Early Childhood Leadership – MSEd

Students will examine the developmental periods of young, middle, and later years in the human life cycle, with a broad multicultural approach to learning and development. Studies and research are reviewed. Emphasis is given to developmental characteristics that have implications for professional growth and development.

This course focuses on the roles and functions of the school leader in the spheres of curriculum and instruction. It covers the principles and processes that inform curriculum development and their impact on student learning. By explicitly addressing the relationship between curriculum and instruction to critical theory and pedagogy, students will connect positionality to their professional noticing. At the same time, students will unpack educational equity to become discerning consumers and negotiators of curriculum. In this course, students will envision and conceptualize ways to ensure that all students experience a liberating curriculum by focusing intensively on the knowledge and tools needed to recognize and dismantle dehumanizing spaces that are emblematic of historic and contemporary systems and structures. Finally, the course explores critical issues in leadership in curriculum and instruction and is designed to connect theory to practice as a means of inspiring, guiding, and effecting school change.

Education policy is examined in the context of historical, philosophical, economic, sociocultural, political, and legal perspectives. Leadership theory and practices that create learning environments responsive to the multicultural constituencies of schools, as well as the laws that sustain them, are analyzed.

This course examines theory, research, and practice related to organizational development. It covers a wide range of issues related to capacity-building, school vision and culture, and problem solving, and focuses on the relationship between school management and instructional leadership. Students have opportunities to integrate theory and research with administrative practice through readings, small-group work, simulation experiences, observations, interviews, protocols, and case studies.

Current school reform efforts emphasize vision, shared decision making, professional autonomy, positive school structure, and restructuring. How are these concepts being realized in current practice? What choices and constraints accompany the processes of change and staff empowerment? In this course students examine the concepts which face principals in enhancing the effectiveness of schools, as well as the competencies of planning, joint decision making, problem solving, and negotiation. Course work complements and is tailored to the Principals Institute internship experience.

Designed for students who are preparing for supervisory roles or who are actively engaged in such roles, this course focuses on the objectives, functions, and evaluation of the supervisory experience within multicultural educational institutions. Organizational, cultural, and human variables that may facilitate or impede effective supervision are identified, and strategies to maximize or minimize their impact are generated. Supervisory attitudes and skills aimed at increasing professional growth in individual and group supervision are synthesized from a variety of supervisory models, with particular attention given to the clinical supervision model.

This course focuses on the financial management of early childhood programs in childcare settings and public schools as well as the grant development process and marketing strategies that are designed to enhance equitable access to quality early childhood experiences for young children and their families. The intersection of resources both within the community and from various funding streams will be examined to address issues of equity, advocacy and policy in early childhood settings. The first section of the course will address budget development, budget formulation and budget execution and evaluation of operating budgets. The second section of the course will focus on program design and proposal writing for grant development including categorical or competitive models. Participants will also learn about fundraising and marketing strategies designed to reach families with young children in underserved communities.

This course is designed to enable leaders, teachers, special educators, and others to be effective consumers of research, as well as to plan and carry out research in response to specific educational questions. Stages of the research process are discussed. Students analyze and evaluate research in the areas of leadership, school effectiveness, administration and supervision, teaching, and curriculum reform, and apply the findings to their everyday roles as educational leaders. It is expected that this course will be valuable for those matriculated students who are initiating projects to satisfy the Independent Study requirement. The format consists of lectures and discussions of the stages of the research process. Class members participate in a project involving research design, data collection, and analysis.

Participants explore a variety of theories and methods of analysis as applied to organizations and their members. Each participant prepares an in-depth analysis of his or her work setting, focusing on organizational structure and behavior.