Each candidate shall prepare a synthesis assignment before the conclusion of the course discussing ones knowledge, understandings, analysis, and assessment of his or her experiences i

Appendix A

Educational Leadership Goals and Learning Outcomes

Appendix A

Doctoral Program Goals and Learning Outcomes

The Doctor of Education (EdD) is designed to support the mission of the Fischler School of Education and Human Services. The program is designed to prepare adult learners to fulfill their professional and personal academic goals. It provides opportunities to enhance the core knowledge, skills and values essential to competent and ethical practitioners and leaders of organizations in the fields of education, human services and related areas. The learning outcomes of the program are focused on facilitating the transfer of theory into practice in order to produce a new generation of local, national and global leaders who will effect positive changes in a diverse and multicultural society.

Program Learning Outcomes

Doctor of Education Degree (EdD) graduates will be able to:

1. Demonstrate knowledge learned in the program by applying it to real settings. (Knowledge)

1. Conduct an independent research investigation that contributes to the general body of knowledge in a specific field or profession. (Research)

1. Solve diverse problems using information and skills acquired in the program to create solutions. (Problem solving)

1. Make informed decisions based on ethical and legal principles. (Ethics)

1. Formulate scholarly arguments supported by academic resources. (Communication)

Educational Leadership Goals and Learning Outcomes

The primary goal of the concentration in Educational Leadership (EDL) is to improve our K-12 schools by preparing candidates for leadership and lifelong learning in the fields of K-12 educational administration. The doctoral program fosters an in-depth application of knowledge and skills, inquiry and research, problem-solving, collaboration and communication, professional development, and higher order thinking skills.

The graduates of the EDL concentration will be leaders in improving schools and other learning environments; expanding their administrative competence and modeling visionary leadership; advocating and implementing educational improvement using informed action research, effective application of change theory, collaborative decision-making and strategic planning, risk and creativity, and appropriate evaluation; and identifying and addressing contemporary and future educational issues in a changing world.

Goals

EDL goals are to enable candidates to:

1. Acquire practical knowledge and skills of effective leadership at the school and district levels to improve teaching and learning.

2. Develop abilities for research in the field of K-12 educational leadership.

3. Develop and apply technology as both an administrative and instructional tool.

4. Broaden their professional background as it relates to the:

1. establishment and implementation of a vision;

1. assessment and improvement of the school and district culture;

1. refinement of both internal and external communication skills;

1. improvement of school and district operations;

1. alignment of the school and district curriculum, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies;

1. planning and implementation of change theory;

1. improvement of school and community relations; and

1. processes of human resource management and development.

5. Prepare for K-12 leadership and administrative positions at the school and district level.

6. Act with integrity in an ethical manner.

Educational Leadership Learning Outcomes

Graduates of the Ed.D. with a concentration in Educational Leadership will demonstrate mastery of the following learning outcomes as evidenced by their participation in class, participation in problem-based projects, completion of class assignments and class presentation, and/or field based experiences. Graduates will be able to:

1. Implement a strategic plan that outlines actions for school improvement and their implications. (Vision and Planning)

2. Evaluate the human resource program in terms of human resource planning, recruitment of personnel, selection of personnel, placement and induction of personnel, staff development, evaluation of personnel, compensation of personnel, and collective bargaining (if appropriate). (Personnel)

3. Promote a positive culture within the school or district that includes the design of comprehensive professional growth plans for school personnel. (Culture)

4. Utilize practical applications of organizational theories to manage the resources, budgeting process, physical plant or plants, organizational operations, and the resources of a school or district. (Organization, Operations, and Resources)

5. Develop and align the curriculum goals and objectives with instructional strategies appropriate for varied teaching and learning styles and specific student needs. (Curriculum and Instruction)

6. Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders, respond to their interests and needs, and mobilize resources. (Collaboration and School in Larger Context)

Appendix B

Reflection and Vision for School Leaders – An Overview

Appendix B

Reflection and Vision for School Leaders – An Overview

Foreword

This course will help you complete the initial course for the Doctor of Education with a concentration in Educational Leadership (EDL). Although this syllabus is fairly prescriptive, it is not intended that you color by the numbers. Rather it is intended as a philosophical approach to what is expected in the fulfillment of your doctoral studies. You are to use your own creativity and experience to meet that philosophical commitment. Before you begin writing, read the entire document and discuss its contents with your peers, a group of your colleagues, friends, family, and relatives. The result should emerge and be informed by a cooperative effort of all those individuals and more. You will be asked to assess your knowledge, skills, and dispositions relative to the national standards contained within this syllabus. While your opinion is important, you should also indicate how others have seen you in action. You will need to solicit the input of your work setting colleagues and stakeholders, your family, and support your conclusions, where feasible, with references to current research the literature.

Organizational leadership is defined by change, and organizational change is defined by leadership. They are products of each other. The EDL concentration requires you to express your understanding of leadership and change in a personal and dynamic format. Ultimately, you will be required to demonstrate your continuing growth as a catalyst for educational improvement and as a master of the process of change. This demonstration will be evidenced by three major connected perspectives – “reflection,” “performance,” and “vision.”

This course will also serve as a comprehensive needs assessment for your doctoral studies, with an emphasis on the word “comprehensive.” It is a comprehensive look at your life and what lies ahead. Doctoral comprehensive exams normally ask the candidate to integrate information learned from several areas of study within some theoretical framework.

Often the examinee responds to significant issues within the disciplines studied and uses research to support or refute particular points of view. This is also our expectation of you through the

Reflection and Vision for School Leaders.

To meet the developmental needs of candidates, assessment in the EDL concentration will be engaging, action-centered, and participatory. Through the combination of acceptable course criteria as well as performance standards that describe the expected quality of performance that must be met, you will learn to examine their planning and decision-making. However, not only do you need to know what is expected and what is acceptable in terms of performance, you will need to be provided with feedback that will serve as a basis for goal setting and future performance. Essentially, specific feedback should be viewed as a learning opportunity. To foster this performance-based model of learning will require that you review the feedback from the professors in the various courses.

Finally, the variety of activities you will experience during the various courses, the field work, and your day-to-day experiences on the job will provide a picture of you. This combination of performances and assessments will need to create a balance between challenge and encouragement (i.e., building on your strengths and moving them forward into areas that need to be developed).

Section One – Reflection

Honest introspection. Reflection is a skill you have continued to hone in your journey through the program and through your practice as an educational leader. It is a difficult skill that requires you to look at yourself as an object rather than a subject. Reflection is not a fond remembrance of past victories. It is not a reason to boast about your charisma and wonderful empathy for children, parents, and colleagues. Reflection is a learning tool. By reflecting on what you have done and why you have done it, you are searching for the intricacies of process and your and others’ personal involvement in process. You will be browsing through the interplay of people, time, and events in an effort to discern the cause and the purpose of something that occurred or did not occur.

Reflection is a self-interrogation, stripping away each layer of accommodation you have gained through years and years of proving and protecting yourself. It is an examination of your motives—about who you are, not the story you have made up about who you are. We each are products of our experiences and of our bias about those experiences. The perception is often more alluring and powerful than the reality, so that the way we see ourselves is not necessarily the way others see us. It is the latter that we want to expose and accept.

Objectivity makes difficult demands on reflection. We must put aside our pretension and pride and desire for public approval and position. Thus, reflection is a very personal, intimate, and honest act. It is best evidenced in the phrase, “Know thyself.”

Reflection is mindfulness about the past. Awareness is mindfulness about the present.

Vision is mindfulness about the future.

The following tool can be used to guide your reflection on action and your reflection for action. Think about some event, an interaction, or a situation that occurred in your personal or professional life that you feel is worth further reflection. You might choose to examine a positive and encouraging experience, or you might choose a more unsettling or challenging experience.

Now consider the following series of questions to prompt your reflective thinking about the experience. You may also wish to write down your thoughts and later share them aloud with another person.

First, what happened? This will serve as a description of what took place. What did you do? What did others (i.e., students, adults, etc.) do? What was my affect at the time? What were the affects of others? What was going on around us? Where were we? When during the day did it occur? Was there anything unusual happening? Identifying all aspects of what took place will provided the basis for your reflection.

Second, why did the event, interaction, or situation take place? This will require your interpretation and analysis of the events. Why do you think things happened the way they did? Why did you choose to act the way you did? What can you surmise about why the other person or persons acted they way they did? What was going on for each participant in the situation? What were you thinking and feeling? Were you thinking at the time? How might your thinking have affected your choice of behavior? How might the context have influenced the experience? Was there something about the activities? Was there something about the timing or location of events? Were there other potential contributing factors? Something about what was said or done by others that triggered your response? Were there past experiences, either yours or those of others, that contributed to the response? What are your hunches about why things happened in the way they did? Your analysis of why something occurred is crucial should you find yourself in a similar situation in the future.

Third, so what? This will require you to think of the bigger issues that you need to deal with. Do the overall meanings of the events warrant further consideration? Why did this seem like a significant event to reflect on? What have I learned from the reflection on this event? How could I improve my behavior? How might this change my future thinking, behavior, or interactions? Many things that occur in our professional and personal lives take a considerable amount of time. In the scheme of things, you really need to consider if a particular situation is worth the expenditure of time.

Finally, now what? Based upon your analysis, what are the implications for your actions in the future? Are there other people you should actively include in reflecting on this event? If so, who and what would you interact about? Next time a situation like this presents itself, what do you want to remember to think about? How would you want to behave? How could you set up conditions to increase the likelihood of productive interactions and learning? This entire process will assist you to make changes in your behavior where you feel they are necessary.

Your leadership activity. The EDL concentration respects your life as an educational leader. Leadership is not developed in isolation. It needs activity. Look back on at least two years, longer if you wish, and recall the defining times in your work world, times that helped define you as a person, as a teacher, as a learner, as a leader. Perhaps the most meaningful experiences were relationships, both good and bad. How have your relationships and reactions with your colleagues shaped you—made you realize something about yourself.

Were there particular comments from students or from supervisors that were especially significant?

Do you have a mentor or mentors? What lessons have you learned from and about them?

Describe why these individuals have made a lasting impression on you. How do you communicate with and use them? Will you continue to seek their advice? How? Have you changed positions or do you contemplate doing so? Why and when? Describe whether you rely on your mentor or mentors for this kind of decision.

You should consider the following questions to reflect upon prior to describing your thoughts and feelings with regard to your educational leadership activities:

 What have been the defining times in your work (i.e., times that helped define you as a learner, teacher, and leader)?

 What values have shaped your beliefs about schools, teaching and learning, and leadership?

 Have your values changed? If so, how?

 How have your values been evidenced in your work?

 Have these values been consistently upheld in your leadership decision making?

 What theories and research dominate your thinking and action?

 How would you describe your leadership actions, style, and decision making in terms that refer to theory? Why do you favor these theories and reject others?

 Have you changed the way you address dilemmas in your day-to-day work? If yes, how?

 How have you responded to risk?

 Have you received feedback from students, parents, teachers, colleagues, supervisors, and other administrators that was particularly significant?

 Are you happy in your leadership role? If yes, why? If no, why not?

 What things are most satisfying? Why?

 What things are least satisfying? Why?

 What are you doing to increase the satisfaction side of the satisfaction equation?

 What additional questions come to mind?

How do you rate yourself on confronting inadequacies in others? Many leaders find this their most daunting task. Some find it just as difficult to give praise when others perform well. Yet, performance issues that go unaddressed have a habit of multiplying and setting a culture that condones mediocrity. Do you consider yourself guilty, or is this an area in which you feel confident and accomplished? Are you happy in your leadership role? What things are most satisfying and what are the least? What are you doing to increase the satisfaction side of the equation?

You should consider the following questions to reflect upon prior to describing your thoughts and feelings with regard to your personal activities:

 What values have shaped your beliefs about your personal life?

 Have your values changed? If so, how?

 How have your values been evidenced in your day-to-day personal life?

 Have these values been consistently upheld in your decision making?

 Have you changed the way you address dilemmas in your personal life? If yes, how?

 How have you responded to risk?

 What additional questions come to mind?

Reflection summary. Try to summarize your reflections organized by several dominant themes that you have found to be important to your values and future actions. One of the primary goals in the EDL concentration is for you to be an informed practitioner. Instructional leadership, an often used and abused term, should assume familiarity with a knowledge base about teaching and learning. Whereas “lead teacher” refers to some kind of clinical teaching master, instructional leader implies an understanding and use of learning and instructional theory. Instructional leaders respond not only to the how and what of education, but also to the why. Instructional leadership is arguably the prime responsibility of educational leadership.

You should consider the following questions to reflect upon prior to describing your thoughts and feelings with regard to your overall reflections:

 How have you changed?

 Have others seen the change in your duties and responsibilities (or lack of it)? How do you know?

 Have others seen the change in your leadership abilities (or lack of it)? How do you know?

 What additional questions come to mind?

Section Two – Leadership Standards

Meeting the leadership standards . Demonstration of the knowledge, skills, competencies, and dispositions is at the heart of educational leadership. To foster the development of educational leaders at all levels of education, sets of standards have been developed by a number of constituency organizations (i.e., American Association of School Administrators, Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, National Policy Board for Educational Administration, etc.). Based upon these standards, the EDL concentration has designed curriculum that is integrated and problem-based to promote an understanding of the connectedness of the various knowledge and skill areas in educational leadership. The standards necessarily segment the total knowledge and skill base, but these separations are only for the purpose of providing manageable descriptions of essential content and practice within the EDL delivery system.

The application of knowledge and the development, integration, and practice of professional skills are important components of the EDL concentration. Therefore, the EDL concentration has planned and developed a number of field-based components to bridge the experiences between the various courses and the workplace. Because life in schools is not compartmentalized as are content areas for the convenience of instruction, teaching for application of knowledge requires structures that provide transitions from isolated, specialized concepts toward more realistic and interconnected patterns.

There are three dimensions to the teaching and learning process within the EDL concentration (a) awareness, defined as acquiring concepts, information definitions, and procedures; (b) comprehension, defined as interpreting knowledge to school environments, integrating concepts with practice, and using knowledge and skills in context; and (c) application, defined as applying knowledge and skills to specific problems of practice.

The instructional design employs a variety of adult learning strategies in the EDL concentration. Addressing authentic problems generated by you as a basis for instruction and requiring you to reflect on your experiences is a hallmark of the EDL concentration.

The standards are stated as results because program assessment should be based on results criteria. The EDL concentration goals and objectives focus on knowledge, skills, and attributes required to lead and to manage an educational enterprise centered on teaching and learning. While an array of methodologies and resources have been incorporated into the

EDL concentration, the emphasis has been placed on your role and performance in the

workplace.

In summary, the EDL field-based distance learning elements provide clear connections and bridging experiences seated in an awareness of content, the integration of concepts and practice, and the application of knowledge and skills in your workplace. When coupled with the integrated experiences of the various course sessions, online experiences, summer session, cohort seminars, and field-based experiences the outcome will be a powerful synthesis of knowledge and skills useful to you upon completion of the ELD program.

Throughout your doctoral studies, you will be required to demonstrate your proficiency in meeting each of the standards selected. More specifically, you will be required to meet the standards for school-based leadership listed below. To the degree feasible and applicable, you will be required through some assignments and should attempt through other assignments to utilize your studies and assignments in the various EDL courses as a vehicle to demonstrate your proficiency in a particular element of the school-based leadership standards.

You will be required to demonstrate, in a number of different formats, how you have achieved proficiency in the various elements of each standard. Assessments of your performance should be vehicles for both candidates and program evaluation and improvement. A broad range of knowledge and performance should be assessed including the application of knowledge to the improvement of practice. These assessments should be continuous, systematic, comprehensive, and rigorous. They should be free from bias, and be consistent, accurate, ethical, and fair. These artifacts of your work should be shared monthly with your colleagues and instructor for review, comment, and revisions where necessary.

School-Based Administrative Leadership Standards

You should draw upon workplace records (i.e., minutes of meetings, communications, policies, news events, projects, etc.), public documents, articles published in professional journals, videotaped situations, samples of work, analytic work, essays, grading rubrics, problem-solving activities, action research, projects, simulations, case studies, and so forth to indicate that you have achieved proficiency in two particular elements of each standard. After each standard, examples of performance activities will be suggested. It should be noted that the examples are merely that—examples. You should feel free to select varied means and modes which will best exemplify how you have met a particular standard. Examples of performance activities you might engage in that might be applicable for multiple standards; however, you may utilize any of the following activities once:

ELCC Standard 1.0 – Developing and Implementing a School-Level Vision

A building-level education leader applies knowledge that promotes the success of every student by collaboratively facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a shared school vision of learning through the collection and use of data to identify school goals, assess organizational effectiveness, and implement school plans to achieve school goals; promotion of continual and sustainable school improvement; and evaluation of school progress and revision of school plans supported by school-based stakeholders.

Research Support for ELCC Standard 1.0. Standard 1 confirms that a building level education leader must have the knowledge to promote the success of every student through understanding principles for developing, articulating, implementing, and stewarding a school vision of learning. This includes knowledge of the importance of shared school vision, mission, and goals for student success that is documented in the effective schools literature and school improvement literature. It includes the knowledge that when vision, mission, and goals are widely shared, student achievement usually increases.

The importance of the knowledge presented in evidence supporting Standard 1 was

recognized in the reviews of scholarship informing the development of the Interstate School

Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) 2008 Policy Standards that highlighted the importance of knowledge facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by all stakeholders.

Formation of the ISLLC 2008 Standards was also based on considering the importance of knowing the theoretical foundations for leadership practice. Some reviews of scholarship highlighted the importance of knowing how to collaboratively develop and implement a shared vision and mission. The importance of knowing how to use evidence in decision making was highlighted in reports informing the formation of the ISLLC 2008 Standards.

Other reports confirmed the importance of knowing how to create and implement plans to achieve goals.

ELCC 1.1: Candidates understand and can collaboratively develop, articulate, implement, and steward a shared vision of learning for a school.

Content Knowledge. Candidates provide evidence of knowledge of:

1.1a Collaborative school visioning.

1.1b Theories relevant to building, articulating, implementing, and stewarding a school vision.

1.1c Methods for involving school stakeholders in the visioning process.

Professional Leadership Skills. Candidates demonstrate skills required to:

1.1a Design and support a collaborative process for developing and implementing a school vision.

1.1b Articulate a school vision of learning characterized by a respect for students and their families and community partnerships.

1.1c Develop a comprehensive plan for communicating the school vision to appropriate school constituencies.

1.1d Formulate plans to steward school vision statements.

ELCC 1.2: Candidates understand and can collect and use data to identify school goals, assess organizational effectiveness, and implement plans to achieve school goals.

Content Knowledge. Candidates provide evidence of knowledge of:

1.2a The design and use of assessment data for learning.

1.2b Organizational effectiveness and learning strategies.

1.2c Tactical and strategic program planning.

1.2d Implementation and evaluation

Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers

Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.

Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS

Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?

Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.

We write plagiarism Free Content

Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.

Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.