Curriculum
Classes meet one evening per week (6:00 — 10:00pm) and several Saturdays a month. Each cohort takes its courses together for three years. This involves learning experiences that are built around specific content areas:
Ed. 451 Foundations of Organizations and Leadership: Students will gain familiarity and facility with traditional and modern conceptions of leadership and organizations. Students will apply these conceptions to problem situations and organizational development and reform issues.
Ed. 452A/B Educational Enterprise: Students will study the organization and politics of education across the spectrum from elementary school through graduate education. Emphasis is on history, educational philosophies, economics, management, the organization and conduct of educational systems, public policy and law, pressures for reform and the institutions’ response.
Ed. 455A Written Persuasion: A writing workshop that addresses analysis, synthesis, writing voice and style.
Ed. 454A/B Action Research: Students study the action research process and understand the conduct of action research. Students complete an entire cycle of action research at a site -- formulating and studying a problem, shaping the research design and carrying out the research, recording and analyzing the data, creating a report and feedback process, and documenting the actionresearch process.
Ed. 456 Organizational Change: Students will learn how organizations operate as systems and how the core processes support, and are supported by organizational culture. Students will learn about key concepts of organizational design and managing change.
Ed. 442B Law: Students will be introduced to legal analysis and will examine the structures and types of laws governing educational systems in the U.S.
Ed. 272 Case-Study Research in Education Policy and Practice: Students learn to use a variety of qualitative methods to collect data -- observation, interviewing, developing a protocol and survey, and focus groups. Students will learn to maintain field notes, analyze data, and address ethical issues in data collection.
Ed. 499A/B/C Advanced Directed Field Experience: Instructors work with students individually and in groups to prepare culminating project proposals. In fall, students will focus on their problem statements. In winter, students will focus on their literature review and securing a committee chair. Spring quarter is spent on the methods section.
Ed. 230A Introduction to Research Design and Statistics: Students gain an understanding of statistics as they are used in research and evaluation reports. The course is designed to help students to become intelligent consumers of research as it applies to their own professional arenas.
Ed. 222C Qualitative Data Reduction and Analysis: Students focus on practical skills and conceptual/methodological issues involved in reducing and analyzing qualitative data.
Ed. 296A Special Topics in Educational Leadership: Students participate in an advanced study and analysis of current topics in education.
458 A/B/C Dissertation Practicum: Students meet monthly to discuss their progress with the dissertation and to receive guidance with data collection, analysis, and writing.
Ed. 599 A/B/C Independent Study: Students will work with their doctoral committee chairs on their culminating projects.
Ed. 450 Leadership Seminar: Students meet monthly with educational experts to discuss current issues in K-16 educational leadership.
* Courses are subject to change.
