Educational Administration

This course will provide students with the knowledge and skills to effectively manage human resources in a sustainable way that supports learning for all students, fosters a professional work environment, upholds contractual agreements, and develops employee capacity fairly and ethically. Specific emphasis will be focused upon promoting a learning organization through effective and collaborative performance reviews, legal compliance, and strategic placement of resources to maximize organizational effectiveness toward student learning.

This course provides students with an overview of successful fiscal leadership in schools by surveying the dynamic landscape of school funding from federal, state, and local levels. This course will provide students with abilities to effectively lead safe, efficient, and effective organizations through meaningful and compliant fiscal management of organizational components, operations, and resources. Specific emphasis will be given to the study of the major responsibilities of a fiscal leader and the utilization of resources in effective and transformative ways.

This course will provide students opportunities to learn and to utilize technology for pursuit of information, providing transformational instruction, communicating effectively with all stakeholders, and fostering an organizational culture that embraces technology toward ongoing improvement. The course covers a wide spectrum of available technological resources to help leaders better understand student achievement as well as contextual factors (ex. school climate, parent satisfaction, teacher satisfaction) in schools. Specific emphasis will be given to exploration of potential applications of technological resources in a current organizational setting for becoming an integral component of leadership and school culture, performance monitoring, and enhancing learning options for students and staff members.

Passage of the CPACE can be used in lieu of completion of a school administration postgraduate preparation program toward meeting the requirements for the California Preliminary Administrative Services Credential. This course will provide students with an opportunity to explore administrative topics as they relate to the CPACE exam. Students will recognize the importance of analyzing multiple sources of school site/district data to identify equity gaps to inform equitable improvement in line with the school’s vision, mission, and goals. Students will learn about collaborative professional learning within a community of practice for the purpose of improving teaching and student learning and understand the responsibility of an educational leader to coach teachers to strengthen teaching practices and improve student learning and/or well-being.

This course develops students' skill set in the use of qualitative methods for the study of social research. Students will learn and understand the theoretical basis of qualitative methods and how these methods are applied toward the successful leadership of schools, school districts, and other organizations. The course covers the collection, coding, analysis, and reporting of qualitative data.

This course provides students with exposure and skill development in the use of mixed methods, both qualitative and quantitative, for the study of social research. Students will learn and understand the theoretical underpinnings of mixed methods and the application of these methods for effective leadership in dynamic global settings. The course approaches conducting research and the understanding of research as a key competency for those who will successfully lead schools and organizations in the 21st century. Special attention is given to validity, reliability, variables, constructs and sampling. Students will create research instruments, such as surveys, as a product of this course.

This course will provide students with an overview of quantitative data analysis. Included in this course are foundational knowledge of univariate (centrality, variance, and frequencies) and multivariate analysis (chi square, ANOVA, and linear correlations), levels of data/variables, sample size calculation, codebook creation, and the application of these skills towards understanding data. The course emphasizes utilizing quantitative analysis to promote storytelling that is both visual (e.g., graphs and tables) and narrative (e.g., APA-style statistical language). Students will participate in hands-on learning labs applying statistical analysis tools to real data sets and become skilled in the analysis, interpretation, and consumer use of statistical analysis. A software fee is required. No math skills are required above fifth grade level math.