Based upon a background of positive psychology (Seligman), and strengths psychology (Clifton) strength-based leadership emphasizes the development of employee strengths, rather than the remediation of individual weaknesses as a way of doing business. Using the framework of strength-based leadership, students will learn how to apply leadership theory in a way which promotes a culture of commitment, rather than simply compliance. Students will study their own strengths and how to build an educational community around the strengths of each employee to move their schools to greater academic achievement. Florida Leadership Standards will be addressed via a crosswalk of the strength-based approach to traditional leadership practice.
- Teacher: Angie Franklin
Effective educational leaders need to be able to work with and through others. Through the activities in this course, the student will develop and apply various leadership, visionary, interpersonal, and supervisory skills. The development of these skills will enhance the students’ ability to problem solve and communicate information to diverse types of stakeholders as consumers of the latest research on a topic. Through practice, students will become familiar with the various online research sites that specialize in leadership and educational research.
- Teacher: Ranna Raval
This course is designed to provide students with the necessary technical skills required for the classroom teacher of the twenty-first century. The course will orient students to contemporary frameworks for technology education and introduce students to technology based tools and media that support instruction, extend communication outside the classroom, enhance classroom management, and perform administrative routines more effectively.
- Teacher: Monica Johnson
In this course, students will explore brain research to examine developments in the field of neuroscience, and how these new understandings about the brain and learning can influence classroom practices. Class participants will actively construct their own learning making it personally relevant to their various teaching settings. Topics to be explored include how the brain processes, stores, and retrieves information, art infused across the content areas, processes involved in higher order thinking and learning, transfer of learning, and critical thinking.
- Teacher: Elena Rosemond
This is a basic course designed to acquaint students with knowledge and skills necessary to create and successfully implement Montessori inspired activities, games and sports to promote health and wellness. Students will gain an understanding of the role of physical education in Montessori settings even if they are the classroom teacher. This includes curricular components and class approaches. The course will also include an orientation to concepts of PE specific observation, the structure of a typical PE class, providing feedback, encouraging participation, and using sports to teach interdisciplinary concepts.
- Teacher: Germaine DiJohn
This course will allow participants to integrate foundational principles and strategies for leadership in the school that transcend classroom teaching. This will build on all of the learning that has been achieved throughout the master’s program. Specific areas to be addressed include application of leadership skills specific for a lead teacher, level lead, committee head, curriculum coordinator, board member, having a student teacher or practicum student, leading parent meetings and education sessions, and leading regular materials practice sessions or other peer coaching and instruction. The students will also learn to enlist parent support for their leadership management efforts. A framework for fostering cooperation, social skills, and a sense of community is generated, and guidelines for peace education are included.
- Teacher: Heather White
In this course, students will investigate Montessori materials from the multiple perspectives of purpose, design, function, history, use, and place in the curriculum. By examining the importance of each material and the purpose of each facet of its design, the course aims to foster presentational mastery and effectiveness, especially of key lessons and guided discovery lessons. This course requires extensive lab time to practice presentational fluency, effective communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making as they relate to advancing student and educator alike along the continuum of theory to practice and specifically from the concrete to the contextualizing abstract relationships.
- Teacher: Ambar Saleh-Cipolloni
This course offers an overview of the Montessori Cosmic program and the five Cosmic themes—the universe, life, humanity, communications, and math—and answers the fundamental questions: what does cosmic mean? What does the cosmic curriculum encompass? What are its elements? In defining the five Cosmic themes, the course explores how they develop from seeds planted in Early Childhood into the Great Lessons of Elementary and extensions in Secondary that naturally teach practical life skills, characteristics of gratitude and appreciation, and values such as honesty, fairness, and cooperation.
- Teacher: Adam Darlage
This course provides an introduction to research methods and exposition. Students will acquire fundamental skills in developing and conducting research through the creation of an effective research question, how to write a review of the literature, and develop an understanding of the principles of quantitative and qualitative research methods. In addition, students will gain an understanding of principles of data analysis, interpretation, and presentation of results.
- Teacher: Julie Small
This foundational course introduces and develops a frame of assumptions for strengths-based philosophy, as well as creates a framework for dealing with students from a strengths perspective. Originating from the fields of positive psychology, this course will familiarize students with elements of Seligman’s theory of Positive Psychology, Clifton’s Strengths perspectives, and Purkey’s Invitational Theory. Students will develop a new paradigm that will provide a differentiated lens to observe and evaluate students. The underlying assumption being that all students have talents and potential strengths that can provide a mechanism for performance excellence. Leaders are charged with assisting students in the discovery, development, and application of these strengths
- Teacher: Angie Franklin