Schools as Organizations

Catalog description

Intraorganizational relationships; administration and the school in its organizational and environmental contexts. EDLDR 578 Schools as Organizations (3) This course is planned to provide students with an orderly introduction into organizational theory and administrative leadership concepts. A primary objective behind the organization and design of this course is to firmly link theory to practice by addressing the question of what does organizational theory and research have to say that is generally important and useful to the educational practitioner/scholar. This objective is addressed through the belief that practitioners must be self-conscious about what they are doing so organizational action becomes enlightened action; that is, action that has to do with understanding and using multiple perspectives of reality. What are needed are purposeful attempts to construct or reconstitute knowledge so that events, situations and problems are confronted or engaged from multiple points of view. Decision-making and problem-solving activities thus become acts of deliberate, conscious thoughtfulness (reflective thinking, if you will) designed to reconstruct holistic knowledge in order to facilitate enlightened action. Specifically, the objectives of the course are to assist students: (1) to acquire a foundational knowledge or organizational and administrative theory; (2) to use multiple organizational theories in understanding school organizations and leadership roles in these organizations; (3) to develop a framework or schema from which to reflectively think about and develop an understanding of school organizations and problems of practice; (4) to develop a concept of leadership within school organization; (5) to develop an understanding of organizational change processes and attending issues of school change; and (6) to become familiar with organizational perspectives on schools and schooling issues and problems.