ED667 – Syllabus

Leadership and Educational Technology

Summer 2004 – CADRE 6

Faculty ______

Dr. Linda Polin –

Carolyn Gery -

Bryan Berrett –

Course Overview ______

This course explores the opportunities students have to assume leadership roles while integrating and applying leadership theory in a technology rich environment. Each student will determine their personal leadership values, vision, and mission. Regardless of the work environment, clarity of ones’ own leadership style is paramount to facilitating positive changes. Knowledge of policy issues, strategic planning, ability to build coalitions, as well as membership in the selected community of practice is each a requirement to effecting change outside of your immediate work environment.

Themes:

  • Values
  • Vision
  • Mission

Personal Endeavors

  • Strategic Planning
  • Coalition Building

Course Objectives______

  • Define a personal leadership strategy
  • Develop a coalition of peers as well as mentors within the field
  • Explore organizational issues and develop strategic plans to implement change
  • Reflect though out the process and modify your leadership strategies
  • Understand the context of this course in relation to your learning and how you can utilize your peers to affect technology in education

Course Evaluation______

Ground Rules - While this may be your third semester and you may have some history going for you, remember that we are new to your cadre. We bring our own history and culture as well. We will respect and fit in with the norms your group has established. At any rate, we three ask you to start fresh, to reinvent yourselves in this final semester. Bury past problems, toss out prior conceptions of each other, and give yourself and others an opportunity to show the transformed self that is emerging from this program. In essence, give everyone an “A” (ala Zander)!

Learning Values - These are the things we value in learners. Some of this will be assessed as participation; some of it will hopefully be evident in your project work and online interactions with classmates and your instructors.

  • Intellectual and spiritual engagement
  • Useful, consistent involvement
  • Dependable support and assistance to classmates
  • Patience, flexibility, and perseverance
  • Ingenuity, curiosity, and challenge
  • Open-mindedness and flexibility
  • Willingness to take the long view
  • Well-written prose
  • Efforts to try out new ideas, a.k.a. informed risk-taking

Fear - Don't hide. Don't be afraid to make mistakes or be embarrassed. We all screw up at some point when we're learning new things, and when you're learning online that tends to happen in public. Let it go; move on. We already forgot about it.

Whining / Attitude - Don't whine. Don't bring attitude. Open your mind. Listen and contribute; don't just wait to talk. Don't show off; share without trying to impress. If you have a problem with something, don't tell us "everybody thinks..." Tell one of us what YOU think and don’t wait … tell us now.

Hoarding - If you know/have something useful, share it. Don't hoard knowledge or resources. This class is not based on competition. It's possible for everyone to get a C or an A.

Evaluation components:

Participation in NG, TI, Discussion Boards40%

A1 –Values, Vision, Mission20%

A2 – Sustainability Plan, ARP20%

A3 – Future Search: Group Project20%

100%

Grading Scale

100% - 90% = A79% - 70% = C 60% and below = F

89% - 80% = B69% - 60% = D

Learning Activities______

The assignments are structured to apply what is learned in this course to your evolving action research project. Your responsibility in each endeavor is to develop community, enable a process where knowledge sharing takes place, facilitate access to resources and experts and inspire a culture where discourse results in an evolving community.

A1. Individual – Values, Vision, and Mission

One of the expectations of this class is that each of you identify, critically evaluate, reflect on, define, and redefine your values, vision, and mission. Each of you participates and performs in your professional communities with the understanding and knowledge that something guides your actions, decisions, style, and leadership philosophy. Also, at this point in your educational experiences you are being asked by faculty to make explicit your future goals and possible applications of your ARP’s in overlapping communities. Develop a three to four page paper using your required readings and additional resources to make explicit your values, vision, and mission. APA format is required for this paper. This paper is due on or before May 31st.

Additionally, create a One Minute Movie as a Public Service Announcement. Have a specific target audience in mind while creating your PSA (current or future employer, corporation, etc.). Consider your Action Research Projects and how a PSA can be an excellent opportunity to share your vision as well as create opportunities for funding, educating, and sustainability. Integrate your leadership style and philosophy of education that is reflective of your personal values, vision, and mission. Your movie is due on or before May 31st and can be sent to us on a CD or as a link from your web site.

A2.Sustainability Planning

At this stage of your action research project you will be involved with sharing your work with the larger community. Part of this process will be to determine the sustainability of your project and your leadership role within this construct.

What will happen to your project once it is complete? Perhaps this project will bring you to a juncture and a new area of study – how will you transform the focal area so it evolves and incorporates the needs of the larger community?

Employ visioning and strategic planning to draft a sustainability plan (4 – 5 pages) where you consider the future life of your ARP. Address necessary areas of support – these areas can be comprised of communities, connections, funding resources and mentors. Each of you will be required to evaluate a peers work one week prior to

Coalition building is critical to this endeavor and requires an understanding of your leadership style and objectives. Use your choice book as one resource to create a plan reflective of your values, vision and mission and your leadership style.

We will discuss this assignment in depth in newsgroups and is due on or before June 21st.

A3. Future Search

This is the opportunity to apply theory to practice and evaluate, explore, and imagine the OMAT program vision, mission, and values. In small groups (while working as a whole) you will examine the OMAT program and identify the internal as well as external influences to future cadres. What are the potential influences to the OMAT program? What has the program been? What is it now? What can it be? As a whole, you will present and facilitate smaller discussions at the June at F2F.

We want each of you to have the opportunity to reflect after the future search event and create a one page “future scenario” as a retrospective letter to yourself five years from now. What type of leader are you and how did you actualize your leadership style? Are you living your values, vision, and mission? This assignment is due on or before July 14th.

Readings:______

Required

First Among Equals, Patrick K. McKenna

Leadership Ensemble, Harry Seifter

Future Search, Janoff & Weisbord

Select a choice book listed below or clear a selection with your faculty.

The Fifth Discipline, Peter M. Senge

Shaping School Culture, Terrance E. Deal, Kent D. Peterson

Paradigm Lost: Reclaiming America’s Educational Future, William Spady

Designing World Class E-Learning, Roger C. Schank

e-volve!, Mitchell Levy,

Reframing Organizations, Lee G. Bolman, Terrence E. Deal

Leading in a Culture of Change, Michael Fullan

Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive in Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Life, Gary Hamel

Implementing Change: Patterns, Principals and Potholes - Shirley M. Hord

Art of the Long View - Peter Schwartz

Resources/Useful Links______

Develop a Clear, Educationally Focused Vision:

Strategic Leadership and Decision Making

Collaborative Leadership:

The Orpheus Process

FUTURE SEARCH

Tentative Schedule______

Date / Topic / f2f/Synch/Asynch
May 3rd / TI
Office Hours - Questions about Syllabus Answered
Professional and personal possibilities
Readings – The Art of Possibility, Begin First Among Equals / TI
NG This Week – Discuss leadership, values, vision, mission.
Find a leader’s quote encapsulating values, vision and mission.
  • Start a thread for each, folks post quote under each and briefly why they chose that leader and those words.

May 10th / TI
Followers and Leaders. Can a leader lead without followers? How are you a change agent?
Readings – The Art of Possibility, Begin First Among Equals / TI
NG This Week - First Among Equals
Applying leadership styles to different contexts
  • Situated leadership
  • K-12/Higher Ed/Corporate: do different constructs require different interpretations of styles?

May 17th / TI – Assignment A1 – What makes an effective PSA as a One Minute Movie? How do you integrate your values, vision, and mission into a PSA?
Readings –Leadership Ensemble / TI
NG This week – Explore and post PSA
May 24th / TI - Leadership Ensemble:
  • Prior to the session, go here and listen to the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Think about the music as a result of collaboration and share impressions during Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Readings –Leadership Ensemble, Future Search / TI
NG This Week – Think about the music as a result of collaborative leadership and a functioning community. What makes a group of people a community?
May 31st / A1 Paper and PSA Project Due
Readings –Leadership Ensemble, Future Search / NG This Week – Sustainability and coalition building … what does it mean?
Ongoing threaded discussions
June 7th / TI – Future Search, A2
Creation of Future Search subgroups. Discussion of your ARP’s and your sustainability proposals. / TI
NG This Week – Formation and discussion of Future Search groups
June 14th / TI – Future Search
What needs have been identified by each of the Future Search groups / TI
NG This Week – Ongoing threaded discussions, Future Search discussions
June 21st / A2 Paper due / NG This Week – Ongoing threaded discussions, Future Search discussions
June 28th / TI – Optional Future Search discussions / TI Optional
NG This Week -
July 7th / FTF – Culver City Modified Mini Future Search / F2F
July 14th / Reflection / reaction paper A3 due