Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• WED AP 662: Strategic Planning and Implementation
  Designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to lead or participate in strategic planning at the college/university, school or school district level. Students learn about the entire strategic planning and implementation process, applying the concepts and skills learned to their own practice as aspiring or developing leaders. Through this course, students also gain knowledge of how these organizations assess their mission, goals, and operations and create change in complex environments. 4 cr.
• WED AP 663: Project Planning and Leadership
  Prereq: restricted to and required for MEd students in Tyngsboro. Introduction to tools and techniques used to successfully manage large, complex projects while simultaneously being flexible enough to manage simple projects such as planning a gathering or moving an office. Managers who possess these skills in today's fast- paced environment have a significant advantage over those who do not.
• WED AP 664: Advanced Strategic Planning
  Focuses on implementation of strategic plans in large organizations. Resources, tools, equity mindset and management approaches are explored to support managing reform, building capacity and fostering innovation. Theories focus on equity in leadership, organizational development, collaboration and innovation.
• WED AP 675: Teacher and School Leader Policy in the K-12 Sector
  This course surveys a range of topics related to human capital in the K-12 education sector, focusing mainly on various stages of the teacher and principal pipelines, as well as the education policies that impact their development and career outcomes.
• WED AP 680: International Education Policy
  This course explores global perspectives of education policy by surveying historical, social, political, economic, and pedagogical issues that affect PK-20 education around the world within in the context of globalization and emerging international standard. 4 cr. Either sem.
• WED AP 688: Getting to and Getting through: Enrollment & Student Success in U.S. Higher Education
  Who goes to college and who doesn't, and why? Who is responsible for paying for college? How do we define success in higher education and how does this influence policy and practice? Through these and other critical questions students will examine and reflect critically on the relevant theories, systems and evidential bases that shape our understanding of college access and student success. (4cr.)
• WED AP 699: Current Issues in Higher Education: Policy and Practice
  Graduate Prerequisites: AP 601 - Students explore emerging issues in higher education through substantive analysis that illustrates the breadth, depth, and diversity of challenges to and responses from colleges and universities. Through the course, students will be asked to synthesize their prior learning and apply their professional experience to assess and design policy and practice responses to emerging issues. Classes will be a mixture of discussion, group work, and in-class exercises, and assignments will include a significant piece of individual work. prereq: AP 601. 4 cr.
• WED AP 701: Doctoral Colloquium I
  Provides opportunity for (a) discussion of the nature of successful doctoral-level work, (b) reading and discussion of challenging materials, and (c) reflection on common themes among the department's diverse specializations. Strongly recommended for all new doctoral students in Administration, Training, and Policy Studies, and open to others with the permission of the instructor. 2 cr, 1st sem.
• WED AP 702: Doctoral Colloquium in Educational Leadership and Development
  Develops an understanding of the basic purposes and essential logic of educational inquiry. Students critically examine and discuss selected policy studies, research reports, and literature reviews in order to understand the evidentiary requirements for making factual claims. Connections are drawn to issues of research design. 2 cr.
• WED AP 705: Leadership Seminar: Cultivating a Leadership Disposition: Growth Mindset, Perseverance, and Cultural
  The first of three summer two-credit seminars, this course is designed to help students develop the personal and professional dispositions they will need in order to exercise effective leadership in school- and district- based settings. Through an exploration of classic and current literature, students will come to understand the ways in which research and practice interact and inform each other; the theoretical studies presented in this seminar will be analyzed from the perspective of practitioners in a variety of educational settings, focusing on their real-life application to the challenges and opportunities educational leaders face every day. Class discussions, small group work, guest speakers, case studies and presentations afford students the occasion to engage scholarship in an active and practical manner.
• WED AP 720: Performance-Based Instructional Leadership
  Designed to prepare aspiring and developing school leaders to organize, lead and transform schools and school systems into high performing organizations focused on student achievement. Students will examine and analyze the qualities, characteristics, behaviors and practices of effective leaders, with an emphasis on effective instructional leadership. 4 cr.
• WED AP 730: Innovation in Higher Education
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SEDAP551 OR SEDAP761) - We live, study, and work in an era of upheaval in higher education. AP 730 explores how innovation occurs -- through contemporary examples, cases, projects, and guest speakers. We examine the influence of technology, public policy and social change -- and the role that faculty, administrators, and outside firms play in guiding change. 4 cr.
• WED AP 750: Educator Evaluation and Supervision
  Develops an understanding of various legal, philosophical, and empirical perspectives on the evaluation and supervision of educational personnel. Emphasis in supervision is on effective patterns of interpersonal communication between subordinate and supervisory personnel. 4 cr.
• WED AP 751: School Law
  During the last century, many of the greatest barriers to equality-- and many of the most important efforts to overcome such barriers -- have involved the law. Students in this course will learn about laws that impact our schools.
• WED AP 753: Educational Policy
  Provides an overview of United States' educational policy with a special focus on academically at-risk populations (e.g., living in poverty, attending under- resourced schools, dual language learners, immigrant students, students from ethnic/racial minoritized backgrounds). 4 cr. Either sem.
• WED AP 754: Educational Equity and the Law
  Student and teacher rights and equal opportunity in K-12 education. 2 cr.
• WED AP 755: Legal Issues in Higher Education
  This course is designed to assess issues that arise in the administration of higher education through the ethical and legal principles applicable to their resolution. Educational institutions experience difficult legal and policy decisions similar to every other industry, including, but not limited to, situations regarding freedom of speech, expression, and association; due process and right to privacy; discrimination on the basis of identity; use of alcohol; and, ownership and use of intellectual property. Students will examine the foundations of higher education law, analyze cases, and explore the application of the law in practice to help them make sound decisions in their roles in higher education. 4 cr.
• WED AP 757: School Labor Relations and Personnel Management
  Policies and procedures affecting personnel management in the schools. Topics include: collective bargaining; managing reduction in force; grievance processing; legal liability of employees and officials; and equality considerations in recruitment, promotion, and affirmative action. 2 cr.
• WED AP 758: School Governance, Finance, and Operations
  Focuses on the economics, politics, and administration of school finance from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Emphasis is placed on the planning, policy, and procedural aspects of school funding, resource allocation, and school plant management. 4 cr.
• WED AP 759: School Improvement Science and Implementation
  This course, "School Improvement Science and Implementation," is about the heart of the educational enterprise -- schools in which each and every student is intellectually and socially engaged, finds areas of interest and passion, feels known and cared for, and deserves a dignified next step. This is no easy task because the issues are complex. We will carefully examine ways in which collaboration -- within schools, and between practitioners, university researchers, and policy makers -- becomes a fundamental school improvement strategy. We will be guided by the work of Anthony Bryk et al, Charles Kenney, and by the experience and reflections of successful and respected school and school district leaders. We will examine the relationship between practice, research, and policy. There will be an emphasis on collaborative problem-solving in "networked improvement communities." We will carefully explore the history of education reform, and too often, education reform that fails to achieve its inspiring goals. We will work to create new knowledge that can interrupt the failure of school reform, particularly with students from low-income families.