The rise and fall of camelot: designing, implementing, and dismantling  (Page 3/16)

The Hickory Experience . An essential element of the program is the Friday evening and all day Saturday face-to-face meeting in Hickory, North Carolina. Hickory is located two hours east of Western’s campus and is within three hours driving distance of all of North Carolina’s major cities. Attendance is mandatory for all members of the two cohorts beginning the core leadership program. The Hickory Experience takes place the weekend before classes start. Most semesters, all faculty fully assigned to the program attend Hickory. The experience concentrates on building an intimate learning community and on focusing participants on the connection between ethics, and their own values and actions.

Throughout the weekend, participants work together to examine assumptions, dissect readings, and engage in purposeful activities, often in the same small groups that will form their online discussion groups during their first semester. They leave Hickory feeling connected, energized, and more conscious of the deep and challenging ethical responsibilities they have accepted in becoming school leaders. It is extremely powerful for cohort members to work together during the weekend and then carry on with the same types of activities online a day later. The significance of the weekend experience was captured by a recent participant when she said (paraphrasing), “When I came here, I thought I had simply signed up for a series of courses. Now I understand that I have become part of a family.”

Core leadership courses. A series of four leadership courses form the core of the program (See Table 1). The sequence emphasizes putting ethical and instructional leadership into action regardless of hierarchical positioning. Each course revisits complex themes of ethics, relationships, and change with increasing depth and with clear linkages to the other courses. Cohorts move through the courses together.

Table 1

MSA Course Sequence (Leadership core in bold)

Change Project. The change project was adapted from Collins and Porras’ (1996) Big Hairy Audacious Goal and is called the BHAG (bee-hog) in our program. The BHAG could be an important element in any program, but it is especially significant in an online program. The BHAG helps us achieve three things with participants. First, the BHAG teaches and immerses participants in a change process that is collaborative, planned, and that focuses on a problem as opposed to a symptom. Second, the BHAG demands that participants lead from where they are, reinforcing our program values about leadership being what you do, not what position you hold. Finally, the BHAG allows us to monitor dispositions and the ability of participants to work with others, areas that are commonly identified as deficits in online leadership programs.

BHAGs must be collaboratively developed and carried out by school-based teams and must impact student learning (broadly defined) in some way. In EDL 601, participants form school-based teams and slowly work through the process of gathering and using information from various stakeholders and school reports to identify a key school problem, develop multiple strategies for addressing the program, and figure out ways to evaluate the impact of their strategies. In EDL 602, participants work with their school team to develop and begin implementing a clear action plan. Participants continue implementation, evaluate facilitators and barriers to the BHAG, and make adjustments in EDL 603. They complete the BHAG in EDL 604, including an evaluation of the results, their learning, and presenting their experience at a face-to-face completion ceremony at Western Carolina University. Some participants continue the BHAG after completing the program. Past BHAGs have included implementing culturally responsive teaching practices in a specific grade level, developing a school-wide reading program, and creating stronger relationships between teachers, non-native English speaking students, and their families.