Masters+Course+Development

Notes from Sally (4/20/09) I am serching the web for syllabi on Leadership and Org. Theory, mainly focusing on course descriptions, textbooks, and types of assignments. Can we attach things to this site? From Jim: Here is a first attempt at a course description for the "Best Practices" class. Be sure to provide me feedback. This course will look at identified practices in the classroom that promote maximum academic growth for students, pre-kindergarten through high school. Participants will be exposed to current research on brain development, motivation, relationship development, classroom management, use of assessment to promote learning, instructional behaviors of teachers that have the greatest impact on student learning, and how your personally identified strengths enhance your performance in the classroom.
 * Course Description**

Note from Tobie: (March 30) Here's the link to the possible syllabus format (and some content) we talked this morning about adapting. []

Proposed syllabus template--to make sure we are covering all bases. Please let me know if there are things that could be added or subtracted. Things on this have been shamefully "borrowed" from the material on the link above.

Note from Carolyn: In line with Jim's article and the ideas he presented, I would like to share something I wrote. I do believe it is possible to have a different paradigm for education that focuses on helping teachers teach from their strengths, as Jim noted (which I think is a great idea), but that also reflects the realities of the classroom, such as the fact that people of all ages choose whether or not they learn and this cannot be forced. I would like to see our program help teachers to understand the dynamics that lead to real learning--not just the "teaching to the test" "learning." []

Another note from Carolyn [|http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell] I happened on an old issue of the New Yorker with a Malcolm Gladwell article that raises some issues that we could consider. He discusses teacher quality and how hard it is to predict who will be a good teacher.

From Tobie: Here are the preliminary 'big idea" descriptors for the research courses as describe by JF: ** Students use the tools acquired in the Applied Methods and Design**** course to implement and execute their individualized research proposals. Students present their research at the end of the course. **
 * Applied Methods and Design – (4) **
 * Students acquire the tools necessary to conduct research as they learn to create and test research hypotheses, identify and define research variables and conditions, create quantitative and qualitative research designs, and use statistical analyses to draw conclusions about data. The course culminates with each student creating and submitting an individualized research proposal to Capital University’s Institutional Review Board. **
 * Applied Research and Methods of Inquiry – (4) **
 * Thesis Research Hours – (4)

And here are the course descriptions of the comparable MBA course in Ethics and Socail Responsibility and Organizational Behavior ** //Prerequisite is MBA 500 (starting Fall 2006)// Now more than ever, companies are held accountable for developing responsible business policies and practices, and making them an integral part of their strategies and operations. Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethical Decision Making provides students with a laboratory for examination of these significant issues. The principal outcomes of this course are to understand important ethical constructs, to provide opportunities to apply ethical and responsible decision making in a variety of business situations and to facilitate a deeper understanding of the strategic complexities in managing these priorities across often competing needs. The class is structured around a rich set of challenging projects and case studies. //Prerequisite is MBA 500 (starting Fall 2006)// A good manager must know how to guide an organization through business cycles, market shifts, corporate restructurings and changes in ownership, resource constraints, and any number of other challenges. Success depends on a clear understanding of organizational dynamics, of how to influence the actions of individuals and groups, and of yourself. Building Effective Leaders and Organizations has students examine how best to organize, manage and motivate the human capital of the firm to achieve its strategic and other goals. Students discover their personal strengths and management styles, learn to solve organizational problems and consider how to influence the actions of individuals, groups and organizations successfully.
 * Business Ethics and Social Responsibility (MBA 600) **
 * Organizational Behavior (MBA 613) **