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Executive Leadership Program
Initial Administrator License Initial Administrator License Guiding Principles
The Initial Administrator License specialty prepares educational leaders to
respond positively, creatively, and proactively to the diversity within our
communities. It offers prospective school leaders an experience that
reflects the faculty’s commitment to teaching, research, and service along with
the department’s mission to provide and develop responsive leadership.
Underlying the work of our faculty is the assumption that at every level,
traditional approaches to education and schooling should be challenged.
Six core beliefs drive the knowledge, skills, and practices
we seek to develop in IAL participants: - All learners can be successful.
- Learning activities must build on individual strengths and
life experiences rather than deficiencies.
- Curriculum and instructional practices must be designed to
include and facilitate the personal development of the increasingly diverse population
of learners served in metropolitan areas.
- Reflective practice is a characteristic of the professional
educator.
- Life-long learning and personal responsibility are goals of
the professional educator.
- Schools are fluid organizational systems that must adjust
internally to be responsive to the communities they serve.
Initial Administrator License Learning Outcomes
The IAL curriculum and methods of instruction
are responsive to the special needs of adult learners. Participants are expected to assume much of
the responsibility for their learning and to cultivate within themselves the
habit of reflection and the desire to grow personally and professionally
throughout their lives.
Initial Administrator License Program Offerings
- Convenience- Academic year Cohort classes are held one
evening a week for three consecutive terms.
- Cohort class- Participants enter as a cohort (learning
group) and remain together throughout the program. This feature enhances the opportunity for
personal growth and professional development by giving students the chance to
get to know a few colleagues—colleagues they can rely on while in the program,
and on whom they can call in the future as working administrators.
- Practical experience- IAL integrates formal and
informal learning opportunities and offers administrative candidates many
occasions to apply ideas discussed in the classroom to actual practices in the
field throughout an on-going practicum.
- Problem-based learning- IAL incorporates an
integrated curricular approach that focuses on actual problems of practice
rather than on traditionally discrete academic disciplines/courses.
- Portfolio development- The IAL experience
results in artifact-creation — a collection of materials that attest to a participant’s
administrative beliefs, accomplishments, and experiences. This portfolio could be invaluable in seeking
administrative employment.
- Career guidance- Participants will have numerous
opportunities too interact and speak with successful school principals and
superintendents in the area school districts about prospective career
plans. They will help students identify
personal strengths and limitations, and will offer suggestions for achieving
goals as professional educators.
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