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Course Overview

This capstone course will feature knowledge, disposition, and performance assessments that examine growth along dimensions critical to the effective leadership of educational innovation and improvement.

Learners will apply knowledge and principles of ambitious instruction, logics of innovation, improvement science, and exemplary cases to case studies of large-scale, practice-focused innovation. In doing so, they will identify and explain strengths in these innovations. They will also identify problems and challenges faced by these initiatives and, then, propose means of organizing and managing in response to those problems and challenges.

This course is part of the Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement MicroMasters Program offered by MichiganX.

What You’ll Learn

  • Applications of improvement science
  • Knowledge of strategies for leading educational innovation and improvement
  • Dispositions essential to organizing and managing educational innovation and improvement
  • Capabilities to construct research-based solutions to core challenges that arise in organizing and managing educational innovation and improvement

Prerequisites

Working knowledge of schools and education systems as well as the political, policy, and public pressures to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for all students.

MicroMasters® Program in Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement

Become an innovative leader in the classroom

Leading Ambitious Teaching and Learning
Designing and Leading Learning Systems
Improvement Science in Education
Case Studies in Continuous Educational Improvement
Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement Capstone
5 10 months total 2 - 4 hours each week
Complete Program $940.50
Program Details

Meet Your Instructors

Donald J. Peurach

Associate Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership, and Innovation in the School of Education at University of Michigan Donald J. Peurach is Associate Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership, and Innovation in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. His research, teaching, and outreach focus on the production, use, and management of knowledge-in-practice among social innovators and those they seek to serve. As such, his work sits squarely at the intersection of educational policy, leadership, and innovation. He is the author of Seeing Complexity in Public Education: Problems, Possibilities, and Success for All (2011, Oxford University Press) and a co-author of Improvement by Design: The Promise of Better Schools (2014, University of Chicago Press). Peurach also serves as a Fellow of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and as a Faculty Associate in the Center for Positive Organizations in the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan). Before pursuing an academic career, he was a high school mathematics teacher and, before that, a systems analyst in manufacturing, healthcare, and higher education. Peurach holds a BA in computer science from Wayne State University, an MPP from the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Educational Studies from the School of Education at the University of Michigan.

Course Overview

With principles of improvement science as a foundation, new knowledge about the continuous improvement of educational innovations is rapidly emerging among communities of educational professionals and researchers, as they work together in new ways to solve practical problems, improve student performance, and reduce achievement gaps.

Developed in collaboration with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, this course will use case studies to take learners deep into the design, organization, and management of three innovative approaches to large-scale, practice-focused continuous improvement that have currency in the US and abroad:

  • Design-Based Implementation Research
  • Implementation Science
  • Networked Improvement Communities

What You’ll Learn

  • To identify approaches to continuous improvement appropriate for specific schools and systems.
  • To apply logics of innovation and principles of improvement science to authentic cases of continuous improvement.

Prerequisites

Working knowledge of schools and education systems as well as the political, policy, and public pressures to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for all students.

MicroMasters® Program in Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement

Become an innovative leader in the classroom

Leading Ambitious Teaching and Learning
Designing and Leading Learning Systems
Improvement Science in Education
Case Studies in Continuous Educational Improvement
Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement Capstone
5 10 months total 2 - 4 hours each week
Complete Program $940.50
Program Details

Meet Your Instructors

Donald J. Peurach

Associate Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership, and Innovation in the School of Education at University of Michigan Donald J. Peurach is Associate Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership, and Innovation in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. His research, teaching, and outreach focus on the production, use, and management of knowledge-in-practice among social innovators and those they seek to serve. As such, his work sits squarely at the intersection of educational policy, leadership, and innovation. He is the author of Seeing Complexity in Public Education: Problems, Possibilities, and Success for All (2011, Oxford University Press) and a co-author of Improvement by Design: The Promise of Better Schools (2014, University of Chicago Press). Peurach also serves as a Fellow of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and as a Faculty Associate in the Center for Positive Organizations in the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan). Before pursuing an academic career, he was a high school mathematics teacher and, before that, a systems analyst in manufacturing, healthcare, and higher education. Peurach holds a BA in computer science from Wayne State University, an MPP from the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Educational Studies from the School of Education at the University of Michigan.

Paul LeMahieu

Senior VP for Programs and Operations at Carnegie Foundation Paul LeMahieu is the senior vice president for programs and operations at the Carnegie Foundation. At Carnegie, he directs all of its programmatic efforts as well as the work of the Center for Networked Improvement (comprised of groups dedicated to collaborative technology, analytics, improvement science, as well as network initiation and development). LeMahieu served as superintendent of education for the state of Hawaii, the only state in the nation that is a unitary school district with annual budgets totaling over $1.8 billion. He was President of the National Association of Test Directors and Vice President of the American Educational Research Association. He served on the National Academy of Sciences' Board on International Comparative Studies in Education, Mathematical Sciences Education Board, the National Board on Testing Policy, and the National Board on Professional Teaching Standards. His current professional interests focus on the adaptation of improvement science tools and methodologies for application in networks in education. He is a co-author of the recent book Learning to improve: How America’s schools can get better at getting better, and lead author of the forthcoming Working to improve: Seven approaches to quality improvement in education. LeMahieu has a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh, a master’s from Harvard University, and a bachelor’s from Yale College.

Course Overview

With roots in industry and in health care, improvement science is a disciplined approach to educational innovation that supports teachers, leaders, and researchers in collaborating to solve specific problems of practice. Improvement science brings discipline and methods to different logics of innovation by integrating:

  • Problem analysis
  • Use of research
  • Development of solutions
  • Measurement of processes and outcomes
  • Rapid refinement through plan-do-study-act cycles.

For teachers, school leaders, and system leaders, improvement science moves educational innovation out of the realm of “fad” and into the realm of research-based, evidence-driven continuous improvement, with the goal of increasing the effectiveness of educational practice.

What You’ll Learn

  • Principles and methods of improvement science in education and other social sectors
  • Means of introducing improvement science in schools and systems
  • Approaches to accelerating improvement through networked improvement communities

Prerequisites

Working knowledge of schools and education systems as well as the political, policy, and public pressures to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for all students.

MicroMasters® Program in Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement

Become an innovative leader in the classroom

Leading Ambitious Teaching and Learning
Designing and Leading Learning Systems
Improvement Science in Education
Case Studies in Continuous Educational Improvement
Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement Capstone
5 10 months total 2 - 4 hours each week
Complete Program $940.50
Program Details

Meet Your Instructors

Donald J. Peurach

Associate Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership, and Innovation in the School of Education at University of Michigan Donald J. Peurach is Associate Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership, and Innovation in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. His research, teaching, and outreach focus on the production, use, and management of knowledge-in-practice among social innovators and those they seek to serve. As such, his work sits squarely at the intersection of educational policy, leadership, and innovation. He is the author of Seeing Complexity in Public Education: Problems, Possibilities, and Success for All (2011, Oxford University Press) and a co-author of Improvement by Design: The Promise of Better Schools (2014, University of Chicago Press). Peurach also serves as a Fellow of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and as a Faculty Associate in the Center for Positive Organizations in the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan). Before pursuing an academic career, he was a high school mathematics teacher and, before that, a systems analyst in manufacturing, healthcare, and higher education. Peurach holds a BA in computer science from Wayne State University, an MPP from the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Educational Studies from the School of Education at the University of Michigan.

Anthony S. Bryk

President at Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Anthony S. Bryk is the ninth president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where he is leading work on transforming educational research and development, more closely joining researchers and practitioners in networked improvement communities to improve teaching and learning. Formerly, he held the Spencer Chair in Organizational Studies in the School of Education and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University from 2004 until assuming Carnegie's presidency in September 2008. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and was appointed by President Obama to the National Board for Education Sciences in 2010. He is one of America's most noted educational researchers. His 1993 book, Catholic Schools and the Common Good, is a classic in the sociology of education. His deep interest in bringing scholarship to bear on improving schooling is reflected in his later volumes, Trust in Schools (2002) and Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago (2010). In his most recent work, Learning to Improve (2015), Bryk argues improvement science combined with the power of networks offers the field a new approach to reach ever increasing educational aspirations. Bryk holds a B.S. from Boston College and an Ed.D. from Harvard University.

Course Overview

Pursuing goals for ambitious teaching and learning requires that students, teachers, and educational leaders learn to work together in new ways. This course engages learners in exploring four leading logics of educational innovation: strategies and approaches to producing and using knowledge to improve educational practice and outcomes at scale, across many classrooms, schools, and systems. These logics include:

  • Shell enterprises
  • Diffusion enterprises
  • Incubation enterprises
  • Evolutionary enterprises

Each of these logics has been used successfully in different types of classrooms, schools, and systems, though each also features traps and pitfalls that complicate universal usage.

What You’ll Learn

  • To think and reason about innovation as producing, using, and refining practical knowledge in schools and systems.
  • To evaluate the alignment between innovation strategies and local contexts.
  • To coordinate innovation strategies with goals for ambitious teaching and learning.

Prerequisites

Working knowledge of schools and education systems as well as the political, policy, and public pressures to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for all students.

MicroMasters® Program in Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement

Become an innovative leader in the classroom

Leading Ambitious Teaching and Learning
Designing and Leading Learning Systems
Improvement Science in Education
Case Studies in Continuous Educational Improvement
Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement Capstone
5 10 months total 2 - 4 hours each week
Complete Program $940.50
Program Details

Meet Your Instructors

Donald J. Peurach

Associate Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership, and Innovation in the School of Education at University of Michigan Donald J. Peurach is Associate Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership, and Innovation in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. His research, teaching, and outreach focus on the production, use, and management of knowledge-in-practice among social innovators and those they seek to serve. As such, his work sits squarely at the intersection of educational policy, leadership, and innovation. He is the author of Seeing Complexity in Public Education: Problems, Possibilities, and Success for All (2011, Oxford University Press) and a co-author of Improvement by Design: The Promise of Better Schools (2014, University of Chicago Press). Peurach also serves as a Fellow of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and as a Faculty Associate in the Center for Positive Organizations in the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan). Before pursuing an academic career, he was a high school mathematics teacher and, before that, a systems analyst in manufacturing, healthcare, and higher education. Peurach holds a BA in computer science from Wayne State University, an MPP from the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Educational Studies from the School of Education at the University of Michigan.