Graduate coursework is more creative. Students create systems that will help them to be a more effective professional. Graduate coursework is more self-directed. Graduate coursework is more rigorous. More is expected of the graduate student than of the certificate or undergraduate student.
Graduate coursework is more attentive to epistemological issues.
Skills of discernment and critical thinking are needed. Graduate coursework is more attentive to research. Students will be looking into, conducting, and reading original re-search. Graduate coursework is more a community of learners, rather than just a teacher-student relationship. Graduate students are assumed to have reached an intellectual maturity that puts them at a place where the role of the instructor is different.