a time-based formula for awarding its CEUs, we first and foremost follow their guidance. In addition to considering the time required to participate in a training experience, we also award CEUs in our PCE courses based on a holistic appraisal of a variety of factors that contribute to learning and mastery of the course learning outcomes.
- Mastery of learning outcomes: Our courses are designed to focus on specific, measurable, observable learning outcomes, which guide the development of course activities and assessments designed to ensure learners can demonstrate mastery of specific skills, attitudes, and behaviors appropriate to professional practitioners.
- Instructor/SME expertise: Our courses are developed by our faculty and other subject-matter experts (SMEs) in their respective fields whose knowledge of the standards of their profession inform the choice of course topics, course content, and assessment of learning outcomes.
- Learning design: Our courses are developed in collaboration with our team of professional instructional designers who guide the course design process according to current research-based principles of adult learning and quality course design.
- Course content (text, audio, video, multimedia): Our courses are designed to include a variety of learning modalities to ensure that course content is appropriate for all types of learners and accessible to all participants.
- Prior knowledge: Our courses take into account the prior knowledge learners bring to the learning experience and provide the scaffolding necessary to ensure they successfully deepen their knowledge and skills.
- Cognitive level and complexity: Our courses are designed to produce deeper levels of learning that go beyond rote recall of factual information. We strive to include learning objectives in our courses that require higher-order thinking, and that require participants to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create in order to demonstrate mastery of the course learning outcomes.
- Practicality for immediate application: Our offerings are designed with the intention for immediate application and relevance to a professional learner as a practitioner.
- Rigor of assessment: Earning CEUs for completing an MUIH Professional and Continuing Education course requires that participants pass a final assessment designed to demonstrate mastery of the course learning outcomes.
- Alignment with professional standards: Our courses are designed to align with the standards of ethical and professional behavior expected of practitioners by the leading professional organizations who oversee the fields relevant to the courses.
Taken together, these standards provide a holistic framework for awarding CEUs in MUIH PCE offerings that goes beyond simple computation of seat time and encompasses a variety of factors that focus on learning and our participants’ ability to demonstrate mastery of the expected learning outcomes in each course.
About the CEU
The Continuing Education Unit or CEU was created and defined in 1970 after IACET and the U.S. Department of Education task force studied the measurement of non-credit continuing education activities. The continuing education unit (CEU) was designed to1:
- Provide a standard unit of measurement for continuing education and training,
- Quantify continuing education and training (CE/T) activities, and
- Accommodate for the diversity of providers, activities, and purposes in adult education.
As a regionally accredited academic institution, MUIH’s PCE is approved to confer educational credentials based on these set of quality standards. The CEU standard is important because it provides the adult education student, confidence in an organization’s education or training program. Various organizations and professional boards accept MUIH PCE offerings based on their professional guidelines.
While MUIH PCE may proactively seek CEU alignment and pre-approval with specific organizations as indicated on each offering listing detail, it is the ultimate responsibility of the individual learner to verify acceptance with their professional organization, board, or academic institution for credit.