Institute - February 25 - 27 (ends at noon on Friday)
The Robert Beck Endowed Lecture: Privileged Authority and Sacred Trust: Ethical and Excellence Imperatives for Evaluators in a Globalizing World, Hazel Symonette, PhD, University of Wisconsin – Madison.
The Mary E. Corcoran Endowed Lecture: The Politics of Accountability, Sandra Mathison, Ph.D., University of British Columbia
Concurrent Sessions Presented By:
Pre-sessions February 23-24 (2 full days each)
Introduction to Program Evaluation: Stacey Stockdill, EnSearch
Focus Group Methods: Richard Krueger, University of Minnesota
Group and student discounts; graduate credit available for additional fee.
Register today at: http://www.education.umn.edu/EdPA/MESI Questions? Contact Ann Mavis at mavis001@umn.edu or 612-624-1489
Sponsored by: The Department of Educational Policy and Administration, The Evaluation Group at the Institute on Community Integration, and The Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI)
]]>Who protects and advocates for our human rights?
How urgent is the need for human rights education?
Join us spring semester in EdPA 5080 section 002 Human Rights Education (class #91675) where we will work to foster enthusiasm for and commitment to human rights and human rights education. This course will equip you with the pedagogies, methods, and strategies appropriate for teaching human rights. It is designed for those of you who want to be teachers of and leaders for human rights in P-16 education and community-based organizations.
Forty CEUs are available for this course. Click here for a registration form.
For more information please contact the instructors:
Amy Garrett Dikkers, Educational Policy & Administration
Kristi Rudelius-Palmer, University Human Rights Center
Click here for superintendent search in Alleman IA.
Click here for superintendent searches in Bonesteel SD and Burke SD.
Click here for superintendent search in Kankakee IL.
The University of Illinois seeks a principal/director for the University Laboratory High School beginning on July 1, 2009.
University Laboratory High School, or Uni, was established in 1921 and is a laboratory school located on the campus of the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois. Its enrollment is approximately 300 students, spanning five years (the traditional 9th through 12th grades, preceded by a composite 7th and 8th grade year known as the "subfreshman" year). The school is notable for the achievements of its alumni, including three Nobel laureates and a Pulitzer Prize winner; in 2006 and 2007 it was recognized as a "public elite" school by Newsweek because of its students' high scores on the SAT.
Sound interesting? Click here to see the full job posting.
Want to know more about Uni High? Visit http://www.uni.illinois.edu/.
Questions about the search? Contact Don Hugo at 636.441.9954 or dhugo46@yahoo.com. More information is also available at HYAsupersearches.com.
]]>Department faculty and an advisory group of current public school and agency administrators collaborated to create a sharply-focused multi-year design that includes:
Classes meet one full Thursday every two-three weeks during the academic year and three weeks each summer (3-4 days per week).
Our graduates hold top leadership positions in PK-12 schools, higher education, departments of education, and public and private sector agencies throughout the world. We look forward to admitting a new group of dynamic educators to this Ed.D. program.
Click here for frequently asked questions about the 2009 Ed.D. cohort.
Click here for our 2009 Ed.D. cohort flyer.
Should public and community engagement be central to higher education?
Does engagement with the community diminish the academic goals of higher education?
These questions and more will be addressed in EdPA 5080 section 003 (class # 92924) on Wednesday nights from 5:00--9:00pm during spring semester.
In a nine-week session running from January 21 through March 25, students and instructors will consider the civic roles of postsecondary education institutions both past and present. Special attention will be paid to contemporary philosophies and practices of engagement, and how engagement is expressed in various institutional contexts. This course is designed for both practitioners and scholars who seek to deepen their understandings about the ways in which institutions might become more productively involved with communities they serve.
Click here to register. Questions? Please contact the instructors:
Andrew Furco, afurco@umn.edu
David Weerts, dweerts@umn.edu
Do your plans for the new year include going back to school to earn your administrative license? Apply now and by the time spring semester begins in January 2009, you'll be ready to hit the ground running!
The University of Minnesota administrative licensure program offers you a great education value. Not only will you learn from top faculty and practicing administrators, you can also take advantage of a unique benefit of our program and complete multiple credentials concurrently. That's right! You can mix and match courses to earn multiple educational leadership credentials for the same cost as one--Only At The U!
If you'd like to find out how you can maximize your education, contact Ann Werner or Gloria Kumagai.
Need an application? Click here.
]]>Director of Special Education
Joy Carlson
Kyle Kehrberg
Anthony Mayer
K-12 Principal
Andrew Almos
Jill Alton
Benjamin Bernard
Robert Blat
Jason Hunt
Carly Jarva
Darin Johnson
Elena Kurinski
Kimberly Lauterbach-Koller
Nancy Meyer
Stephanie Nitchals
LaNisha Paddock
Greg Posewitz
Andrew Sachariason
Richard Swanson
Ellen Teeklucksingh
Superintendent
Jeffrey Paulson
Theresa Battle
Denise Waalen
Leapfrog means to jump over obstacles to achieve goals. It means to get ahead of the competition or the present state of the art through innovative, time-saving means.
One example of leapfrog is Finland’s jump to wireless phones, saving that country the cost of deploying an expensive copper wire system. Another example is present in the Kent, Washington, public school system, which now permits students to use wireless Web devices to help them access information to better pass tests. Leapfrog has also become a major strategy of developing countries wishing to avoid catch-up efforts that otherwise portend a high likelihood of continued followership. A similar approach to gaining the lead rather than assuming a persistent runner-up role has been adopted by many industries, colleges, and individuals.
As do many others, such as Friedman (2000; 2005), Pink (2005), and Florida (2004; 2005), we see a trend toward the expansion of applied knowledge production and innovation within burgeoning global trends, cultures and markets. Knowledge based work is now regularly conducted by design and innovation workers, some exemplars of which are creative teachers, designers, artists, storytellers, game developers, webmasters, and media content creators. These capabilities are expressions of the liberal skills, or applied derivations of the liberal arts and related disciplines and subject matter fields.
Programs focused on knowledge production can provide students with a transdisciplinary context to develop the skills suited for new knowledge production and innovation. As such, the question becomes, How to best serve those students and the contexts in which they live and work, now and in the future? Furthermore, to support a diverse student body and increasingly diverse body of knowledge, how can curricula be reshaped to meet present and future demands, providing support to all students?
To support these needs, we offer the Leapfrog Liberal Skills, which consist of time manipulation, knowledge production, technology, communication, critical and multi-paradigmatic thinking, focused imagination, developed intuition, emotional intelligence, and systems design. These are among the core competencies which students will develop in mature programs designed for leadership in 21st Century education and society.
Successful innovators in commercial environments already are in need of the time manipulation, knowledge and innovation skills developed through interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and post-disciplinary (individualized) study. In this sense, we are making a case for catching-up to existing national and global needs as well as providing a pathway for the individualized development of every student.
We foresee a near future in which educators and their students of any age collaborate with and leapfrog beyond industry, business, government, and education leaders involved in the creation of the New. Please take a look at the Leapfrog Institutes brochure. We would be delighted to talk with you about bringing Leapfrog to your district or school under your terms.
Al Ickler, who has been settling into his new role as executive director of community education for Robbinsdale Area Schools.
James Caldwell, former dean of students at Forest Lake High School, who is now an associate principal at Anoka High School.
]]>What happens in classrooms is often disconnected from what students experience in their technology-rich daily lives. Students need to know more about the world, learn how to find patterns in chaos, be smart about new sources of information and think outside the box.
In Time magazine, Wallis & Steptoe (2006) articulated the need for public education in the United States to shift from the current agrarian model to a 21st century model focused on creativity and innovation. Workers of today and tomorrow must be able to work in large teams of diverse people and adapt quickly to changing information. This is vastly different from the agrarian culture many current educators came from where independence, repetitive physical labor, concrete solutions and isolation from the larger world were familiar.
]]> The New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce (2006) stated unequivocally that jobs for today and tomorrow require creativity and innovation. American workers compete with highly educated, low paid workers across the globe. The commission’s ten recommendations are designed to improve education from the top down. They include implementing universal early childhood education, adult education, increasing starting teacher pay, and testing students after 10th grade as in the European system. The educational funding system would shift from local to state and national. These are radical recommendations that stimulate important discussions.A review of current research by Adams (2005) described factors in individuals and systems that contribute to or inhibit creativity and outlined action education and business can take to support and measure creativity.
Education is a stochastic field; that is, it has random, uncertain results. Adams described a model of creativity with three intersecting circles: expertise, creative thinking and motivation. Students perform best when all three are taught and supported. Deep knowledge in the area of expertise is essential for innovation. Synthetic (creative) skills, analytic skills, and practical knowledge are all vital components of innovation.
Motivation to keep working and trying, sometimes through lengthy dry spells, is a common trait in innovators. Motivation comes from within, but external motivation can be applied to encourage perseverance by providing information, jumpstarting curiosity and for affirmation of effort. A lack of affirmation decreases creativity; threats, rigid structure and single ways of evaluating discourage innovation.
Creative thinkers are comfortable with disagreement and are willing to work through problems. They may leave a problem and come back later with new ideas. Creative thinkers combine existing knowledge in new ways. They break down barriers between areas of knowledge and recognize that the intersection between fields is rich fodder for ideas. Education is a vehicle for identifying areas of interest and passion.
Evaluation should be based on the question, “What did you learn?? rather than “How did you do?? There are ways of evaluating creativity that include problem solving, portfolios, performance, open ended tests, and test questions designed to measure convergent and divergent thinking. Creativity can be enfolded into any evaluation of domain knowledge. Many authors advocate getting rid of intelligence quotients because of their biased and limited measure of human potential. While evaluating creativity seems daunting in comparison to content-based assessment, there is a robust body of research available on evaluation of creativity. Other nations are already including more open-ended frameworks for evaluation than the United States.
Leaders must set the tone that innovation is expected and must have high tolerance for risk taking and failure. Attending to individual strengths is important in encouraging people to stretch and in matching employees to jobs with the best fit. While the end goal should be clear, allowing flexibility in the process is encouraged. Leaders have influence on how time, money and space resources are distributed. Work groups should be diverse and varied. Hiring people with broad and varied experiences who are self-taught helps to keep teams fluid and creative. Self-taught people have fewer assumptions and rules about how things should be done. Creativity is a decision to follow a different path, which could look like subordination in a rigid structure that expects conformity. Darling-Hammond (2008) reported that unfortunately, in current practice, more teachers are fired for insubordination than for malpractice or failing to teach children.
Senator Barack Obama spoke to the National Educators Association (NEA) Representative Assembly in Washington, DC via live satellite on July 5, 2008. He addressed the need for innovation in public schools including improved technology and quality charter schools. Senator Obama’s key education advisor is Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, a strong advocate for teacher quality. As Darling-Hammond (2008) stated in her speech at NEA, innovations are rendered ineffective when teachers are unprepared.
In Results Now, Schmoker (2004) discussed the importance of teacher quality in promoting innovation. A new culture of teaching is needed in which teachers see themselves as intellectual and creative professionals. For too long, teachers have looked for direction from above instead of taking initiative in the school improvement process. “Unfortunately, few teachers see themselves as inventive, adaptive professionals upon which improvement primarily depends? (Schmoker, 2004, p. 117).
If we are committed to a high level of literacy, numeracy and creative thinking skills, we cannot leave innovation up to chance. Education for today and tomorrow must not be of the “kill and drill? variety and must include critical thinking and creativity. Forms of assessment must include the measurement of creativity. A vital but powerful missing ingredient in many schools is “argumentative literacy.? Students become intellectually engaged when encouraged to argue about what they have read and heard. “Reading, writing and discussion—these three—are the foundation for a well-equipped mind: the key to equity, access, and economic opportunity? (Schmoker, 2004, p. 72).
Sergiovanni (2006) described stages of leadership that inform the future-oriented leader. The leader who has developed through stages of bartering and binding is better positioned to lead a staff of innovators. The moral groundwork is laid for a shared commitment to educating students for high levels of literacy and critical thinking. Transformative leadership is about building people and programs by arousing potential and raising expectations. Sergiovanni appeals to the moral and spiritual aspects of education when he advises leaders to minister to the community and inspire followers who will “spread the gospel? of innovation, shared commitments (WE over I) and high expectations.
As we approach this historic presidential election, the choice seems to have shaped into a conflict between the mono-cultural, agrarian, anti-science, individualistic ways of the past and a technology-rich, innovative, globally connected future. While technological advances and globalization will march on despite the will of the American voter, at this historic moment, we have the choice to ride the wave to new horizons or continue to row an increasingly isolated and leaky boat.
References
Adams, K. (2005). Sources of Innovation and Creativity: A Summary of the Research, National Center on Education and the Economy. http://skillscommission.org/commissioned.htm Retrieved June 23, 2008.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2008, July 2) Building a Teaching Profession: The Courage to Do What’s Right, NEA Teacher Quality Policy Briefing: Washington, DC.
Obama, B. (2008, July 5) Speech to National Education Association General Assembly.
Sergiovanni, T. J. (2006). Stages of Leadership: A Developmental View. The Principalship: A Reflective Perspective, 5th ed. Old Tappan, NJ: Allyn and Bacon.
Tough Choices or Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. (2006) National Center on Education and the Economy. http://www.skillscommission.org/pdf/exec_sum/ToughChoices_EXECSUM.pdf. Retrieved on June 14, 2008.
Wallis, C and Steptoe, S. (2006, December 9) How to bring our schools out of the 20th Century. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1568429,00.html retrieved on June 27, 2008.
The Leapfrog Institutes at the University of Minnesota intends to foster a sustainable culture of innovation in our schools. You are invited to participate in discussions on building positive futures for PreK-21 education in the communities served by the Leapfrog Institutes. MESPA is a Collaborating Institution in this incredibly important infusion of creativity and innovation in education.
[...]
Leapfrog Institutes can visit your school and share what Leapfrogging is all about, possibilities for how to address your district or school needs, and how imagination, creativity, and innovation can expand at ridiculously low expense. And these expansions don’t need to occur in the regular school day. They can be extracurricular, involving self-chosen teachers, students, parents, and other members of our education communities!
Click here to read the entire article.
"Depth and consistency of feedback is outstanding--like I've never experienced as a student!"
"An unbelievably rich course!"
"Excellent course! I would recommend this course to any educator."
This 4-credit graduate course, taught by Dr. Jennifer York-Barr, is designed for people interested in the design, implementation, and evaluation of professional development for PK-12 personnel. It is grounded in research and focused on effective practices that promote continuous learning and development to increase student achievement.
Not only do students enrolled in U of M College of Education and Human Development graduate programs take EdPA 5374, but practicing educators from throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin do, too. It is required for the graduate-level certificate in professional development , but course participants are not required to enroll in the certificate program.
]]> When does EdPA 5374 meet?What topics will be covered in EdPA 5374?
Topics include: standards for staff development practice (systemic and role-specific); reflective practice and designs for professional learning; design and facilitation of group learning; induction with mentoring; and evaluation. The monthly meeting schedule eases travel demands and allows for reflection and application between sessions.
How to Register
If you are a current U of M student simply go to One Stop and add EdPA 5374 to your fall schedule. If you are not a currently enrolled in a program at the University, contact Dr. Dick Nunneley, EdPA's Coordinator of Graduate Studies, for assistance.
Want more information?
Dr. Jennifer York-Barr will be happy to answer your questions.