Educational Leadership, Ed.D.

Learning Goals and Student Learning Outcomes

The following goals and learning outcomes have been established for students pursuing a degree in educational leadership:

Experts in educational leadership

• Possess a deep understanding of the complex nature of learning and teaching so that they are able to guide and assist instructional practice
• Understand the needs of adult learners and can apply the theories found in the androgogy literature to the process of educational reform
• Skilled users of techniques for forecasting, planning and managing change processes in education, including use of technology as a resource
• Aware of cutting-edge technologies and how they can be used to enhance teaching, learning and leadership of the educational enterprise

Professionals Whose Practice is Informed by Scholarly Literature

• Critique informal ideas about best practice on the basis of the literature
• Have a sense of the limits of the literature, as to its applicability to the work of educational professionals, its fundamental validity and reliability, and as to questions of which groups are empowered or marginalized by what is implied in the literature
• Foster and encourage best practices within their organizations based on critical analysis of scholarly literature
• Develop with their colleagues and subordinates the ability to participate in communities of learning based on reflective practice and critique of the scholarly literature
• Define, contrast and evaluate the multiple perspectives presented in the scholarly literature regarding education
• Critique proposals for research and/or program implementation
• Broker consultants and researchers in pursuit of organizational goals, independently assessing organizational needs and matching consultant/researcher skills and proposals to those needs

Reflective Practitioners

• Professional experience is systematically engaged, compared and critiqued in classroom and other learning experiences
• Professional experience will be brought to bear on the areas of their study, finding relevance and application for principles derived from the literature

Critical Thinkers

• Thinking is probabilistic, recognizing the indeterminacy of educational and social contexts
• Professional thinking is marked by hypothetical reasoning, meaning that conclusions are remorselessly yet robustly tentative, open to falsification on the basis of new valid and reliable data
• Exhibit a bias for evidence in decision-making, preferring strongly evidence that is systematic and gathered from multiple sources and via sound means of collection, which are tested against the scholarly literature and the realities of changing circumstances

Change Agents

• Knowledge of research enables them to interpret findings, make judicious applications of research and advise others in policy positions
• Able to undertake first-hand investigations of local problems using applied research and appropriate methods for generating valid and reliable results
• Able to select applied research that addresses significant questions and ground it within the general framework of the scholarly literature
• Use research results and a sophisticated understanding of organizational structures, cultures and institutional networks to foster positive reform efforts within their organizations and across educational institutions

Self-Aware and Ethical Professionals

• Seek contexts and means for professional life-long learning and connections with scholarly literature
• Demand sophisticated feedback on their own performance and that of others, informed by scholarly understandings
• Understand that education is embedded in a network of social and political structures that can be influenced and also will exert powerful influences on the educational process at all levels
• Understand and support the ethical expectations of the education profession and strive to make their professional practice serve the needs of students and the community

Professionals Who Value Diversity

• Understand how their life histories shapes their views about the literature, organizations and groups, and understand how to create collaborative environments that welcome and serve diverse members—cultural/linguistic diversity, gender, able-ness and age-span differences
• Work to shape learning communities at their sites that are more humane and responsive to all students and are open to the wider community