Success of the Educational Leadership and Administration (EDA) Program
The EDA program at the Florida State University College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences has seen impressive growth, with 90+ students currently enrolled—double the number since Fall 2019. The program’s emphasis on partnerships with schools and districts allows students to gain real-world, practical experience through relevant field experiences and internships, which enhances their readiness to lead.
Ongoing Redesign Efforts in the EDA Program
The faculty of FSU's highly-ranked program have been busy. The program is currently undergoing a multiphase redesign effort to fully align with Florida’s new leadership standards. Even though they are currently the best program in Florida and highly ranked nationally, the EDA team has taken this redesign requirement as an opportunity to improve further and build a sustainable principal preparation program that best prepares aspiring leaders for student needs in today’s—and tomorrow’s—schools. These improvement efforts include:
- A new vision and graduate profile that emphasizes inclusive leadership, fairness, positive outcomes, and equitable opportunities for all students.
- Reimaging course-embedded field experiences to maximize theory-to- practice application opportunities, and
- A commitment to transformational learning experiences that begins with expansion and enhancement of the current suite of leadership simulations.
Related to the above efforts, the EDA team would like to share two recent achievements:
Pilot Study on Leadership Simulations
In the Spring, they learned that Dr. Daniel Moraguez, in collaboration with Dr. Secil Caskurlu, Assistant Professor of Instructional Systems and Learning Technologies, will lead a pilot study on the use of simulations to develop targeted leadership competencies. The experimental, mixed-methods study includes an intervention of two digital and two mixed-reality simulations (four simulations in total over two semesters) that are course-embedded. To maximize the affordances of simulated learning, the simulation content was developed to focus on essential leadership skills that prepare students to address the diverse needs of today’s schools. Dr. Moraguez designed this pedagogical approach to simulated practice, pairing foundational and higher-order simulations to render a transformative and powerful learning experience. The initial simulation, a digital simulation with branching scenarios, will provide an opportunity for aspiring leaders to become familiar with the content while navigating reality-based problems of practice. In the follow-up simulation, a mixed-reality simulation, aspiring leaders will put the previous learning into practice by engaging in a live, difficult conversation with a school stakeholder—with a human actor puppeteering the stakeholder avatar in real time. The study, funded by a Council on Research and Creativity SEED Grant, is now underway as data collection began this fall.
Symposium Acceptance for UCEA Annual Convention
In the Spring, the EDA team also learned their proposal submission for a research symposium to the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) Annual Convention 2024 had been accepted. This symposium delves into how the online EDA program, led by four faculty of color, have experienced and navigated the challenges of a systematic program redesign that incorporates inclusive leadership principles. The four papers presented will explore the program’s approach to leadership development, curriculum objectives, instructional methods, and the integration of modern educational themes and today’s educational climate. The experiences of the redesign will serve to engage attendees in discussion related to program redesign; integration of inclusive leadership concepts; educational leadership policy; program objectives and graduate profiles; pedagogy/andragogy; instructional technologies; and current educational themes. EDA team members, Dr. Motoko Akiba, Dr. Kevin Forehand, Dr. Mario Jackson, and Dr. Daniel Moraguez will each present a paper at the symposium. This interactive symposium will be an opportunity to engage with educational leadership colleagues across the country in an exploration of the realities of redesign within contemporary contexts.
