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
Meet Your Instructors

Donald J. Peurach
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
Meet Your Instructors

Donald J. Peurach

Paul LeMahieu
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
Meet Your Instructors

Donald J. Peurach

Anthony S. Bryk
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
Meet Your Instructors

Donald J. Peurach
Program overview
Education systems around the world face the central challenge of finding innovative solutions and techniques for improving student performance. This challenge is shared by teachers, teacher-leaders, and principals who are responsible for improving opportunities to learn, with two goals: raising average levels of student performance and reducing achievement gaps between students.
Beyond schools, leaders in district offices, government agencies, professional associations, and other non-governmental enterprises also share the challenge of improving student performance at scale across entire schools, districts, and systems.
What will you learn
- To envision new possibilities for the work of students and teachers in classrooms.
- To understand alternative logics and strategies for organizing the practice of educational innovation.
- To examine the application of the emerging field of improvement science to the practice of educational innovation.
- To explore innovation and improvement in large-scale educational reform initiatives in the US and around the world.
- To improve your own practice as an educator, innovator, and/or reformer.
- To develop and manage teams that use disciplined, evidence-based methods of educational innovation and improvement.
- To employ disciplined, evidence-based methods of educational innovation and improvement to manage collaborations among schools, districts, and systems.
Program Class List
1Leading Ambitious Teaching and Learning
Course Details
2Designing and Leading Learning Systems
Course Details
3Improvement Science in Education
Course Details
4Case Studies in Continuous Educational Improvement
Course Details
5Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement Capstone
Course Details
Meet Your Instructors

Deborah Loewenberg Ball

Nell Duke

Liz Kolb

Elizabeth Birr Moje

Donald J. Peurach

Gretchen Spreitzer

Anthony S. Bryk

Paul LeMahieu

Alicia Grunow

Amanda Meyer
About This Course:
Injuries, such as motor vehicle crash, youth violence, and suicide, are the leading cause of child and adolescent death. However, almost all of these injuries can be prevented through the widespread application of evidence-based practices and policies.
Public health experts, nurses, physicians, social workers, teachers, child care providers, and parents all play a vital role in pediatric injury prevention. Despite its impact, very little training on injury prevention science currently exists.
This course lays a broad foundation for pediatric injury prevention and will increase your understanding of this major public health issue through powerful, concise, up-to-date lectures, interviews, and demonstrations from a multidisciplinary panel of nationally-recognized injury prevention experts.
This course is designed for multiple fields and levels of training, including healthcare, kinesiology, public policy, social work, pharmacy, dentistry, and psychology. The course is also appropriate for educators, coaches, child care providers, and parents.
As a learner, you will have the ability to select all modules or individual topics that interest you most. Comprised of 8 modules, this course may be taken from the comfort of your home or office, and you can learn at your own pace.
Physician/Nurse CME
The University of Michigan Medical School is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The University of Michigan Medical School designates this enduring material for a maximum of 25.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. Please click this link for more information on FREE CME credits.
If you have any questions about the CME process, please email UMInjuryCenter@umich.edu.
What You’ll Learn:
- Key concepts for successful injury prevention in children and teens, including Advocacy at both the local and national levels
- Intentional injury prevention including Bullying, Dating Violence, Sexual Violence, Firearm Injury, and Suicide Prevention
- Transportation Safety, including child safety seats and teen driving
- Sports Concussion
- The Opioid Epidemic and Adolescent Substance Use
Meet Your Instructor:

University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center
About This Course:
This course will empower non-prescribing providers to directly impact the ongoing opioid crisis in the United States through increased knowledge and tools that will transform practice and policies. The course will inform you about the opioid epidemic and provide information and research about evidence-based strategies that are focused on prevention, intervention, education, or policy.
This open learning course is designed primarily for non-prescribing healthcare, behavioral health, dental and social services professionals, as well as graduate-level students in these fields. Other individuals may also benefit from this course such as educators and physicians. Continuing Education (CE) for licensure is available upon successful completion of course content.
As a learner, you have the ability to select any or all of the modules and topics that interest you. You can complete the course in a linear or non-linear structure according to your preferred viewing order. This course is taught by experts in the field of opioid prevention, intervention, treatment, and policy. Through lectures, panels and interviews, knowledge checks and quizzes, and additional readings and activities, you can explore topics that are most relevant to your work or practice.
The course was developed by three University of Michigan programs, including the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI), Michigan-Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network (Michigan OPEN) and the CDC-funded University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center.
The University of Michigan Medical School designates this enduring material for a maximum of 15 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. The University of Michigan Medical School is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
This activity contributes to the CME component of the American Board of Anesthesiology’s redesigned Maintenance of Certification in Anesthesiology™ (MOCA®) program, known as MOCA 2.0®. Please consult the ABA website, www.theABA.org, for a list of all MOCA 2.0 requirements.
If you would like to earn CME/MOCA credit for participating in this course, please review the information here prior to beginning the activity.
This course is approved by the Michigan Social Work Continuing Education Collaborative-Approval #101619-02 for 15 CE hours. The Collaborative is the approving body for the Michigan Board of Social Work.
What You’ll Learn:
- Explain the factors that contributed to the current opioid crisis.
- Understand the pathophysiology of pain and its treatment, including what opioids are and how they work.
- Understand how to reduce unintended use and misuse of opioids using various strategies, including prescribing guidelines, surveillance, safe disposal of unused opioids, and intervention messaging.
- Identify what strategies and tools you can employ to impact the safe use of opioids across clinical care settings and with a variety of populations.
- Describe best practices for assessing and treating opioid use disorder (OUD) and explain the evidence that informs these best practices.
- Understand different aspects of public policy that can impact the opioid epidemic.
Meet Your Instructor:

Karen Farris
About this course
Master the fundamental components of advanced literature searching in the health sciences.
Informationist Mark MacEachern and a team of fellow health sciences informationists at the University of Michigan designed this course for anyone responsible for constructing literature searches as part of their research. This course will specifically help professionals and researchers in the health sciences improve the overall quality and reporting of their literature searches.
After completing the course, you will better understand the importance of literature searches in health sciences work, the components of effective searches, and best practices to sufficiently report the search process. All learners who rely heavily on past research in their project work – regardless of their experience or current competence – will benefit from this practical learning experience.
What you’ll learn
- The components of advanced searches
- How to identify the types of projects dependent on advanced searching
- How to construct advanced searches
- Ways to uncover search-related biases that impact projects
- Procedures for citation management
- Best practices for reporting search strategies
Meet your instructors

Mark MacEachern

Jean Song

Tyler Nix
