NISL CURRICULUM
PHASE I
Course One: World-Class Schooling: Vision and Goals
Unit 1: The Educational Challenge
This unit explains why fundamental changes in the international economy have resulted in greatly raised educational requirements for all citizens in the advanced economies, and why social development and ethical behavior are no less important than high academic achievement. It helps the participant make a realistic assessment of the challenges that schools must meet if the new standards are to be achieved, including the corrosive effect of pervasive low expectations for many poor and minority students. And it is designed to help the participants accept and embrace the goal of getting every student ready for college without remediation by the time that student leaves high school.
Unit 2: The Principal as Strategic Thinker
The purpose of this unit is to enable the participant to think strategically about the challenges he or she faces and to put together a clear and powerful strategy for addressing those challenges. Much of this unit draws on experience from business and the military, but the participant is also asked throughout to apply what is learned to the world of the school—for example, they examine their own school visions against criteria for effective visions. Participants are introduced to the distinctions among tactical, operational, and strategic thinking. And they are introduced to the elements of planning and decision making required both to construct a viable strategy and to execute it successfully.
Unit 3: Standards-Based Instructional Systems and School Design
The purpose of this unit is to help the participant develop a sophisticated understanding of the components of standards-based instructional systems and the ways those components can be combined to produce very powerful effects on student performance. They learn how to build curriculum frameworks designed to array topics in a logical way to enable students to reach standards over a period of years and how to analyze and select instructional materials that are aligned with the standards and the frameworks. Most important, they learn what the role of the principal is in assuring that his or herr school has a fully aligned instructional system that is focused on the standards and is internally coherent and consistent.
Unit 4: The Foundations of Effective Learning
The purpose of this unit is to provide the participant access to the best research the world has to offer on the issues that relate to standards-based education and the role of the principal in leading his or her school to high performance. The research is distilled into a series of principles related to learning, teaching and curriculum. The unit focuses on the particular role of the school leader in making sure that the way the school operates reflects each principle of learning, teaching, and curriculum.
Course 2: Focusing on Teaching and Learning
Unit 5: Leadership for Excellence in Literacy
This unit helps enable the participant to be an effective instructional leader in this crucial area. The aim is not to turn the principal into a literacy expert, but rather to enable the principal to recognize the key elements of best practice in the field of literacy and provide the principal with sound criteria for judging whether the school has an effective literacy program and some practice in using those criteria. Also included in this unit is instruction designed to enable the participant to recognize the key features of effective safety net programs in literacy.
Unit 6: Leadership for Excellence in Mathematics
The aim of this unit is not to make the principal a math expert, but rather to enable the principal to recognize the key elements of best instructional practices in the field of mathematics—from basic skills to problem solving to conceptual understanding. The principal must be comfortable and confident in judging whether the school has an effective mathematics program and be able to lead continuous improvements in it. The unit also includes instruction to enable the participants to recognize excellence in safety net programs in mathematics.
Unit 7: Leadership for Excellence in Science
This unit examines instructional best practices for improving science instruction, and the role of principal as an instructional leader of science in our schools. Participants complete a gap analysis designed to show the current state and the desired state of science education in their schools. The principal’s role is not to become an expert in science, but a leader who can identify characteristics of s a good science program and effective pedagogy, and set up processes for ongoing improvement.
Unit 8: Promoting Professional Knowledge
This unit helps enable the participant to lead a school-wide effort to continuously develop the professional knowledge and skill of the faculty. This means establishing a culture in which every professional on the staff is expected to be learning all the time and in which professional development is seen by the whole faculty as the most important tool by which it acquires the skill and knowledge it needs. Participants learn how to promote organizational learning through analysis of its successes and failures, through benchmarking best practices beyond the school and through disciplined searches for proven knowledge that bears on the challenges the school faces.
Coaching Institute: An instructional coaching model is introduced, and participants have an opportunity to analyze and plan for a coaching situation based on a video of a first year teacher. Our coaching unit is very interactive, allowing participants to engage in both individual and small group analysis using coaching scenarios and case study, as well as role-play in personal coaching situations that could occur in their schools.
PHASE II
Course 3: Developing Capacity and Commitment
Unit 9: The Principal as Instructional Leader and Team Builder
This unit enables the participant to reflect on his or her role as an instructional leader and to learn how to play that role effectively, alone or in combination with other members of the leadership team. The participant is introduced to a variety of ways in which the role of instructional leaders can be allocated among the people who together assume the function of the ‘principalship,’ and considers how best to distribute leadership and allocate responsibility in the school for this function. Participants learn how to define the goals for teams, recruit and select their members, and motivate and coach them to success.
Unit 10: The Principal as Ethical Leader
This unit provides participants the opportunity to examine their roles as ethical leaders in their schools. Principals are not only responsible for their own ethical behavior but also must help create and nurture an ethical culture in each of their schools. The moral principles of a just, fair, and caring community are presented, and participants use these principles to guide their discussions and decisions about the several case studies used in this unit.
Course 4: Driving for Results
Unit 11: The Principal as Driver of Change
This unit enables the participant to design, lead, and drive a change process calculated to produce steady improvement in student achievement. The principal should also learn how to identify root problems and causes, gather intelligence, and formulate a plan on the basis of appropriate data, set performance targets, select strategies and develop sound implementation plans.
Unit 12: Leading for Reults
The participant focuses on the crucial role of data in the drive for results, including setting targets, and collecting, displaying and analyzing data on program implementation and student progress in relation to standards. The participant also learns how to use data in the process of setting goals, monitoring progress, allocating and reallocating resources and managing the school program.
Unit 13: Culminating Simulation and Reform Projects
The culminating simulation draws together all the major themes of NISL into a two-day experience for participants. The computer-assisted simulation starts with a case study on Greenwood Middle School, including about ten pages of student data that participants study in-depth before the exercise begins. The exercise itself requires the players to make choices in response to questions and issues that are related to the scenario and to prior decisions.