EDTEC 462
Sample Syllabus
Sample Lesson
Introduction
Define Leadership
Effective Leadership
Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM)

Effective Leadership

Introduction

Have you ever worked with a person who was able to rally a group of people to accomplish an impressive goal? If you look at what makes people willingly contribute to a shared vision and invest time and energy, you will almost always find an effective leader as a key factor in the group's progress. But what makes a leader effective?

In the last lesson you read about leadership and should have developed some ideas on the subject. In this lesson, you will go into the field and capture the thoughts of an effective educational leader. You'll share what you learn with the other members of the class, benefitting as well from what they've learned. Please begin to notice the commonality in the lists from each other's interviews. Interesting and very true.

Your Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

Your Task(s)

To complete this lesson, complete the following task(s):

  1. Think about what you've read about leadership and identify at least three people you believe are effective educational leaders.
  2. Select one of these leaders and conduct an interview with that person to answer the following questions:

    (Use these six items as a guide on your "Leadership Paper." I use these elements as the criteria in my scoring rubric for the paper in task 6 below.)

    • Define leadership (your definition of leadership).
    • Describe the difference between traditional views of leadership and more current views.
    • Identify and define leadership roles (hats worn as an educational leader).
    • Provide a rationale for the importance of the leadership roles identified (why are these roles important?).
    • Discuss the leadership skills necessary for the roles that you've identified.
    • Discuss the leadership that is expected of technology specialists in schools today.
  3. Post the results of your interview to the discussion forum titled Effective Leader Interviews, or create a Web page that contains the interview and post the URL for the page in the message board. Make sure that your posting or Web page contains the person's name, title, a brief statement on why you selected this person, and their answers to the questions listed above.
  4. Read the interviews posted by other students and respond to at least two postings.
  5. Consider consulting the resources below to "round out" your thinking on the characteristics of effective leaders.
  6. Please create and attach a copy of your "Leadership Paper" to an e-mail and send it to me via the course e-mail. Remember, use the 6 elements listed above as your guide.
  7. Post the "paper"  to the discussion forum titled Sharing Leadership Papers describing what you've learned. Remember that Angel, our course management system, includes a basic WYSIWYG editor that will allow you to include HTML formatting in your postings. E-mail me with questions.
  8. People always ask how long "the paper" should be (and rightfully so). My answer is always the same, "As long as it needs to be for you to successfully cover the six topics listed above. I've had very good papers of 2-3 pages and some equally as good that took more." You're professionals, it's your call.

Lesson Wrap-up

After completing this lesson you'll have gained insight into the characteristics shared by effective leaders. But knowing about leadership and being an effective leader are very different things. Here you might want to refer to your text Appendix B, page 320, to see where you'd like to be someday. As you progress through your career as a technology coordinator, remember to work toward the attainment of these characteristics. Who knows, perhaps someone will interview you to find out how you became such an effective leader. (Don't forget to mention this course!) (-;]

Related Resources

Here are some resources that you may wish to draw upon as you complete your tasks: