During the past several decades education systems have been faced with rapidly changing global economic and cultural conditions that are compelling district, municipal and federation leaders to ensure that all children learn. These shifts not only have increased the complexity of school and district work but also require leaders to gain new knowledge, evidence-based practical understandings, and skills of how to manage and improve schools and education systems. Although the value of middle management teams has been recognized in a wide variety of organizations getting the most out of groups requires an understanding of how to staff, structure and manage them.

Consequently, this course is designed to examine collaborative leadership roles of superintendents and principals in creating effective teams and building the organizations’ capacity to engage in continuous improvement efforts. Students will familiarize themselves with published articles in journals to identify theories and research findings on organizational learning, group dynamics, executive team leadership, team-building, team-work, collaboration, teacher empowerment, distributed leadership and professional learning communities.