Curriculum

This course focuses on critical thinking and communication strategies to advance students’ reasoning skills to develop well-thought-out, reasoned, clear, and concise oral and written communications and present them using transmedia. Students learn effective, engaging, and strategic use of interactive media; emerging and distributed technologies for storytelling; and how to convey well-articulated and powerful narratives.

This course explores virtual and integrated learning technologies and their applications to learning organizations, learning communities, and educational settings. Future-ready technologies and techniques are applied for experiential, collaborative, social, and distributed learning. Students investigate virtual communication tools, integration of social media, virtual collaboration tools, digital storytelling, and their application to their professional and scholarly interests.

This course introduces the student to the study of ethics as a basis for value clarification, decision making, and responsible leadership in inclusive organizations and communities. Elements of ethical leadership such as cultural proficiency, social justice, power, equity, and privilege are examined. Students investigate applications and practices relevant to their academic and professional interests.

The course focuses on analysis, design, development, implementation, and assessment of learning-based solutions to organizational challenges in a variety of learning organization environments including K–12, higher education, and private and public sectors. It introduces models and methods of learning theory and cognition and learning assessments as a response to identified needs and gaps in intended organizational results. Students will investigate applications and practices of learning design, cognition, and evaluation relevant to their academic and professional interests.

This course introduces students to various methods of applied data analysis with an emphasis on the analysis of quantitative data. Students will learn about modern forms of data gathering including the mining and extraction of big data. Students will also learn to report data using powerful statistical packages and the latest web-based visualization platforms. Last, students will learn the fundamentals of inferential statistical analysis. While basic statistical theory will be covered, the emphasis of the course will be on the development of empirical inquiries and the understanding, presentation, and communication of data in organizational, workplace, and educational contexts.

This course examines the role of the entrepreneurial leader in developing innovative solutions that align with personal and organizational mission, vision, and values. Focus is placed on how a leader shepherds sustainable change from ideation, to fruition, and to evolution without positional power. Students will explore methods and engage in processes to support innovation, adaptation, and learning and promote the endeavor by building coalitions and persuasive broad-based organizational support.

In collaboration with program faculty, students will engage in a culminating undertaking in the form of a scholarly paper, a learning/training program, or a technology-infused product design in which students apply academic, theoretical, and/or practitioner perspectives explored throughout the coursework. All projects must be grounded in literature relevant to students’ degree programs and presented using advanced transmedia. The Capstone Integration Experience serves as one of the final program learning outcomes assessments.

The course explores integration of learning theory and emerging technologies to create impactful and innovative learning. Students will individually master new technologies and collaboratively transfer skills to others. Students will collectively develop strategies for applying new technologies in practice and evaluate the effectiveness of new learning technologies in the workplace

This course focuses on rethinking instruction in the context of innovation and change in formal organizations, especially in response to new technologies and the capabilities and disruptions they bring to learning and work. Studies will consider theories for creating sustainable design and innovation efforts and issues associated with the diffusion of innovation throughout organizations or systems. Concepts explored include flipped classrooms, student-centered models, learning analytics, real-time embedded assessment, gamefulness, engagement through virtual learning, mobile learning, and location-based learning.

This course focuses on the relationship between production, learning spaces, collaboration, and distribution of knowledge. Students are immersed in the technologies that support these activities in informal settings such as libraries, museums, after school, AR, VR, online collaborations and communities, and professional development, but also for students and families, lifelong learning and mobile learning in distributed environments.

This course focuses on the central mission(s) and governance structures of higher education institutions in American society. The course exposes students to all sectors and levels of the diverse postsecondary landscape in the country, including public and private, profit and nonprofit, four- and two-year schools. Students will learn about the different forms of governance that characterize each sector as well as the historical and current challenges and opportunities associated with each governance structure. Governance will be framed and discussed within the various and often competing political ideologies that prevail in the nation. Broadly speaking, the overarching goal for this course is to increase knowledge about the structures and methods of governance in higher education institutions and how these issues are perceived and shaped by dominant political actors.

This course is intended to familiarize students with student support services, particularly within the context of higher education institutions. The course focuses on the nature and purpose of student services, their functions, and how they can be effectively coordinated and integrated as part of the broad educational purposes of higher education institutions. It also examines institutional strategies for organizing, staffing, and funding a wide range of programs and services and how to design the learning and development of students. By actively participating in and successfully completing this course, students will become conversant with some of the literature and best practices associated with effective delivery of student services. This course takes a broad look at the essential work of student services and administration, examining the work through historical, theoretical, research, resource, ethical, legal, and best-practice perspectives.

The course exposes students to historical and contemporary issues found at the intersection of higher education finance and policy. In more detail, this course will teach students about the financial and policy structures supporting four- and two-year public and private postsecondary institutions and how these structures change in relation to economic fluctuations at the national, state, and institutional levels. Students will also learn about policy creation and implementation in higher education through the lens of economics. For instance, students will learn about various economic ideologies and how these ideologies influence higher education policy in the nation.

This course focuses on the role of instructional leaders in shaping a collaborative culture of teaching and learning in which staff engage in individual and collective professional development that results in their continuous improvement and high performance. Students will examine theoretical frameworks and conceptual models for instructional leadership and professional development as transformative learning. They will analyze the needs of the organization and design a comprehensive professional development plan that addresses these needs. Students will engage in culturally proficient, cognitive coaching to support individuals and organizations in becoming more self-directed, self-managing, self monitoring, and self-modifying

This course examines strategic approaches for (1) meaningfully involving all parents and families, including underrepresented communities, in student learning and support programs; (2) establishing community partnerships that promote and support students to meet performance and content expectations and graduate ready for college and career; and (3) leveraging and integrating community resources and services to meet the varied needs of all students. Based on organizational analysis, students will design a school, family, and community partnership plan to address an identified academic goal.

The course focuses on understanding, assessing, and influencing political, social, legal, intercultural, and technological contexts affecting education to improve policies and practices and managing the organization to cultivate a safe and productive learning and working environment.

This course focuses on the dynamics of teams in diverse organizations as well as best practices for and obstacles to their success. Essential theories, concepts, and practices in group dynamics in multicultural and global settings will be examined. This examination will include composition and functions of groups, trust and cohesion, decision making, cultural dimensions of groups, creativity and innovation, as well as virtual teams and networks.

This course provides an introduction to the variety of theories and diverse models of organization design while applying impacts of culture on decision making and organizational effectiveness. Emphasis will be placed on applying organization development strategies to the culture in which one is working and the influences of shared values and group norms on how that organization “gets things done.” Students will explore, adapt, and apply concepts from organization theory and culture while making linkages with national cultural contexts.

This course examines various elements and roles involved in managing and leading a learning organization in the context of stewardship. Management functions such as planning, organizing, developing talent, communication, motivation, local and global cultures, social responsibility, and tracking and maintaining quality will be discussed. The context of these examinations emphasizes valuing the collective progress of the organization over self-interest.