3.4 Reality check: designing a new leadership program for the 21st  (Page 8/15)

Seminar II: Organizational management and legal issues. The focus here is on the legal and fiscal issues oforganizing the learning environment, building and leading effective teams, and coaching for school improvement. At this point andthroughout the program, candidates are required to complete field-based activities at a variety of school levels and centraloffice settings. Through these activities, the candidates lay a foundation for the practices of collaboration and shareddecision-making by leading teams through problem-solving, consensus-building, and information-sharing. They are also expectedto demonstrate efficient and effective use of time, space, people, and resources to maximize student learning. Through case studies,students utilize federal regulations, state laws, and local policies to inform decision-making; through simulations, they makeethical decisionsin various school management situations.

Seminar III: Human resources and school-community relations. Here participants explore communicationwith the learning community, staffing and induction, and needs-based professional development of teachers. Developingeffective interpersonal relationships with faculty, staff, and community is the focus of the course, which lays the foundationalskills needed for best practices such as developing relationships and communicating effectively. Throughout this seminar, studentscomplete field-based activities of human resource management, including recruitment, selection, induction, and professionaldevelopment.

Seminar IV: School leader as instructional facilitator. This program strand concentrates on leadingimprovement in literacy and numeracy instruction, as well as methods of differentiating instruction to meet the needs of allstudents. The instructional program is explored through an analysis and evaluation of curriculum, student assessment, and instruction.Emphasis is placed on the supervision of the teaching and learning process as it relates to continuous school improvement. Thecandidates learn how standards, teaching, and learning are dynamic structures in constant flux; thus, the best practices of mappingand monitoring the curriculum are continuously practiced.

Seminar V: School leader as change agent. School improvement with an emphasis on the importance of change andthe best practices of action research and data analysis is the objective of this course. Each candidate concentrates on leadingchange by understanding self and others, directing staff in the creation of professional development, and working with others increating a personalized learning environment. Students make final preparations for the action research project to be completed by theend of the final semester prior to graduation.

Seminar VI: The internship. The final seminar is a full internship, with candidates participating in thebeginning and ending activities of the school year, totaling 150 hours of field-based experience. During this time, the actionresearch project is completed, in which the students and their respective stakeholders collaborate on a selected topic for schoolimprovement. More advanced technology training is included in this seminar; it is designed primarily to provide guidance in therefinement of the candidates’electronic portfolios and to support their action research projects. Leadership projects and artifactsare maintained in an electronic portfolio that demonstrates individual growth. The prospective leaders work to refine theirelectronic portfolios for the final defense in their educational leadership master’s degree program.