The first four courses were designed collaboratively by a team of 15 faculty members drawn from Educational Psychology, Higher Education, K-12 Leadership, and Teacher Education. The core focuses on Rossier's four guiding principles --Accountability, Diversity, Leadership, and Learning. Students are expected to demonstrate mastery in these areas, regardless of concentration area.
Accountability
The Accountability course examines key models and concepts of standards and accountability, financial issues in accountability, and accountability issues in leadership, diversity, and learning. Leaders must incorporate these elements to conceptualize accountability as moving their organizations beyond simple goals assessments and toward documented success. They must orient their decision making around organization-wide interconnections that enhance the responsiveness and effectiveness of their institutions.
Diversity
The Diversity course explores in depth the causes and consequences of inequities in society, as well as educationally-based solutions. Students examine inequities such as those associated with culture, ethnicity, race, and gender and evident in divisions of labor, class structures, power relationships, group marginalization, cultural images, residential patterns, health, family life, employment, education and values. In addition, culture, ethnicity, race and gender are explored as potential assets in designing educational interventions. Students then apply this information to the framing, analysis and generation of solutions to contemporary educational problems.
Leadership
The Leadership course focuses on the administration of urban schools and institutions of higher education and the qualities that leaders need to transform these crucial organizations in an era of increased accountability. Such leaders must understand themselves, the organizations they lead, and the complex social and political environments they are asked to navigate on a daily basis. In short, we need leaders who understand formal structure, individual needs, power and conflict, as well as culture and symbols. Accordingly, students become acquainted with the principles, concepts, and major theories of leadership. A variety of self-analysis instruments are administered to help students better understand and reflect upon their own leadership styles and behavioral tendencies. They will apply this new learning to a variety of situations and problems simulating real challenges in today's urban K-12, higher education and non-traditional settings.
Learning
The Learning course serves two key purposes. First, it provides students with a conceptual foundation for understanding current research and theoretical directions in learning, motivation and instruction related to diverse, urban educational settings. Second, the course offers useful strategies for identifying learning challenges and solving them by understanding the research and theoretical foundations for developing instructional solutions. Different student goals are accommodated through examples and case studies where students are able to practice applying the knowledge gained in the course to settings that represent the context and intellectual focus of their personal and professional goals.
