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EDU 7250 |
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Two exercises comprise the project for Seminar in School Leadership I (EDUC 7250). In Exercise #1, students articulate their inchoate beliefs about school leadership. In Exercise #2, students begin organizing their professional portfolios. Taken individually and collectively, the seminar project required in Seminar in School Leadership I (EDUC 7250) provides the theoretical and practical foundation upon which each student will ultimately articulate and, then, defend one's School Leadership Statement in Seminar in School Leadership II (EDUC 7251). In addition, the Professional Portfolio provides the foundation for each student to begin the process of explicating the details associated with one's approach to professional decision making. The overarching goal is for each student's decisions to reflect ethical sensitivity, as Aristotle (1958) explored that idea in his Nicomachean Ethics.
Exercise #1: Formulating a provisional School Leadership Statement Reflecting upon their backgrounds and experiences and, in particular, their professional experiences, students will write their provisional School Leadership Statements. Additionally, in order to substantiate their beliefs, students are encouraged to reference the seminar text as well as other books and texts which have shaped their thoughts about school leadership. Students are also encouraged to contrast all of these ideas about successful school leadership practice with what they believe characterizes failed school leadership practice. This definition is provisional in that it will provide the basis upon which students will explore their thoughts about school leadership practice as they take the courses and seminars required by Villanova University's School Leadership Program. This provisional definition, then, will evolve, develop, and change as students not only broaden their knowledge based about school leadership and strengthen their intellectual powers but also as they reflect upon and learn from their experiences as professional educators. In this way, Villanova University's unique educational philosophy transforms the minds and hearts of graduate students who are seeking to be certified as school leaders. As students approach Exercise #1, they should not worry so much about writing what they believe others (like the professor) want to read. Instead, students should worry more about what they want to state and how to state it in the most efficient and effective way possible. In this sense, students should be guided by two phrases, namely, "less is more" and "simple is elegant." For some students, the School Leadership Statement will immerse them in what is very likely their first experience in professional writing. At first, these students will experience writing according to these conventions as somewhat artificial, especially until they learn how to express their voice in the most forcible and compelling way possible as this is identified by the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed., 2001). Students should remember that developing proficiency in professional writing involves a lot of trial and error, editing, and rewriting/revising. That is, students will learn to write better by confronting the fact that they do not write quite as well as they might believe! Learning to write professionally also requires learning to read more critically (i.e., among other matters, appreciating how authors express themselves for better or worse). Lastly, professional writing also demands a personal commitment to inculcate the self-disciplines required to write well. What this means experientially, however, is that students typically will experience some frustration when they discover that they do not know how to write as well as they believe they do write. APA style is formal and structured, following conventions required of those who write for the social sciences. Students tend to write in an informal style, following the conventions associated with conversation. Frustration, then, emerges as students begin to make the transition from informal to formal style and from conversational to scholarly writing. Some students also become embarrassed when they discover that they do not know how to write as well as they believe they do, at least in so far as this is reflected in the grade received (typically on Exercise #1). They wonder what the professor must think about them and their professional practice. While this reaction is understandable, it may not be helpful if students allow themselves to get mired down in the intricacies of trying to figure out what to do and terrorized by the fear of receiving a low grade instead of learning from one's errors, developing the disciplines associated with APA style, revising one's work, and correcting for those earlier errors in future written assignments. Students should also remember that the grade received on an assignment (like Exercise #1) does not reflect a professor's judgment of students as human beings or professionals; instead, the grade reflects the quality of student writing as measured by the professor against the criterion of excellence in scholarship and style. To promote learning how to write in APA style in EDU 7250, students are provided the opportunity to revise Exercise #1 in light on the extensive commentary they will receive. When writing this particular exercise, students should focus upon attending to clarity of expression more than the details of citing and referencing resources. Much of the former students have already been taught and should be capable of doing well, especially considering the fact that they have completed their undergraduate degree programs. Students will learn the latter through the experience of not citing and referencing correctly and, then, revising as necessary their written work for inclusion in the Professional Portfolio not only for EDU 7250 but also for other required courses. Exercise #1 should consist of between five and ten pages of double-spaced text (8˝" x 11" paper, #12 font) and must comply with the Manual of the American Psychological Association, Fifth Edition (APA). Exercise #1 will include a cover page, an Abstract, References, and (if applicable) an Appendix. Exercise #1 will be evaluated for content (50%) and style (50%). The School Leadership Statements will be graded and returned to the students the week following submission. Students may edit and resubmit Exercise #1 on the date specified on the seminar syllabus. Students should note, however, the highest grade that can be earned on a resubmission is an 85%.
Exercise #2: Organizing a professional portfolio The second exercise is the culminating activity for EDU 7250. More importantly, however, it will also provide the point-of-orientation for students as they complete the courses and seminars required by the School Leadership Program. The completed School Leadership portfolio brings together all of the texts that students have read, the conversations they have engaged in with authors, professors, and professionals who have thought deeply and penetratingly about the significant issues involved in managing and leading schools, the students' personal thoughts emerging from active participation in classroom discourse and professional experience, as well as their reflections upon all of these matters...in a style conversant with scholarly standards. A (gentle) word of warning: as former students in School Leadership Program have discovered, it is important to watch one's language...words do possess meaning! Specifically, this "portfolio" is not a "term paper," although for many students the terms may be synonymous. Be clear: the terms are not synonymous. A "portfolio" is a "work in progress," one subject to revision as an individual works with various elements of the portfolio, receives feedback about them, revises, and thinks differently about the portfolio's contents as courses and materials considered in them as well as one's conversations and professional practice influence and change how one thinks and what one believes about school leadership. A "term paper" is a final project judged solely on the basis of its merits as these are presented to a professor by a student. Students should understand that the Professional Portfolio is more "fluid" than "static." The goal is that the final portfolio reflects the best scholarship that bridges theory and practice as best as each student is capable of bridging them...at this point in one's academic and professional career. Students should understand that it is the mindset implied by the words "portfolio" and "term paper" that students need to be clear about, because the mindset implicit in each influences how students will approach organizing and developing their Professional Portfolios. As students progress through the School Leadership Program, they may also find themselves tempted to expand the contents of the portfolio into a much larger and far more onerous undertaking than is intended. Remember: the Professional Portfolio is not a thesis. The explicit purpose for developing the portfolio is to engage students in thinking through and developing a comprehensive School Leadership Statement that integrates all of the perspectives studied, those voiced by professors and professionals, as well as one's experience and reflections as a professional educator. The implicit purpose for developing the portfolio is for students to refine their intellectual powers so as to articulate how they would solve the major issues and problems that school leaders typically confront in practice after having evaluated what others have asserted is the best way to solve these issues and problems. Students should be alert to a trap that has ensnared some of their unwitting predecessors. Students should neither look for nor use a unitary model of management or leadership or, even, several unitary models, and to relate it (or them) to one's ideas and beliefs about school leadership. No, the purpose for developing the Professional Portfolio is for students, through what they will be reading/studying/debating/evaluating (in this seminar and in other classes), to unearth new insights into as well as to clarify and re-write one's School Leadership Statement so that, upon completing the School Leadership Program, each student will have written a comprehensive School Leadership Statement and organized a comprehensive Professional Portfolio to present to a committee of three principals for discussion, evaluation, and critique. As a consequence of one's study, research, and work in Seminar in School Leadership I, students will have begun organizing the contents of their Professional Portfolio so that they will be better prepared to integrate all of the work they will be completing in the School Leadership Program into a coherent and comprehensive entity. Thus, the process of editing and revising the Professional Portfolio throughout the School Leadership Program will open the students' minds to the possibilities of the mysterious and unknown, the unforeseen, as well as the unanticipated so that through the process of continuously revising its contents in light of these new truths, students will formulate a well thought out, well articulated, and comprehensive Professional Portfolio identifying what they believe constitutes the very best school leadership practice. It will only be as they test those ideas and beliefs in actual practice episodes (Sergiovanni, 1986), however, that graduates of Villanova University's School Leadership Program will determine what really does constitute the very best school leadership practice. To complete Exercise #2 successfully, students will purchase a D-ring binder (5" should suffice) as well as a package of 10 dividers. Students will label eight of the dividers as follows, placing them into the binder in this order: Cover Page; Abstract; School Leadership Statement; Organizational Change Plan (MPA 8002); Professional Development Program (EDU 8672); Code of Ethics (MPA 8300); References; Appendix. Into each appropriate section, students will place the cover page, an Abstract, the graded School Leadership Statement, References, and (if applicable) an Appendix. All of these must comply with the APA Manual (5th ed.) Students will submit Exercise #2 on the date specified on the seminar syllabus. Exercise #2 will be evaluated for content (100%) and will be graded and returned the following week.
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