Instructional Leadership –

edl520

(3 credits)

This course provides teacher leaders with an introduction to instructional leadership. Using an instrument of self-assessment in decision-making, students create a leadership plan that outlines long-term and short-term goals for continuous development of their leadership skills. They also determine differences between effective and ineffective teaching, diagnose instructional problems, and prescribe appropriate strategies to improve instructional performance as outlined in research and theory as best practices. Throughout the course, examining leadership with reference to theoretical and practical aspects of school improvement is emphasized.

This graduate-level course is 6 weeks. To enroll, speak with an Enrollment Advisor.

Topics and Objectives

Instructional Leadership and Related Issues
- Distinguish between teacher leaders’ and administrators’ roles as instructional leaders in a school.
- Demonstrate an understanding of instructional leadership as influenced by No Child Left Behind, school culture and climate, student differences, and teaching issues.
- Analyze classroom processes and organization and how they reflect the philosophy of an individual teacher.
- Explain the importance of assessing student learning.
- Examine how change in a school’s culture and climate can occur through the use of assessment as a decision-making tool.
Teacher Leadership and Decision-Making
- Construct an understanding of one’s individual decision-making style.
- Describe how to utilize a decision-making style to work effectively with others.
- Compare the strengths and weaknesses of decision-making models.
- Design a personal strategy for working with decision-making styles.
- Examine how new teachers benefit when guided by an experienced instructional leader.
Curriculum Theories and Instructional Models
- Analyze the differences between intelligence and achievement.
- Define learning and the concepts which promote student achievement.
- Evaluate the three kinds of knowledge.
- Apply an understanding of student learning strategies and their applications.
- Analyze constructivist theory and student-centered instruction in the classroom.
- Demonstrate an understanding of diverse students’ abilities and the challenges that teachers face in today’s schools.
- Apply the decision-making process to addressing students’ abilities and needs.
Curriculum Development and Instructional Improvement
- Describe motivation and how it increases learning.
- Analyze how learners’ needs, attributes, and beliefs influence motivation and efficiency in learning.
- Demonstrate an understanding of how teachers’ strategies in the classroom encourage motivation and student learning.
- Examine how student-teacher relationships affect teaching and learning.
- Analyze the qualities and practices of a master teacher.
- Determine classroom conditions and instructional practices needed to improve student achievement.
- Explain how a learning environment contributes to increased learning, effective classroom management, and open communication in the classroom.
- Describe the types of data and artifacts needed for effective classroom observations.
Assessment and Evaluation of Student Learning
- Compare and contrast the characteristics of norm-referenced tests and criterion-referenced tests.
- Identify the factors that led to high-stakes testing.
- Identify ways that student test scores can be used to plan for improving student achievement.
The Benefits of Diversity in Family and Community Relationships
- Examine school culture as related to the school’s population.
- Identify gaps in communication and collaboration between diverse families and schools.
- Analyze strategies that bridge the gaps between diverse families and schools.
- Identify strategies in the classroom that promote diverse student achievement.
- Identify professional development opportunities for creating an ongoing change process.
- Examine a needs assessment tool (Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire) to determine how professional development can enhance reform within a school.
- Examine the barriers that impede change within a school.
- Analyze the roles that stakeholders take when change is necessary in a school.

The University of Phoenix reserves the right to modify courses.
While widely available, not all programs are available in all locations or in both online and on-campus formats. Please check with a University Enrollment Advisor.
Transferability of credit is at the discretion of the receiving institution. It is the student’s responsibility to confirm whether or not credits earned at University of Phoenix will be accepted by another institution of the student’s choice.

Instructional Leadership –

edl520

Instructional Leadership and Related Issues

Teacher Leadership and Decision-Making

Curriculum Theories and Instructional Models

Curriculum Development and Instructional Improvement

Assessment and Evaluation of Student Learning

The Benefits of Diversity in Family and Community Relationships

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