Syllabus

Master of Science in Education

EDU 620 – Ethical Responsibilities in Today’s Educational Systems, Spring A, 2025

Credits - 3

Description

Educational systems have evolved into complex reflections of society, providing a system of essential services. These systems partner with other community functions in areas from economic development to social supports. Successful leaders within these systems must demonstrate ethical and moral leadership to meet the complex needs that ever-diversifying stakeholders require. This course will explore the importance of ethics in educational leadership. Participants will explore leadership frameworks that focus on personal values, beliefs, ethics, and leadership styles. They will apply such frameworks by forming personalized courses of action. Participants will also be challenged to collaborate with peers when applying ethical decision-making strategies to educational scenarios.

Materials

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

Course Outcomes and Key Points:

1. Success in the course does not require experience as a classroom teacher.
2. Leaders fulfill many different roles in education today, and they come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences.
3. Educational systems have evolved to become more than simply a place where students are exposed to teaching and learning, they have become complex reflections of society, providing a system of essential services, partnering the greater functioning of the community in areas ranging from economic development to social supports.
4. Educational systems require leaders in an ethical and moral leadership system to meet the complex role and services that ever-diversifying stakeholders require.
5. The latest concepts in Leading through an Ethical Lens will be explored, discussed, and applied in order to build one’s own Leadership Moral Compass that includes:

• • personal values, beliefs, ethics, and leadership styles, and reflect on a course of personal action
  • role of values, beliefs, and ethics in the integrity of leading others, applying them to situations faced by educators in various leadership roles
  • ethical decision making strategies and apply them to educational situations through collaborative decision-making processes
  • explore and put into practice formal and informal professional characteristics and determine responsibilities of key educational roles
  • stress the importance of self-reflection, use of new technologies, and global appeal of ethical paradigms and dilemmas

Students will:

• Distinguish between adaptive challenges and technical problems.
• Understand the difference between possessing authority and exercising leadership.
• Describe why failure is integral to practicing leadership.
• Differentiate between pursuing the greatest good and protecting individual rights.
• Manage the complexities involved in negotiating values within a group and explain why moral trade-offs are inevitable in adaptive leadership.

Assignments

Discussions

Each week, there will be discussions where you will be given the opportunity to engage with your peers to explore complex ethical dilemmas. In week 7, you will have the chance to share a case study that has made an impression on you.

Ethics Simulation Journals

Each week you will be presented with an ethical dilemma faced by an educational leader. You will reflect on the scenarios in a journal each week, and use the journal as part of your culminating course project.

Written Assignments

There are 6 written assignments throughout the course. Each assignment asks you to synthesize the course readings and relate the course studies to your work.

• Week 1: Ethical leadership
• Week 2: Recommended actions
• Week 3: Press release
• Week 4: Newsletter article
• Week 5: Staff email
• Week 6: Policy creation

Culminating Assignment

For your culminating project, you will take what you’ve learned throughout the course, and especially in the simulation journals and create an Entry Plan. You will provide your reflections, thoughts, and ethical and moral leadership understandings on the Slide Show and present it.

Grading Policy

Your grade in this course will be determined by the following criteria:

Grade Breakdown

Assignments	Points
Assignments (Weeks 1-6) 5 points each	30
Week 7 Video Discussion	5
Weekly Discussions (Weeks 1-8), 3 points each	24
Ethics Simulation Journals (Weeks 1-8), 2 points each	16
Week 8: Culminating Project	25
TOTAL	100 points

Grade Scale

Grade	Points Grade	Point Average (GPA)
A	94 – 100%	4.00
A-	90 – 93%	3.75
B+	87 – 89%	3.50
B	84 – 86%	3.00
B-	80 – 83%	2.75
C+	77 – 79%	2.50
C	74 – 76%	2.00
C-	70 – 73%	1.75
D	64 – 69%	1.00
F	00 – 63%	0.00