Leadership, Equity, Innovation and Learning (LEIL)

The course takes a deep dive into relevant case law and educational policies that highlight affirmative action, discrimination and employment considerations, with a focus on expanding and promoting equitable practices in educational institutions and organizations.

This course provides understanding of parametric and non-parametric statistics, as it applies to education research, with emphasis on statistical significance, effect sizes, t-tests, analysis of variance and covariance, and simple linear regression, with use of statistical software.

The course covers fiscal governance, accountable and equitable practices within the realm of educational/organizational leadership, fiscal management, policies, political implications, and national and state trends.

This course provides background in educational research ethics and basic and intermediate principles of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods approaches in education research.

This course provides advanced understanding of research study and the development of research proposals in preparation for completing a doctoral dissertation, with emphasis on research design, sampling design, data collection, data analysis and reporting research results in the education field.

The course explores the essential aspects of data elicitation, analysis and communication. Students will gain skills in planning systemic improvement of instructional delivery, program effectiveness and administrative processes to ensure equity for all learners.

The course will prepare school leaders to align technology tools, digital teaching and learning processes, and appropriate evaluation models with improvement goals to ensure equitable outcomes for every learner. The course will also explore policy as it pertains to protecting data and privacy, as well as protecting learners/stakeholders from digital threats such as online bullying and professional boundary violations.

The course will build on a strong conceptual and experiential knowledge base of equity and explicitly develop the leadership lens and skills critical to inspiring and empowering others to join in creating equitable, lasting change that result in academic achievement of all learners, especially marginalized groups who continue to be underserved by our educational/organizational system.

This course explores micro-organizational approaches of individual and group dynamics to macro-organizational disciplines of organizational theory, specifically as they relate to creating an environment that supports diverse learners and stakeholders to ensure success.

This doctoral-level course explores authentic leadership principles and the role of ethics in leadership, with a strong emphasis on personal storytelling and narrative construction. Students will engage deeply with their own life stories, using them to understand and develop their leadership style, ethical decision-making and impact on others. The course integrates storytelling as a core leadership tool, empowering students to harness their personal and professional experiences in leading with integrity and authenticity in complex organizational environments.

This course and work experience represents the final pre-dissertation stage for the educational leadership doctoral program through independent readings and/or research that supports the preparation of the dissertation.

Continued study, research and writing in the area of dissertation concentration. This course does not count toward fulfilling the required hours for the degree; it may be repeated as needed. Students who have registered for nine hours of dissertation credit but have not finished the dissertation must be enrolled in this course each semester, including summer until they complete the dissertation.

Research, preparation and defense of the doctoral dissertation. May be repeated up to six times for a maximum of nine credits.