EDLD 5399 Reflections of a Leader

In this fast paced, ever changing world of education a leader must have vision, communication skills, and be able to plan, do, study, and act on on-going improvement processes.  In order to become effective in the P-D-S-A cycle a leader must become a master of reflection.  Reflection is the key to further learning and without reflection a leader cannot celebrate successes, make change where it is needed, or challenge areas that are already successful.  Throughout this entire year, I have had the opportunity to reflect on a variety of topics. This reflection process has helped me further understand concepts and ideas from different points of view throughout the courses.

Course assignment activities

By reflecting on the course assignment activities I was able to see not only how to apply the knowledge I was gaining, but it furthered my understanding of why things are the way they are in education. For example, by looking at the financial records of both a wealthy and poor district I came to understand how the state was trying to create equity in what seemed to be an unfair system. Now knowing the importance of understanding the state funding, it will be critical for me to continue reflecting on decisions that will affect the budgetary process.

Blogs  

At first I was not a fan of the blog portion of the requirements, but as time passed I came to learn how powerful blogs can be. In reading other cohort members posts and providing feedback to them, I learned new ideas that I have now started to utilize to strengthen my leadership skills. Reflecting on blog discussions has also allowed me to provide valuable advice in areas that I’ve perceived to be of strength of mine.

Course and campus supervised logs

Keeping track of intern activities and documenting them on the logs was very beneficial to solidifying my knowledge base. While I do not think that choosing thirty eight activities to complete in a year gave me the type of experience I was hoping for, it did give me a sample of what to expect. I believe that completing fewer, but more in depth activities would be much more beneficial to future cohorts that go through this program.

Assessments

The assessments in the courses allowed me to gauge my growth in different competencies. These assessments are a crucial step in the continuous improvement cycle. Without being able to study the results, we will not know what direction our next actions need to take. Without these directions, our studies would be like a ship that is lost at sea. 

Other intern reflection experiences

I really liked the discussion boards because it was very convenient to have discussions on a variety of topics in a centralized location. This, along with blogs and wikis, open up different avenues for communicating with others. The collaboration amongst this group of professionals has not only been rewarding, but enlightening as well. We are the leaders of tomorrow and are now a network of educated professionals.