Education - Mid-Career Educational & Organizational Leadership (EDMC)
These courses are only for students enrolled in the Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational & Organizational Leadership.
EDMC 5000 Mid-Career Educational Leadership Experimental Course
This topic course explores multiple and different aspects of Mid-Career Educational Leadership. Specific course topics vary from year to year. Consult with the program for current course offerings.
0.5-1 Course Unit
EDMC 5000A Mid-Career Educational Leadership Experimental Course
This topic course explores multiple and different aspects of Mid-Career Educational Leadership. Specific course topics vary from year to year. Consult with the program for current course offerings.
Not Offered Every Year
0-1 Course Unit
EDMC 5000B Mid-Career Educational Leadership Experimental Course
This topic course explores multiple and different aspects of Mid-Career Educational Leadership. Specific course topics vary from year to year. Consult with the program for current course offerings.
Not Offered Every Year
0-1 Course Unit
EDMC 5900 Mixed Methods Seminar
This course introduces mixed methods research by engaging students with the theory, history, and practice of this approach. The course aims to build students' expertise about the design and implementation of studies that incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methods. Key aspects of mixed methods research will be emphasized, including theoretical framing, research questions, design and selection of methods, sampling, instrumentation and data collection, and analysis. Mixed Methods Research focuses on practical application of mixed methods; students will read and discuss published examples and will build skills in critical analysis of mixed methods research.
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 5900A Mixed Methods Seminar
This course introduces mixed methods research by engaging students with the theory, history, and practice of this approach. The course aims to build students’ expertise about the design and implementation of studies that incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methods. Key aspects of mixed methods research will be emphasized, including theoretical framing, research questions, design and selection of methods, sampling, instrumentation and data collection, and analysis. Mixed Methods Research focuses on practical application of mixed methods; students will read and discuss published examples and will build skills in critical analysis of mixed methods research.
Not Offered Every Year
0-0.25 Course Units
EDMC 5900B Mixed Methods Seminar
This course introduces mixed methods research by engaging students with the theory, history, and practice of this approach. The course aims to build students’ expertise about the design and implementation of studies that incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methods. Key aspects of mixed methods research will be emphasized, including theoretical framing, research questions, design and selection of methods, sampling, instrumentation and data collection, and analysis. Mixed Methods Research focuses on practical application of mixed methods; students will read and discuss published examples and will build skills in critical analysis of mixed methods research.
Not Offered Every Year
0-0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6010 Leading Teams and Fostering Learning Communities
This module is designed to help students learn what is known about teams and team leadership. It will be both research and case based. Drawing on the research literature, it will help students understand the nature of the different kinds of work teams are asked to do and how teams may be structured for effectiveness, depending on their objectives. Students will be asked to examine cases that reflect different objectives and different designs. Through a field-based assignment and other experiential learning opportunities, particular emphasis will be given to the various kinds of teams and groups principals, heads of schools, superintendents and others associated with the educational enterprise must work with and lead.
Summer Term
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6020 Social Foundations of Education
In this module, you will have the opportunity to scrutinize the ethical, political, and philosophical principles underlying our educational practices. In the first session we will consider competing visions of the goals and aims of education. We will then explore various proposals for the scope and content of schooling in a democratic and multicultural society, and some of the challenges that arise therein. We will conclude with normative frameworks and conceptual resources that will enable you to translate abstract and philosophical thinking into effective and thoughtful action. Throughout the course you will learn how to read historical and contemporary works of scholarship with analytical precision, how to distill complex ideas for a wider and non-specialist audience, and how to reason thoughtfully with others about ethically and politically contested issues.
Summer Term
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6040 Introduction to Dissertation Research
Structured independent writing and research time paired with guided learning of the scholarly research process, with a focus on developing research questions and preparing for the proposal stage.
Summer Term
1.5 Course Unit
EDMC 6050A Frameworks for Understanding Literacy, Teaching & Learning
Designed as a collaborative inquiry, this module will provide a range of contexts for exploring the nature and purposes of literacy education in the 21st century. Individually and collectively, we will unpack the “conceptual frameworks” ---the images, practices, assumptions, and beliefs—that structure our understanding of what it means to teach and learn literacy in various settings. We will “read” critically the current literature, classroom and school practices, as well as the public/policy discourse about literacy. From our reading, writing and talking, we hope to develop richer and more compelling understandings of what counts as literacy teaching and learning in order to pursue important issues about leadership for literacy learning. Our process will entail investigation into your literacy history/herstory, various educational settings, and current policies related to literacy education - with an emphasis on considering questions that are most pertinent to your current workplace and career aspirations.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6050B Frameworks for Understanding Literacy, Teaching & Learning
Designed as a collaborative inquiry, this module will provide a range of contexts for exploring the nature and purposes of literacy education in the 21st century. Individually and collectively, we will unpack the “conceptual frameworks” ---the images, practices, assumptions, and beliefs—that structure our understanding of what it means to teach and learn literacy in various settings. We will “read” critically the current literature, classroom and school practices, as well as the public/policy discourse about literacy. From our reading, writing and talking, we hope to develop richer and more compelling understandings of what counts as literacy teaching and learning in order to pursue important issues about leadership for literacy learning. Our process will entail investigation into your literacy history/herstory, various educational settings, and current policies related to literacy education - with an emphasis on considering questions that are most pertinent to your current workplace and career aspirations.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6060 Exploring Frameworks for Learners and Learning
This module will use a contextual approach to examine individual developmental issues across the life-course, specifically learner's identities and pathways to learning. In addition to investigating how children learn at school, home, and in their communities, students in the course will become their own units of analyses. It is sometimes advantageous in fields of education and social science to regard oneself and life experiences as a point of departure in order to make sense of larger social forces. To that end, we will reflect on our own learning at different points throughout our lives and within a variety of social and educational contexts. This approach assumes that educational leaders might better understand and respond to developmental issues and identity formation of teachers and students by (re)examining our own biographies as learners and professionals and the interconnectedness of these roles and the expectations associated with them.
Fall
1 Course Unit
EDMC 6070 Qualitative Research Methods I
This year-long course will introduce students to the foundations, theories, methods, and practices of qualitative inquiry broadly and practitioner research specifically. This course is intended to teach students, who are educational leaders, what research is, both historically and currently, and in terms of its promise for guiding informed, inquiry-based practices, including the practices of change and reform. Further, this course is designed to prepare students to conduct qualitative research in their own educational or community-based settings. Students will be guided through a systematic and self-reflective process of learning to become reflective, ethical, and critical researchers. Students will be supported as they develop a theoretically strong practice of qualitative research that is directly informed by their own professional experiences, questions, and contexts.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6080 Quantitative Methods I
This module focuses on the use of statistics for analyzing numerical data from educational contexts. The course materials and assignments are designed to help you gain the skills and knowledge required to plan and conduct high quality quantitative research. As such, the curriculum for this course focuses on the statistical methods most frequently used in education research and provides examples of the application of these methods using real data. This is an applied methods course, so the content will not be highly technical. While we will discuss some of the details of the mathematics behind statistics, we will place much more emphasis on understanding the concepts behind the statistics What does each method do? How does it work? How do we interpret the results?
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6080A Quantitative Methods I
This module focuses on the use of statistics for analyzing numerical data from educational contexts. The course materials and assignments are designed to help you gain the skills and knowledge required to plan and conduct high quality quantitative research. As such, the curriculum for this course focuses on the statistical methods most frequently used in education research and provides examples of the application of these methods using real data. This is an applied methods course, so the content will not be highly technical. While we will discuss some of the details of the mathematics behind statistics, we will place much more emphasis on understanding the concepts behind the statistics What does each method do? How does it work? How do we interpret the results?
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6080B Quantitative Methods I
This module focuses on the use of statistics for analyzing numerical data from educational contexts. The course materials and assignments are designed to help you gain the skills and knowledge required to plan and conduct high quality quantitative research. As such, the curriculum for this course focuses on the statistical methods most frequently used in education research and provides examples of the application of these methods using real data. This is an applied methods course, so the content will not be highly technical. While we will discuss some of the details of the mathematics behind statistics, we will place much more emphasis on understanding the concepts behind the statistics What does each method do? How does it work? How do we interpret the results?
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6100 Public Leadership: Philosophy
In the US and many other countries, schools are often seen as having a responsibility to prepare students for citizenship in the nation or the world. So how does and should school prepare students for citizenship? In this module we will examine citizenship as a key aim of schooling. The tensions around this and other aims of schooling, the accommodation of difference, and the role of patriotism in education will be explored in relation to the preparation of the next generation of citizens. The overarching goal of the module is to explore how philosophy and theory concerning civic education can be used as a tool to deepen and contextualize problems that educational leaders encounter. The practical skills we will seek to build involve using academic and philosophical writing to analyze (in discourse and in writing) questions at the intersection of civic education and school leadership.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6110 Understanding Race and Politics
Using a culturally responsive philosophical world view and a racial socialization framework, this course will cover theoretical frames for shifting educational leaders' assessment, engagement, and processing, and problem-solving of racial tension within educational contexts. The course will follow a self-development, emotions processing and interactive role- playing format where participants will offer experience from their own schooling and employment challenges where racial politics are at play. This course fits within the Understanding Context, Self, Others, Vision & Direction theme of the Mid-Career program. The objectives of this course include helping students to develop useful knowledge on racial literacy and practice of racial negotiation skills in the following areas: theorizing about managing racial politics in urban schooling, identifying the impact of racial microaggressions on psychological adjustment, applying problem-solving strategies to address racial tensions in relationships, policies, and curricula.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6110A Understanding Race & Politics
Using a culturally responsive philosophical world view and a racial socialization framework, this course will cover theoretical frames for shifting educational leaders' assessment, engagement, and processing, and problem-solving of racial tension within educational contexts. The course will follow a self-development, emotions processing and interactive role- playing format where participants will offer experience from their own schooling and employment challenges where racial politics are at play. This course fits within the Understanding Context, Self, Others, Vision & Direction theme of the Mid-Career program. The objectives of this course include helping students to develop useful knowledge on racial literacy and practice of racial negotiation skills in the following areas: theorizing about managing racial politics in urban schooling, identifying the impact of racial microaggressions on psychological adjustment, applying problem-solving strategies to address racial tensions in relationships, policies, and curricula.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0-0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6110B Understanding Race & Politics
Using a culturally responsive philosophical world view and a racial socialization framework, this course will cover theoretical frames for shifting educational leaders' assessment, engagement, and processing, and problem-solving of racial tension within educational contexts. The course will follow a self-development, emotions processing and interactive role- playing format where participants will offer experience from their own schooling and employment challenges where racial politics are at play. This course fits within the Understanding Context, Self, Others, Vision & Direction theme of the Mid-Career program. The objectives of this course include helping students to develop useful knowledge on racial literacy and practice of racial negotiation skills in the following areas: theorizing about managing racial politics in urban schooling, identifying the impact of racial microaggressions on psychological adjustment, applying problem-solving strategies to address racial tensions in relationships, policies, and curricula.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0-0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6120 Introduction to Education Research
This course is designed as a seminar that will introduce incoming Mid-Career doctoral students to reading, critiquing, and conceptualizing rigorous research in education. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods examples of thoughtful, systematic, and well-executed research will be carefully examined. These texts will be analyzed in detail as a way to prepare students to understand and synthesize such research in their professional lives, other coursework, and later, for their dissertations and in their leadership as a whole. In particular, students will learn about the construction of effective research questions, the major quantitative and qualitative approaches to educational research, and what inferences can (and cannot) be made from the most common research designs. Students will also examine assumptions that underlay research questions in terms of sets of relationships between core concepts and processes, correlation, causation, and so on.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6130 Quantitative Methods II
This module focuses on the use of statistics for analyzing numerical data from educational contexts. The course materials and assignments are designed to help you gain the skills and knowledge required to plan and conduct high quality quantitative research. As such, the curriculum for this course focuses on the statistical methods most frequently used in education research and provides examples of the application of these methods using real data. This is an applied methods course, so the content will not be highly technical. While we will discuss some of the details of the mathematics behind statistics, we will place much more emphasis on understanding the concepts behind the statistics. We will investigate what each method does, how it works, and how we interpret the results.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6130A Quantitative Methods II
This module focuses on the use of statistics for analyzing numerical data from educational contexts. The course materials and assignments are designed to help you gain the skills and knowledge required to plan and conduct high quality quantitative research. As such, the curriculum for this course focuses on the statistical methods most frequently used in education research and provides examples of the application of these methods using real data. This is an applied methods course, so the content will not be highly technical. While we will discuss some of the details of the mathematics behind statistics, we will place much more emphasis on understanding the concepts behind the statistics. We will investigate what each method does, how it works, and how we interpret the results.
Spring
0-0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6130B Quantitative Methods II
This module focuses on the use of statistics for analyzing numerical data from educational contexts. The course materials and assignments are designed to help you gain the skills and knowledge required to plan and conduct high quality quantitative research. As such, the curriculum for this course focuses on the statistical methods most frequently used in education research and provides examples of the application of these methods using real data. This is an applied methods course, so the content will not be highly technical. While we will discuss some of the details of the mathematics behind statistics, we will place much more emphasis on understanding the concepts behind the statistics. We will investigate what each method does, how it works, and how we interpret the results.
Summer Term
0-0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6140 Qualitative Research Methods II
This year-long course will introduce students to the foundations, theories, methods, and practices of qualitative inquiry broadly and practitioner research specifically. This course is intended to teach students, who are educational leaders, what research is, both historically and currently, and in terms of its promise for guiding informed, inquiry-based practices, including the practices of change and reform. Further, this course is designed to prepare students to conduct qualitative research in their own educational or community-based settings. Students will be guided through a systematic and self-reflective process of learning to become reflective, ethical, and critical researchers. Students will be supported as they develop a theoretically strong practice of qualitative research that is directly informed by their own professional experiences, questions, and contexts.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6140A Qualitative Research Methods II
This year-long course will introduce students to the foundations, theories, methods, and practices of qualitative inquiry broadly and practitioner research specifically. This course is intended to teach students, who are educational leaders, what research is, both historically and currently, and in terms of its promise for guiding informed, inquiry-based practices, including the practices of change and reform. Further, this course is designed to prepare students to conduct qualitative research in their own educational or community-based settings. Students will be guided through a systematic and self-reflective process of learning to become reflective, ethical, and critical researchers. Students will be supported as they develop a theoretically strong practice of qualitative research that is directly informed by their own professional experiences, questions, and contexts.
Spring
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6140B Qualitative Research Methods II
This year-long course will introduce students to the foundations, theories, methods, and practices of qualitative inquiry broadly and practitioner research specifically. This course is intended to teach students, who are educational leaders, what research is, both historically and currently, and in terms of its promise for guiding informed, inquiry-based practices, including the practices of change and reform. Further, this course is designed to prepare students to conduct qualitative research in their own educational or community-based settings. Students will be guided through a systematic and self-reflective process of learning to become reflective, ethical, and critical researchers. Students will be supported as they develop a theoretically strong practice of qualitative research that is directly informed by their own professional experiences, questions, and contexts.
Summer Term
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6150A Public Leadership: History
This module will examine how Americans have used their public schools to make citizens, from the birth of the republic into the present. By 1850, the United States sent a greater fraction of its children to school than any other nation on earth. Why? What did young people learn there? And, most of all, how did these institutions both reflect and shape our evolving conceptions of America itself?
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6150B Public Leadership: History
This module will examine how Americans have used their public schools to make citizens, from the birth of the republic into the present. By 1850, the United States sent a greater fraction of its children to school than any other nation on earth. Why? What did young people learn there? And, most of all, how did these institutions both reflect and shape our evolving conceptions of America itself?
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6160 Leadership Seminar: Theory & Cases
This seminar is an opportunity to examine the challenges of leading organizational change. Central to enhancing one’s leadership practice is the deepening of one’s competency to frame and reframe challenges. At heart, this module is meant to raise questions and considerations around how we formulate problems and understand challenges and their potential solutions. It also aims to expand our understanding of interdisciplinary and cross-sector considerations in how we understand leadership and leading change. The format of this module intentionally brings together varying perspectives on leadership practice through four separate sessions taught by different instructors. The goal of the seminar is to help you further develop and build increased reframing skills. Conceptual frames will include change management theories, equity/social justice, and other recent leadership theory.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6160A Leadership Seminar: Theory & Cases
This seminar is an opportunity to examine the challenges of leading organizational change. Central to enhancing one’s leadership practice is the deepening of one’s competency to frame and reframe challenges. At heart, this module is meant to raise questions and considerations around how we formulate problems and understand challenges and their potential solutions. It also aims to expand our understanding of interdisciplinary and cross-sector considerations in how we understand leadership and leading change. The format of this module intentionally brings together varying perspectives on leadership practice through four separate sessions taught by different instructors. The goal of the seminar is to help you further develop and build increased reframing skills. Conceptual frames will include change management theories, equity/social justice, and other recent leadership theory.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0-0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6160B Leadership Seminar: Theory & Cases
This seminar is an opportunity to examine the challenges of leading organizational change. Central to enhancing one’s leadership practice is the deepening of one’s competency to frame and reframe challenges. At heart, this module is meant to raise questions and considerations around how we formulate problems and understand challenges and their potential solutions. It also aims to expand our understanding of interdisciplinary and cross-sector considerations in how we understand leadership and leading change. The format of this module intentionally brings together varying perspectives on leadership practice through four separate sessions taught by different instructors. The goal of the seminar is to help you further develop and build increased reframing skills. Conceptual frames will include change management theories, equity/social justice, and other recent leadership theory.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0-0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6170 Enacting Leadership for Science
Students will more deeply study and examine leadership in science. The goal of this integrated “non-module” is to provide you opportunities to explore leadership “problems of practice” related to science curriculum and instruction in your organization or for those you serve. Rather than participating in a traditional course, you will join a working group focused on a contemporary, practical challenge related to science that education leaders must address. Your working group will develop a plan to address the challenge, implement the plan, and will then share with the rest of the cohort and community the product of your research and analysis. In the style of problem-based learning, you will be introduced to key readings and concepts in science education through taking on the activities of the working group.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6170A Enacting Leadership for Science
Students will more deeply study and examine leadership in science. The goal of this integrated “non-module” is to provide you opportunities to explore leadership “problems of practice” related to science curriculum and instruction in your organization or for those you serve. Rather than participating in a traditional course, you will join a working group focused on a contemporary, practical challenge related to science that education leaders must address. Your working group will develop a plan to address the challenge, implement the plan, and will then share with the rest of the cohort and community the product of your research and analysis. In the style of problem-based learning, you will be introduced to key readings and concepts in science education through taking on the activities of the working group.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6170B Enacting Leadership for Science
Students will more deeply study and examine leadership in science. The goal of this integrated “non-module” is to provide you opportunities to explore leadership “problems of practice” related to science curriculum and instruction in your organization or for those you serve. Rather than participating in a traditional course, you will join a working group focused on a contemporary, practical challenge related to science that education leaders must address. Your working group will develop a plan to address the challenge, implement the plan, and will then share with the rest of the cohort and community the product of your research and analysis. In the style of problem-based learning, you will be introduced to key readings and concepts in science education through taking on the activities of the working group.
Summer Term
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 6175 Enacting Leadership for Math
Students will more deeply study and examine leadership in math. The goal of this iis to provide you opportunities to explore leadership “problems of practice” related to math curriculum and instruction in your organization or for those you serve. Rather than participating in a traditional course, you will join a working group focused on a contemporary, practical challenge related to each subject area that education leaders must address. Your working group will develop a plan to address the challenge, implement the plan, and will then share with the rest of the cohort and community the product of your research and analysis. In the style of problem-based learning, you will be introduced to key readings and concepts in math education through taking on the activities of the working group.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6180 Mixed Methods Seminar
This course introduces mixed methods research by engaging students with the theory, history, and practice of this approach. The course aims to build students' expertise about the design and implementation of studies that incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methods. Key aspects of mixed methods research will be emphasized, including theoretical framing, research questions, design and selection of methods, sampling, instrumentation and data collection, and analysis. Mixed Methods Research focuses on practical application of mixed methods; students will read and discuss published examples and will build skills in critical analysis of mixed methods research.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 6930 Public Leadership I
This experimental course is the first of two, in which students develop competencies to present scholarship in pratice-based or scholarship-driven spaces while building leadership competencies such as including public voice, public stakeholder interaction/engagement, enhanced network development, and capacity to “read” political/social landscape of practice.
Summer Term
1 Course Unit
EDMC 7010 Proseminar I (Research Methods)
The goal of this course is to support you in your first steps toward forming your dissertation proposal. Beginning this process can be daunting for many doctoral students, but the clearer you are in articulating your research questions and the more knowledgeable you are about the research literature informing your questions, the more successful you will be in efficiently completing a strong proposal. To this end, we will focus on the relationship between reviewing the research literature, developing a conceptual framework, asking researchable questions, and choosing appropriate methods for addressing such questions.
Summer Term
1 Course Unit
EDMC 7020 Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
The Leadership and Emotional Intelligence Module will focus on concepts and practices that will enable you to become a great leader. Through the study of social and emotional intelligence, you will become familiar with competencies that actually work in the real world of organizations and institutions. You will learn how these concepts have been identified, how they can be applied, and how to develop them in yourself and others. As part of the course, you will engage in reflective exercises that enable you to focus specifically on your own leadership - your strengths, your weaknesses, your vision for yourself as a person and as a professional, and how you plan to realize this vision and your goals.
Summer Term
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7030 Public Policy Workshop I
This course will be an in-depth, intensive examination of educational policy and politics in American schooling. We will explore major policy issues and practices that influence the experiences of teachers and children in educational institutions while locating educational politics in larger social policy contexts. Students will develop their skills for policy inquiry through analysis of the development, implementation, evaluation, and revision of policy initiatives and explore how policy issues are experienced within school sites. In addition, students will deepen their understandings of the roles of the federal, state, and local government in education, and will broaden their understanding and familiarity with major interest groups that have influence (formal and informal) over the politics of education. Finally, students will assess how competing values, preferences and purposes in education influence the ways in which we assess and evaluate educational policy. We will center issues of race, racism, and justice each day.
Summer Term
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7040 Online Research and Writing
Independent writing and research time for students. Supported by writing coach.
Summer Term
1 Course Unit
EDMC 7050 Public Leadership: Social Contexts
This module will focus on conceptual, pedagogical, and practical issues typically studied under the headings, social context and social capital. It will examine families as a particular cultural and social context in which learning takes place and in which learners are engaged and engage others. Class meetings will be designed around essential questions that will serve as themes for our reflections and discussions over the course of the module.
Summer Term
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7070 Educational Brand Management
This class experience is designed to provide experienced educational leaders with the requisite skills and knowledge necessary to design, implement and manage a brand identity for educational organizations, primarily schools or school districts. Successful branding is a comprehensive management issue. In schools, proactive and successful brand management builds financial and emotional value that enables success for the school or school district. Prerequisite: Enrollment in Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7070A Educational Brand Management
This class experience is designed to provide experienced educational leaders with the requisite skills and knowledge necessary to design, implement and manage a brand identity for educational organizations, primarily schools or school districts. Successful branding is a comprehensive management issue. In schools, proactive and successful brand management builds financial and emotional value that enables success for the school or school district.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 7070B Educational Brand Management
This class experience is designed to provide experienced educational leaders with the requisite skills and knowledge necessary to design, implement and manage a brand identity for educational organizations, primarily schools or school districts. Successful branding is a comprehensive management issue. In schools, proactive and successful brand management builds financial and emotional value that enables success for the school or school district.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 7080 Research Proposal & Instrument Design I
In the first module, students will receive structured assistance as they develop a solid research plan that includes refining their research questions' theoretical framework, identify and marshal literature in support of the planned study, devise a research design, identify and/or construct instruments to collect data, and produce a plan for analysis. Ideally, the first module will culminate in the completion of the dissertation proposal. The second module will focus on data collection and analysis as well as study implications. The two modules in this course are designed to provide structured support to students as they proceed with their dissertation work. While there will be didactic instruction on selected topics, significant time will be spent in small groups iteratively and collaboratively working through common challenges that students face in developing an empirical piece of research that emerges from their practice.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7090 Dissertation Candidacy Seminar
Guidance on designing and refining the dissertation proposal paired with support for sustained dissertation writing with writing coach.
Spring
1 Course Unit
EDMC 7100 Organizational Diagnostics
We will explore sociological theories of organization in order to develop our diagnostic knowledge of how classrooms, schools, and education systems function. Our approach will be to consider foundational theoretical works alongside recent empirical applications. We will use case studies to help illuminate our understanding. In order to ground these concepts, students will diagnose cultural, political, and institutional facets of an educational organization.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7110 Engaging the Polis and Public of U.S. School Reform Landscape I
This module starts from the premise that schools are not only educational, but also social, political, and physical infrastructure. As such, they influence and are influenced by factors outside the traditional bounds of “education.” In this course, we will use the frameworks, tools, and knowledge from planning and urban studies to turn a spatial lens on schools. We will grapple with the “place” of schooling within neighborhoods, cities, and regions. Substantively, we examine non-school arenas (i.e., housing, transportation, neighborhood development) and the ways these contextual factors set conditions for learning. We practice using specific tools and methods to make sense of schools in space and as place-based institutions. Additionally, having analysis of the what is necessary but never sufficient; we also have to think about the how. To that end, we explore strategies for cross-sector collaboration across organizations, agencies, and with community and student stakeholders. We anchor discussions and make sense of readings and concepts in problems you identify from your practice. Through class meetings, course assignments, and multiple modes for learning, you will think about and share how concepts and tools from outside education inform and transform your own practice as an educator, administrator, and scholar.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7120 Data Informed Inquiries
The goal of this module is to learn to apply the concept of data informed improvement into our daily practice. The field of educational improvement shares a set of goals, frameworks, and methods with other fields like organizational learning in sociology, continuous improvement in business and evidence-informed improvements in medicine. Each of these fields has its own set of frameworks and language to describe the improvement process, but they are all based on the notion of using data to inform continuous learning and improvement.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7120A Data Informed Inquiries
The goal of this module is to learn to apply the concept of data informed improvement into our daily practice. The field of educational improvement shares a set of goals, frameworks, and methods with other fields like organizational learning in sociology, continuous improvement in business and evidence-informed improvements in medicine. Each of these fields has its own set of frameworks and language to describe the improvement process, but they are all based on the notion of using data to inform continuous learning and improvement.
Fall
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 7120B Data Informed Inquiries
The goal of this module is to learn to apply the concept of data informed improvement into our daily practice. The field of educational improvement shares a set of goals, frameworks, and methods with other fields like organizational learning in sociology, continuous improvement in business and evidence-informed improvements in medicine. Each of these fields has its own set of frameworks and language to describe the improvement process, but they are all based on the notion of using data to inform continuous learning and improvement.
Spring
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 7130 Research Proposal & Instrument Design II
In the first module, students will receive structured assistance as they develop a solid research plan that includes refining their research questions' theoretical framework, identify and marshal literature in support of the planned study, devise a research design, identify and/or construct instruments to collect data, and produce a plan for analysis. Ideally, the first module will culminate in the completion of the dissertation proposal. The second module will focus on data collection and analysis as well as study implications. The two modules in this course are designed to provide structured support to students as they proceed with their dissertation work. While there will be didactic instruction on selected topics, significant time will be spent in small groups iteratively and collaboratively working through common challenges that students face in developing an empirical piece of research that emerges from their practice.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7140 Creating Contexts for Teacher Learning and Leadership
Learning and leadership are important to the growth of all institutions, especially schools. To meet the complexities and challenges in a profession marked by ongoing change requires that students, teachers, and all school leaders be ongoing learners. This module will be a collaborative inquiry into teacher learning and leadership and related implications for leading in a school, district, or other educational organization. It will build upon your work in other strands of the program, especially the Instructional Strand where you have been taking up current perspectives on teaching and learning in various subjects and exploring promising ways to enhance educational leadership as it relates to instruction.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7160 Online-Research and Writing
Independent writing and research time for students. Supported by writing coach. Prerequisite: Enrollment in Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7170 Organizational Theory
This module examines schools as organizations and leadership within these organizations to address fundamental questions regarding how organizations come to be, persist, and/or change. Over the semester, we will grapple with questions regarding when and under what conditions do leaders effect meaningful organizational change. Students will be asked to reflect on their own leadership experiences inside organizations as well as potential changes to their approaches. In this way, students will gain knowledge and skills regarding the structures of educational organizations and the enabling and constraining conditions for leadership.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7180 Instructional Technology
What does it mean to integrate technology into instruction? What is “technology”? Is it limited to the latest digital devices – computers, tablets, smartphones, and 3D printers? Or is it something more broad – the tools we use to augment spaces and practices for teaching and learning? We may agree that a laptop is a technology, but what about the technical innovations that enchanted policymakers, school leaders, and teachers of the past: moveable desks, overhead projectors, personal chalkboards, bell-schedules, or pencils? Even if we were to resolve these tensions, we are still left with the question of “integration.” What is it we integrate when we bring technologies into schools and classrooms? Are we integrating tools to be pedagogical resources – that is, as instruments to aid in making instruction more efficient or effective? Or are we integrating them to keep up with the demands of a changing world – one where students are expected to be prepared for “jobs that don’t yet exist” or to adapt to shifting standards for college- and career-readiness? How we answer such questions will undoubtedly shape our approach to technological integration. This module is designed as a shared inquiry into such questions and the beliefs and assumptions that condition our own (and others’) ways of addressing them. It involves exploration and analysis of historical and contemporary ideas about instructional technology, as well as the development of practical applications for such theories. Our focus will be on K—12 contexts; however, we will also consider how relevant experiences and practices with technologies outside of schools are related to what happens within.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7190 Enacting Leadership For Social Studies
This course builds on previous learning in the Enacting Leadership for Literacy module. After having encountered a range of perspectives on literacy as critical social practice, we will examine the links between educational leadership and social studies teaching and learning, extending considerations to further explore connections between leadership and social studies teaching and learning. Seeing leadership as a shared enterprise, we will explore the core elements of a distributed perspective on leadership for social studies at every level with a district/school community.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7190A Enacting Leadership For Social Studies
This course builds on previous learning in the Enacting Leadership for Literacy module. After having encountered a range of perspectives on literacy as critical social practice, we will examine the links between educational leadership and social studies teaching and learning, extending considerations to further explore connections between leadership and social studies teaching and learning. Seeing leadership as a shared enterprise, we will explore the core elements of a distributed perspective on leadership for social studies at every level with a district/school community.
Fall
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 7190B Enacting Leadership for Social Studies
This course builds on previous learning in the Literacy module. After having encountered a range of perspectives on literacy as critical social practice we will examine the links between educational leadership and socila studies teaching and learning, extending considerations to further explore connections between leadership and social studies teaching and learning. Seeing leadership as a shared enterprise, we will explore the core elements of a distributed perspective on leadership for social studies at every level with a district/school community.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 7195 Enacting Leadership for Literacy
This course builds on previous learning in the Frameworks for Understanding Literacy Teaching and Learning module. After having encountered a range of perspectives about the nature of literacy (with an emphasis on literacy as critical social practice), we will examine the links between educational leadership and literacy teaching and learning. Seeing leadership as a shared enterprise, we will explore the core elements of a distributed perspective on literacy leadership at every level with a district/school community. Prerequisite: Enrollment in Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7910 School Law
This experimental course covers national, state, and local laws and policies governing schools, their evolution, and the impact of various stakeholders on these laws and policies. The course aims to provide our students with a deeper understanding of the legal framework shaping education and equip them with the knowledge to navigate complex issues in their leadership roles.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7920 Negotiations
This experimental course provides students with the essential knowledge and practical tools needed to navigate collective bargaining processes across all educational contexts. Students will gain critical insights into labor relations that directly impact institutional effectiveness and employee satisfaction. Students will leave equipped with frameworks for building constructive relationships, anticipating negotiation challenges, and aligning collective bargaining outcomes with institutional mission and student success goals.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 7930 Public Leadership II
This experimental course is the second of two, in which students develop competencies to present scholarship in practice-based or scholarship-driven spaces while building leadership competencies such as including public voice, public stakeholder interaction/engagement, enhanced network development, and capacity to “read” political/social landscape of practice.
Summer Term
1 Course Unit
EDMC 7940 Case Simulation
This experimental course engages students in applying the academic frameworks and concepts developed during their first two years of coursework to a real-world problem of practice presented by a systems-level leader. Through a structured case simulation, students analyze complex challenges, develop strategic responses, and practice decision-making in dynamic, high-stakes contexts, strengthening their ability to translate theory into effective leadership action.
Summer Term
1 Course Unit
EDMC 8010 Proseminar II: Data Analysis and Reporting
The goals of this module are twofold. First, it aims to provide students with a set of practical skills for making sense of qualitative and mixed data. Students will practice organizing and coding qualitative data, use various techniques to develop hypotheses and draw conclusions based on data, and apply these skills to their own dissertation research. Second, this module seeks to enable each student to make significant progress on his/her research over the course of the week.
Summer Term
1 Course Unit
EDMC 8030 Dissertation Seminar I
Guidance on executing the study, managing data collection, and maintaining alignment with approved research plans, paired with support for sustained dissertation writing with writing coach.
Summer Term
1.5 Course Unit
EDMC 8050A Inquiry Seminar
The purpose of the Inquiry Community session is two-fold: to provide students with assistance with problems that occur in the process of doing qualitative or quantitative data analysis and to develop reflective processes for examining data that students can use in their settings of practice. The sessions should serve the practical purpose of providing students with support as they solve problems associated with issues of interpretation, and work toward the completion of their dissertations. Prerequisite: Enrollment in Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership.
Summer Term
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 8050B Inquiry Seminar
The purpose of the Inquiry Community session is two-fold: to provide students with assistance with problems that occur in the process of doing qualitative or quantitative data analysis and to develop reflective processes for examining data that students can use in their settings of practice. The sessions should serve the practical purpose of providing students with support as they solve problems associated with issues of interpretation, and work toward the completion of their dissertations.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 8050C Inquiry Seminar
The purpose of the Inquiry Community session is two-fold: to provide students with assistance with problems that occur in the process of doing qualitative or quantitative data analysis and to develop reflective processes for examining data that students can use in their settings of practice. The sessions should serve the practical purpose of providing students with support as they solve problems associated with issues of interpretation, and work toward the completion of their dissertations.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 8060 Advanced Issues in Educational Leadership I
As a capstone integrative experience, this module allows students to revisit core themes raised in various modules during the program and provides an opportunity to extend prior module work in new synthetic ways. Sessions will revisit each student’s leadership philosophy; engage constructs of decision-making and judgment; continue discussions around diversity and privilege; explore issues related to specialized topics such as school finance, entrepreneurship in education, and system-level leadership; engage alumni leadership challenges; re-engage data analysis; take a further view into the global field of educational leadership; and reprise the three-year program experience.
Fall
1 Course Unit
EDMC 8070 Dissertation Seminar II
Guidance on analyzing data, interpreting findings, and connecting results to the research questions and literature, paired with support for sustained dissertation writing with writing coach.
Fall
1 Course Unit
EDMC 8080 Leading Instructional and Curricular Change
This course is the Capstone Module for the Instructional Leadership strand of the Mid-Career Doctorate Program. A first emphasis of the module will be on several topics that have not yet been directly addressed during the program. The module is designed to provide opportunity to deal more intensively with topics and others that are identified through our initial discussions. A second focus of this course is on the process of collaborative problem-posing and problem-solving around issues in instructional leadership you are currently facing. To engage these topics and issues, we will draw on your experience as well as what has been addressed so far in the Instructional Leadership modules.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 8090 Advanced Issues in Educational Leadership II
As a capstone integrative experience, this module allows students to revisit core themes raised in various modules during the program and provides an opportunity to extend prior module work in new synthetic ways. Sessions will revisit each student’s leadership philosophy; engage constructs of decision-making and judgment; continue discussions around diversity and privilege; explore issues related to specialized topics such as school finance, entrepreneurship in education, and system-level leadership; engage alumni leadership challenges; re-engage data analysis; take a further view into the global field of educational leadership; and reprise the three-year program experience.
Spring
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 8100 Dissertation Seminar III
Guidance on finalizing the dissertation, paired with support for sustained dissertation writing with a writing coach.
Spring
1 Course Unit
EDMC 8120 Engaging the Polis and Public of U.S. School Reform II
In recent decades, significant institutional changes to the education policy landscape have made local public engagement more difficult. Among these changes are increased centralization of policymaking in the federal government and in state governments, the rise of charter schools and portfolio management models, and mayoral and state takeovers of urban school districts. In this part of the module, we examine scholarship addressing the new landscape and the challenges it poses to community-based groups and to democratic decision-making. Prerequisite: Enrollment in Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership.
Fall
0.5 Course Units
EDMC 8120A Engaging the Polis and Public Of U.S. School Reform II
What is the purpose of schooling? Why does education seem to be in a constant state of reform? How best to close opportunity gaps that characterize school systems in the United States? In this doctoral seminar, we will consider and debate these questions as we explore recent scholarship illuminating the politics of school reform. We will cover four topics: (a) desegregation, resegregation, and gentrification, (b) political movements for racial justice in schools, (c) teacher, teaching, and teacher education reform, and (d) equity and choice tradeoffs. Our goal is to develop a deeper understanding of the processes by which U.S. society constructs, prioritizes, and addresses education.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units
EDMC 8120B Engaging the Polis and Public Of U.S. School Reform II
What is the purpose of schooling? Why does education seem to be in a constant state of reform? How best to close opportunity gaps that characterize school systems in the United States? In this doctoral seminar, we will consider and debate these questions as we explore recent scholarship illuminating the politics of school reform. We will cover four topics: (a) desegregation, resegregation, and gentrification, (b) political movements for racial justice in schools, (c) teacher, teaching, and teacher education reform, and (d) equity and choice tradeoffs. Our goal is to develop a deeper understanding of the processes by which U.S. society constructs, prioritizes, and addresses education.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given after both terms are complete
0.25 Course Units