May 20, 2024  
2023-2024 Graduate Catalog 
    
2023-2024 Graduate Catalog

Educational Leadership (EdD)


Program Educational Goals:


EdD Doctoral Core: Educational Improvement (15 credits)

1. Understand the historical, philosophical, and sociocultural orientations that underpin curriculum.
2. Develop awareness of curriculum goals and policies and reflect on their role in shaping local curriculum frameworks and design.
3. Apply guiding principles for choosing curriculum content in systematic analysis of materials, policies, and practices to determine areas of strength and weakness.
4. Apply sound curriculum design principles in choosing, developing and/or revising curriculum

(1) Candidates understand the importance of aligning applications of educational technology with the principles of how people learn.
(2) Candidates become aware of the professional organizations, standards bodies, and technology integration models for implementing educational technology effectively across the curriculum areas and grade levels.
(3) Candidates realize the critical role school administrators and educational leaders must play in modeling and promoting the effective use of educational technology throughout the institution for the benefit of stakeholders, users, and constituents.

• Identify key actors in policy processes and their role in policy decisions
• Identify the ways in which policy process are time-bound, iterative, and fluid
• Identify specific education policies or policy eras that are relevant to current practice in both K12 and Higher Education
• Understand and plan for the implementation and evaluation of policy

Identify the leadership frames as one framework by which to understand leaders’ actions, motivations, and goals.
Identify and match theoretical underpinnings of organizational theory to the four frames.
Analyze research literature using the four frames as an analytic framework.
Identify individual strengths and weaknesses and map them onto the four frames (or other leadership frameworks).

- Understand the shortcomings of historical conceptualizations of leadership and management
- Understand leadership as a process of influence and how leaders can be more inclusive and developmentally attuned and how leadership practices can foster adult development
- Assess and reflect upon the strengths and areas for growth in students’ leadership assumptions, beliefs, mindsets, and practices and the assumptions, beliefs, mindsets, and practices of others, especially those with whom students work
- Create a personalized professional learning plan for improving students’ practice as an organizational leader

 

EdD Doctoral Core: Evidence-Based Decision-Making (12 credits)

 

Understand a range of statistical concepts commonly used in empirical research; understand data structures and levels of measurements; understand and conduct univariate and multivariate statistical analysis

- Understand range of empirical tools available to researchers
- Distinguish among methodological approaches
- Match research questions to necessary research approaches

- Understand how to use tools to help identify organizational problems and challenges and their root causes along with how to consider and frame those problems or challenges
- How to design and conduct an empirical research study that uses interviews, focus groups, observations, document reviews, and/or surveys
- How to clean and analyze qualitative data collected from interviews, focus groups, observations, and document reviews, and surveys
- How to prepare and analyze numeric data from surveys to produce select descriptive statistics
- How to write up findings or results based on empirical data collection and analysis

- Understand key terms used by program evaluators
- Compare and contrast various approaches to program evaluation
- Explain how program evaluation contributes to to program development, implementation, and improvement
- Identify linkages between program strategies and goals
- Describe the roles and importance of stakeholders in evaluation
- Understand the ethical considerations of evaluators
- Explain the evaluation standards and guiding principles

 

 

Education Leadership Portfolio (12 credits)

- Ability to better identify and address organizational problems and challenges
- Ability to better design and conduct empirical research studies, especially in service of identifying and addressing organizational problems and challenges
- Ability to better lead and manage in organizational contexts
- Enhanced efficacy with respect to developing and implementing organizational improvement efforts in general contexts

Program Requirements for the Ed.D. Degree


A total of 54 credit hours of course work is required for the Ed.D.

1. Core Courses (27 credits):


Students take courses in

2. Electives (15 credits):


Students take electives in the student’s area of content knowledge expertise or area of employment responsibilities/expertise. In addition to the courses below, the student’s advisor can approve other electives based on the student’s goals and needs.

Sociocultural and Community-Based Approaches to Education:


3. Educational Leadership Portfolio (12 credits):


Students take the following in fulfillment of the Educational Leadership Portfolio.

Advancement to Leadership Candidacy


Advancement to leadership candidacy, including the successful defense of the ELP proposal (EDUC 880 ).

Education Leadership Portfolio


Development and successful oral defense of the Education Leadership Portfolio (EDUC 882 ).

4. K-12 Students:


K-12 Students who are seeking certification as a Central Office Personnel or Assistant Superintendent/Superintendent must take EDUC 879 - Internship in Education  as six credits of the 15 credit elective requirement. The EdD in Educational Leadership does not earn the candidate an Assistant Principal or Principal certificate.