EDLPS 569 - Leadership Learning by Design 
Tuesday, 2-4:20pm,  Miller 423A
3 Units, C/Nc, #13278A

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Research suggests that leaders matter to improving schools for all students, and that effective leaders need opportunities to continuously learn in and from their practice. But what kinds of environments, tools, and practices help leaders to improve the performance of their organizations? 

This seminar, Leadership Learning by Design, will examine this question, and explore how ideas from the learning sciences and organizational development can inform efforts to strengthen leaders’ capacity for learning and innovating.

Through a series of discussions and work sessions culminating in a research proposal and design, seminar participants will:
  • Use principles of adult learning to develop/deepen their understanding of what makes leaders unique as learners
  • Learn how to apply the methods of Design Based Leadership Research to create a research plan for studying leader-learners in a real-world context
  • Design learning materials, curricula, tools, or frameworks for leaders to use in their organizations

This seminar is ideal for graduate students who wish to develop a cross-disciplinary understanding of how adult learning theory applies to improving leadership learning and innovation in organizations. The seminar is open to all graduate students, but limited to 10 seats. 

Highlights from the Syllabus

PictureThe Anchored Instruction Cycle
In Leadership Learning by Design, participants build their research and design agendas over 10 weeks. In-class time is organized around a series of topics that will serve to deepen participants' understanding of how features of adult learning can support leaders' learning in their organizations. Project work time and guest lectures are built into each class.

Each week, participants will proceed through a process of inquiry around the week's topic, with central questions that connect the perspectives from the readings, guest talks, and brief lectures to their project and research interests. Participants will also complete weekly short assignments that build into a final Design-based Leadership Research proposal. Ideally, these projects will be useful in participants' future work.
Sample Schedule

Part 1: Frameworks for Understanding Adult Learning 
  • Week 1: Design-based Leadership Research: What Can We Learn from Making Things for People?
  • Week 2: Epistemologies: Developing Critical Perspectives on What Leaders Do and Are

Part 2: Designing for How Leaders Learn
  • Week 3: Leaders as Learners: Adult Learning Theory Bootcamp
  • Week 4: Expert Psychology and Leadership
  • Week 5: Balancing Act: Cognitive Load Theory and Knowledge Construction
  • Week 6: Individual and Social Metacognition in Leadership: Reflection, Self-Historiography, and 'Knowing About Knowing'
  • Week 7: Design Thinking: Managing Systemic Complexity in Leadership
  • Week 8: Models of Motivation and Leaders' Learning
  • Week 9: Leadership Learning Communities: Roles and Functions

Part 3: Making 
  • Week 10: Shark-Tank: Presenting Your Designs to Funders and Colleagues
  • Finals: Virtual Gallery Walk and Lessons Learned
Sample DBLR Project Components

Each of these short documents contributes to the participants' final reports and presentations. In the spirit of Human-Centered Design Engineering, this structure works backwards from real world needs for a new kind of leadership learning to the development of empirical research questions that can be tested through the design. 
  • Milestone 1: Statement of Need
  • Milestone 2: Project Context and Actor Network Map
  • Milestone 3: Leadership Personas: Sociographics, Psychographics, and Demographics
  • Milestone 4: Conjecture Maps and Learning Outcomes: Building-in Data Collection
  • Milestone 5: Implementation and Data Collection Plan
  • Milestone 6: Data Analysis Plan
  • Milestone 7: Codifying Research Questions at Multiple Levels, and Revising the Design
  • Milestone 8: The Bit, the Pitch, and the Cake: Preparing for Commercialization
  • Milestone 9: Implementation Plan
Dr. Novak will provide examples of past work for each milestone during Studio Time. Participants may request permission to customize the assignments to suit their particular research agendas and future goals.
Selected Readings
  • Clark, R. (2010) Developing Expertise
  • Clark, R., and Mayer, R. (2013) eLearning and the Science of Instruction
  • Gardner, H. (2011) Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership
  • Hermes, M., Bang, M., & Marin, A. (2012). Designing Indigenous Language Revitalization
  • Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Legitimate Peripheral Participation: Communities of Practice
  • Merril, M.D. (2002). First Principles of Instruction
  • Mumford, M., Friedrich, T., Caughron, J., Antes, A. (2007) Leadership Development and Assessment: Describing and Rethinking the State of the Art
  • Penuel, W., Fishman, B., Chang, B., and Sabelli, N. (2011) Organizing Research and Development at the Intersection of Learning, Implementation, and Design
  • Sandoval, W. & Bell, P. (2004) Design-Based Research Methods for Studying Learning in Context
  • Vygotsky, L. (1974) Mind in Society
  • Wenger, E. (1997) Communities of Practice